For those who sell on ebay using BIN

MinorLeaguer

Is it bad taste to reach out to an highly rated ebay seller and politely ask to take the transaction offline via paypal gift in exchange for roughly a 10% discount which leaves the seller in about the same, if not even better net position? Isnt paypal 2.9% + FVF about 9%? Im thinking only screwees are are ebay/paypal at that point, no? And as a buyer, im putting faith in the seller as I would have no recourse as im giving up ebay/paypal protection. We're talking $300-500 cards or so, no 4 or 5 fig cards. Am i missing something?

churchiscool

most sensible sellers should accept this, but some will only do transactions through ebay or they're afraid ebay will find out and suspend their accounts.

WalterSobchak

Technically that is a violation of Ebay rules. People do it all the time though.

EagleEyeKid

I don't think it's bad taste to take it outside of ebay. I just had a $200 and $540 deal that were both done by paypal gift. The buyer saved some money and so did I without the eBay and paypal fees. I know they're going to come back again. Hopefully your seller is honest and ships with you using paypal gift.

mattinglymint23

I have had offers like this for items I've listed with the only difference was the offer was a lot more that 10% discount. Needless to say I rejected - I'm always weary of offers like that being eBay secret police.

DetroitSquirreL

Only problem I would see is doing the paypal 'gift'. If you do it that way and one side doesnt hold up thier end, your completely out of luck. Your not insured by Paypal since it was a 'gift'

Foo3112

I had plenty of transactions off ebay. The feedback usually gives me an idea of who I am dealing with and if they should be a trouble maker or not.

As far as offering outside of ebay, I don't completely low-ball and ask for 10% off. Whats in it for them then? I like to offer close to that but still give them an incentive for selling outside of ebay and still making more money that what they would end up with at total final cost and saving me money on the process. Like others have said, this happens all the time - every day.

mygotta

I do this and at times prefer to do this to cut commissions.

Jakt

As a seller I probably wouldn't take the risk of eBay finding out. My downside is that my account could be suspended or closed and my upside is a minimal increase in my margin on a card. Even if it was a $1K card, the amount I would save avoiding the FVF does not outweigh the risk.

To answer your question, is it in bad taste? Meh.... I get offered insulting offers all the time, so I would probably send you a polite email thanking you for your interest but I am not interested in the offer at this time.

MiniDuff

I sell most of my listings via bin and always prefer to go offline if I can. Many regulars will reach out via email and we will work something out. Unfortunately, ebay has gotten a lot better at scanning in system messages. I got a big strike with a threat of suspension for a deal that originated via ebay message, so now I very rarely do one that way. If anyone here ever sees something, a PM here works just fine.

zurbs17

Ebay is definitely looking for key words in messages. They try to stop you from adding your email address to any messages. For awhile this type of thing worked: buddy at hotmail dot com but now that doesn't. It will if you add more spaces between the words.

GR

Ive had many times where the BUYER asks for it to be on ebay for less instead of off ebay because most people dont want to send paypal and then never get the item, and not have anybody to complain to (Ebay ect.) even with 500 positive transactions

chouser

<< <i>Ive had many times where the BUYER asks for it to be on ebay for less instead of off ebay because most people dont want to send paypal and then never get the item, and not have anybody to complain to (Ebay ect.) even with 500 positive transactions >>



Can respect that as I've done that before. Sent a note saying 'if you put it up for BIN at whatever dollar amount, I'll hit the BIN button' Asking to take it offline is kind of like reverse shilling. But in this day and age, go for what you can get ! If you do though complain about shilling, but support sideline offers off ebay, then you're contradicting your own principles.

wait, that was righteous, and i don't even have a 6 in yet.

cardbender

<< <i>Is it bad taste to reach out to an highly rated ebay seller and politely ask to take the transaction offline via paypal gift in exchange for roughly a 10% discount which leaves the seller in about the same, if not even better net position? Isnt paypal 2.9% + FVF about 9%? Im thinking only screwees are are ebay/paypal at that point, no? And as a buyer, im putting faith in the seller as I would have no recourse as im giving up ebay/paypal protection. We're talking $300-500 cards or so, no 4 or 5 fig cards. Am i missing something? >>



This would be fine with me as a seller in most cases, however as others have stated I wouldn't put my ebay selling account at risk
when essentially you (the buyer) is getting the entire discount on a deal off line. As a seller, if you have nice cards, they eventually
will all sell as long as you price them fairly. Taking a deal off line is fine, but it's a two way street and the seller
should make out on the deal too. Otherwise they can just wait around for a buyer to show up paying their BIN price,
with ebay getting their cut too. As a seller I wouldn't expect the buyer to send a 'gift payment' either, as they lose their
credit card protection if the deal goes sideways.

