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Why do you use Or Best Offer selling on eBay?

I'm a procrastinator.

Whenever I have eBay bonus bucks or a coupon I look to see if I can find something to buy. A majority of the BIN coins have OBO.
Now I have a $20 off $100 coupon and the clock is ticking. I’m looking at BIN and I see coins I like, but they have OBO. I’m also cheap, so I’m not going to pay your full asking price if you advertise you will take less.

But I don’t have 48 hours to submit an offer and wait for a response, so I skip it.

If you want $200 for you coins, list it with a $200 BIN, not $225 OBO.

I did get one of my favorite coins with an offer though. I had an hour to go and I saw this ANACS coin I liked. I wrote a message with my offer saying I needed to hear back ASAP or I would have to withdraw my offer since my discount would expire.

Fortunately the seller had set it to automatically accept a lower price, and I got it for my offer.
It now resides in a PCGS holder. But a note to sellers - sometimes OBO will cost you a sale from the procrastinating coupon buyers.

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Comments



  • << <i>Whenever I have eBay bonus bucks or a coupon I look to see if I can find something to buy. A majority of the BIN coins have OBO.
    Now I have a $20 off $100 coupon and the clock is ticking. I’m looking at BIN and I see coins I like, but they have OBO. I’m also cheap, so I’m not going to pay your full asking price if you advertise you will take less.

    But I don’t have 48 hours to submit an offer and wait for a response, so I skip it.

    If you want $200 for you coins, list it with a $200 BIN, not $225 OBO. >>



    That's the downside of BIN w/OBO auctions. Never buy it BIN unless you try OBO with something a little less, but submitting an OBO bid locks you in for 48 hours without the option to cancel while the seller can wait to decide whether to accept the order. Ebay really should modify OBO to allow a potential buyer to cancel the OBO at any time after it's been submitted. This puts a little pressure on the seller to respond more quickly and allows the Buyer to not be potentially tied in to that auction for 48 hours.

    I agree with you. Sometimes I give myself a budget to spend on coins and I don't like it being tied up while I wait for an OBO.
    I love the 3 P's: PB&J, PBR and PCGS.
  • LanceNewmanOCCLanceNewmanOCC Posts: 19,999 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>That's the downside of BIN w/OBO auctions. Never buy it BIN unless you try OBO with something a little less, but submitting an OBO bid locks you in for 48 hours without the option to cancel while the seller can wait to decide whether to accept the order. . >>



    the listing should show if it has auto accept/decline as all my bin listings do have both, or should anyway. this doesn't help if the middle amount is selected

    could have swore there was a cancel offer option; im nearly positive.
    .

    <--- look what's behind the mask! - cool link 1/NO ~ 2/NNP ~ 3/NNC ~ 4/CF ~ 5/PG ~ 6/Cert ~ 7/NGC 7a/NGC pop~ 8/NGCF ~ 9/HA archives ~ 10/PM ~ 11/NM ~ 12/ANACS cert ~ 13/ANACS pop - report fakes 1/ACEF ~ report fakes/thefts 1/NCIS - Numi-Classes SS ~ Bass ~ Transcribed Docs NNP - clashed coins - error training - V V mm styles -

  • jclovescoinsjclovescoins Posts: 1,981 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Without an option to cancel?

    Technically, yes...but on eBay you can cancel as many times as you want and for any reason. It's not right, but I've had many buyers do it.
  • What a pretty 1839-O !
  • halfhunterhalfhunter Posts: 2,770 ✭✭✭
    I have bought using OBO numerous times and never had a seller take more than 12hrs to respond, and most respond in way less, unless it's a major dealer and a weekend.

    HH
    Need the following OBW rolls to complete my 46-64 Roosevelt roll set:
    1947-P & D; 1948-D; 1949-P & S; 1950-D & S; and 1952-S.
    Any help locating any of these OBW rolls would be gratefully appreciated!
  • bronco2078bronco2078 Posts: 10,425 ✭✭✭✭✭


    As a seller I use OBO strategically , I don't put it on everything I don't normally care how long it takes to make an individual sale.

    A sellers job is to get the best price for his items , not to make life easy for buyers with coupons or ebay bucks promotions burning a hole in their pockets.


    Ebay and its promotions are too fickle to depend on half the buyers don't get the offers anyway.


