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Short eBay rant.
ajaan
Posts: 17,125 ✭✭✭✭✭
Seller has a coin listed for A$165 with Make Offer. I offer A$140. Seller declines and says his best price is A$155. That's 94% of the BIN, or 6% off. Why even bother having a Make Offer?
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'Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery'
CU #3245 B.N.A. #428
Don
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That has been happening a lot lately. I've made 90% offers on several coins and some didn't even respond. Years ago, it was more than likely accepted in the 90% range of the offer. I don't know the logic behind this action, but would like to hear some ideas or facts.
Jim
When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest....Abraham Lincoln
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.....Mark Twain
There was this coin with best offer at 250 or so. I made 5 offers, last one 1 dollar below buy it now price... never answered me, so I did not buy. I do not buy from rude buyers and consider not answering to be rude. Anyway, I guess some sellers have little experience or they already list at their best price. For a coin worth 165, 10 is IMO little but not insane. For a 1000 coin, 10 would be crazy... If you go to established sellers, they will have a lot of room, but that only means they overpriced.
Because the combination of BIN and best offer attracts more viewers. In my experience, whenever I’ve listed pricey items, the highest and more serious offers come within the first 36-48 hours of the listing. Very often I get a first offer that I’m willing to accept without counter offers, but I’m using the 48 hour deadline to see if any other offers arrive and I act accordingly.
I usually let a 20-25% room for discount. I’ve recently accepted a 40% discount on some cheap and difficult to sell items, but it was a repeat buyer with whom I had managed to close a sale after 4 counter offers on a rather hot and pricey item six months before, so it was sort of a redemption discount and on items that were going to stall for months otherwise.
As for the stories posted, they all seem borderline crazy to me. If a place like Atlas can go 20% ,you think I’m going to offer 90% to a private seller? Abuelo, did you ask yourself why you needed the one dollar discount and that maybe the seller was simply not available to respond?
myEbay
DPOTD 3
@SYRACUSIAN the 1 dollar was the last offer. I started at about 90% of BN and went up with no response. The 1 dollar was the last offer to see if he was alive. Still no answer. I was frustrated. The process took almost 2 weeks as each offer takes days to expire, so if he was not available, his loss. But I doubt that was the case because he could have emailed me later, and nothing. He used it just to attract people I thi k with no interest to negotiate. A dealer can go 20% because they buy cheap, but a collector selling a duplicate likely cannot. That is just my opinion. Cheers!
I do typically expect that a numismatic item on eBay will be sold to me at my offer if that offer is over 90% of the seller's initial price. But if I really really gotta have it, I will just pay their asking price.
I don't expect bullion to be priced with a "make offer" feature.
You gotta be able to walk away from almost any eBay item. People simply ask crazy prices.
I was surprised the seller didn't accept my A$140 offer. I've bought coins from him before and the coin wasn't the best example I've ever seen, far from it.
DPOTD-3
'Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery'
CU #3245 B.N.A. #428
Don
I've had some great deals from bins lately. But I have also had counter offers that were less than $5 in the $200 range and had a $15 off on a 350 item.
don't forget that when you go to relist at least some of the time ebay is adding best offer on its own and if the seller doesn't uncheck the box it will go live that way
Buyers can make an offer anyway, even if there's no such option displayed on the auction page. If you choose to contact the seller, ebay gives you the right to make an offer, to which the seller can respond and there's even the option, respond with counteroffer, or simply respond. Whichever he chooses, if a deal is made by ebay messaging,
the realized price will be charged with ebay fees and the buyer enjoys identical protection.
Whatever the reasoning behind each seller ( some of us display mostly items targeted to people we've dealt with before and both have interest in skipping the ebay fees, especially when paypal offers a similar protection to the buyer) , there's no excuse for ignoring messages, offers etc, that's just plain rude. And stupid.
myEbay
DPOTD 3
Sometimes I can provide bigger discounts if the buyer purchases a few items, that's why I leave buy it now there.
NumisTip Coin Values
I did a "make an offer" exercise recently where I made an offer, the seller counteroffered, and then I counteroffered, and his next counteroffer was higher than his first!! That's not how it works, dude! I walked away.
Whoever owns the coin makes the rules.
Actually, the market makes the rules. The seller just gets to retain the coin and pay the ebay fees.
The farther we go into the future, the less things go on sale. We are living in a heavily inflationary cycle right now. The millennials think that sales are lame. The Apple Store has never had a sale since it's inception! The sale is going the way of the rotary phone slowly every day. Soon you will have to have subscriptions to a subscription in order to buy something. Look at Amazon Prime. People are actually paying a fee in order to buy something nowadays.
So they shouldn't even have the Best Offer option in their listing.
DPOTD-3
'Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery'
CU #3245 B.N.A. #428
Don
They will probably get rid of the "best offer" option soon. Plus my comments were on new products and ebay sells used products as well.