MinorLeaguer

Ah, that is what I wasn't thinking of. Risk taken by seller of the chance of getting blackballed by ebay losing all the goodwill they built up in their seller account. Ok, will take that into account if and when i go this route and make my offers a little more win-win.

KbKards

Is it bad taste to reach out to an highly rated ebay seller and politely ask to take the transaction offline via paypal gift in exchange for roughly a 10% discount which leaves the seller in about the same, if not even better net position? Isnt paypal 2.9% + FVF about 9%? Im thinking only screwees are are ebay/paypal at that point, no? And as a buyer, im putting faith in the seller as I would have no recourse as im giving up ebay/paypal protection. We're talking $300-500 cards or so, no 4 or 5 fig cards. Am i missing something?


If you want to buy a card directly from the seller away from Ebay at the lowest price the seller will accept, do not contact the seller through Ebay. Look at all the seller's info and figure out how to get in contact off-line. Many buyers looking to deal off-line contact the seller through Ebay and go into great detail about how the seller should discount for off-line deals because the seller doesn't have to pay Ebay fees. Some even refer to Ebay as greedy crooks in the messages. Almost all sellers are eager to take deals off-line. But after getting a message through Ebay that spells out circumventing Ebay fees so clearly, it puts the seller's account at risk when items with messages like that start disappearing. It's hard to formulate replies to messages like that without confusing or offending the buyer.

miwlvrn

One tip is to ask them in your message through ebay if they have a set on the PSA set registry, and then contact them through the set registry web page, without otherwise mentioning other reasons for wanting to know such as setting up a sale within your ebay mail.

Coucher73

I get e-mails like this all of the time and maybe I'm in the minority, but I really don't like it and I simply won't entertain such offers. I generally just respond with "Thanks, but I will pass" and not even attempt to explain why. I'm just not willing to risk losing my selling privileges on an account that I've had for 13 years. While I'm not always enamored with eBay's business practices, I understand and accept going in that the final value fees and PayPal fees are reasonable costs of doing business on the platform. Trying to skirt those fees requires an ethical leap that I'm not willing to make.

CollectorAtWork

I think it's always okay to message the seller asking for a slight discount and going via paypal (although this is against ebay rules). However, you should NEVER use paypal gift unless it is with a seller that you are EXTREMELY comfortable with as there will be no recourse for you if the seller never ships you the item.

markj111

<< <i>Is it bad taste to reach out to an highly rated ebay seller and politely ask to take the transaction offline via paypal gift in exchange for roughly a 10% discount which leaves the seller in about the same, if not even better net position? Isnt paypal 2.9% + FVF about 9%? Im thinking only screwees are are ebay/paypal at that point, no? And as a buyer, im putting faith in the seller as I would have no recourse as im giving up ebay/paypal protection. We're talking $300-500 cards or so, no 4 or 5 fig cards. Am i missing something? >>




Yes. It is bad taste.

msassin

<< <i>Is it bad taste to reach out to an highly rated ebay seller and politely ask to take the transaction offline via paypal gift in exchange for roughly a 10% discount which leaves the seller in about the same, if not even better net position? Isnt paypal 2.9% + FVF about 9%? Im thinking only screwees are are ebay/paypal at that point, no? And as a buyer, im putting faith in the seller as I would have no recourse as im giving up ebay/paypal protection. We're talking $300-500 cards or so, no 4 or 5 fig cards. Am i missing something? >>



Not in bad taste at all...happens all the time, and I usually try to encourage the buyer to pay with a personal check or money order.

stevebay

As a buyer, although it's only 2%, you have to take into account the 2% you won't get back in eBay bucks by doing an off eBay transaction.

Mapleleaf

My first thought is that I wouldn't do it but would accept a 10 percent discount and still go through ebay/paypal.

Is it in bad taste? Yes, because you are asking a seller to break the rules. It doesn't matter if people do it all the time; it still doesn't make it right.

Do I feel that ebay/paypal fees are too high (your hidden question) - Yes, unfortunately a part of their fee is to cover losses caused by dishonest sellers who complete transactions outside of ebay.