  • halfhunterhalfhunter Posts: 2,770 ✭✭✭
    OOPS ! ! !
    Need the following OBW rolls to complete my 46-64 Roosevelt roll set:
    1947-P & D; 1948-D; 1949-P & S; 1950-D & S; and 1952-S.
    Any help locating any of these OBW rolls would be gratefully appreciated!
  • I believe the only way to cancel a OBO bid is the same way to cancel a regular bid. You need to go to the special page to cancel it and choose 1 of the 2 available reasons (bid too high or auction listing changed). If you select "bid too high" as your reason, it tells you that you must issue a new bid soon after canceling your previous bid. I don't know whether canceling bids is kept in your Ebay private file and can contribute towards being suspended. When making OBO bid, there's no way as part of the bid listing to cancel the bid.
    I love the 3 P's: PB&J, PBR and PCGS.
  • You can withdraw your best offer or counter offer, have done it when there was no response within reasonable time as a buyer and a seller. It's not a bid, it's just an offer. No reason to wait 48 hours.


  • << <i>You can withdraw your best offer or counter offer, have done it when there was no response within reasonable time as a buyer and a seller. It's not a bid, it's just an offer. No reason to wait 48 hours. >>



    I have done this many times if not hearing back in what I consider acceptable. If I have a listing with a BIN with OBO I get a msg sent to my phone so can reply right away. I don't understand why more sellers don't use this option.
  • bronco2078bronco2078 Posts: 10,425 ✭✭✭✭✭


    Pending offers can represent interest. One strategy is to ignore best offers during an ebay bucks promotion in the hope that someone will think its a hot item and pay full price.



    image
  • Cougar1978Cougar1978 Posts: 8,855 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I use BIN / Make Offer on ebay for coins or currency where I have plenty of room. I have had these sell outright at the BIN price (thanks to smartphones) and some where the buyer made an offer in a range the computer automatically accepted. Offers lower than what I would take set I set to be automatically rejected by computer. I may leave a small grey range between what the computer will automatically accept and reject which is for me to make a counter offer or simply accept or reject (I have $100 in an item with market value of $300 which I have at BIN / MO - auto accept is at $250, auto reject is at $200).

    On items where margins are tight or its at a wholesale price BIN / Make Offer is not used.

    Investor
  • If there is a way to cancel a Best Offer, please tell me how. I just submitted a $0.99 Best Offer on an auction just for the opportunity to cancel my Best Offer since several of you say it's easy to do. But I see nowhere an option to cancel my Best Offer. It just says that the seller has 48 hours to accept or reject my offer.
    I love the 3 P's: PB&J, PBR and PCGS.
  • Ok, I found the retract link thing. Retracting a bid isn't open-ended by Ebay rules and requires a valid reason.

    It's OK to retract a Best Offer if:

    You accidentally enter a wrong offer amount (for example, you submitted an offer for $9.50 instead of $99.95).
    The description of an item you have placed an offer on has changed significantly.
    You cannot get in touch with your trading partner by email or telephone.
    I love the 3 P's: PB&J, PBR and PCGS.


  • << <i>Ok, I found the retract link thing. Retracting a bid isn't open-ended by Ebay rules and requires a valid reason.

    It's OK to retract a Best Offer if:

    You accidentally enter a wrong offer amount (for example, you submitted an offer for $9.50 instead of $99.95).
    The description of an item you have placed an offer on has changed significantly.
    You cannot get in touch with your trading partner by email or telephone. >>

    Retracting an offer should only be done if there really was a wrong amount entered, or if there is no response from buyer or seller in reasonable time and the party making the offer does not want to wait 48 hours to let it expire. Example, a buyer makes a best offer and seller does not counter or decline. Seller should respond but does not, so buyer retracts after a reasonable time to bid on something else or just figures the offer was not considered. Uses the entered wrong amount option. Same thing if seller counters and no response and does not want to let the counter sit out for 48 hours. This is not bidding as such, no contract broken and ebay does not care.
  • CoinZipCoinZip Posts: 3,253 ✭✭✭


    << <i>Why do you use Or Best Offer selling on eBay? >>



    We don't....

    Coin Club Benefit auctions ..... View the Lots

  • ebaybuyerebaybuyer Posts: 2,984 ✭✭✭
    "If you want $200 for you coins, list it with a $200 BIN, not $225 OBO" << this logic simply does not work.

    if you want $200 for an item you have to list it at $450 ... a few will offer $50, then ask why they cant make another offer, I ask generally 30% higher than id like, you have to leave the wiggle room. if I I mistakenly list a $10 eagle for $100 someone will offer $25 just human nature to try and chisel someone down I suppose. personally I don't bother offering less than 70-75% of an asking price if the price is too high, I keep shopping. I don't have the patience for low ball BS offers
    regardless of how many posts I have, I don't consider myself an "expert" at anything
  • mustangmanbobmustangmanbob Posts: 1,891 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I have about 100 items on ebay right now, and almost all of them have Best Offer.

    I also have the best offer set to reject at $1, even if it is a $1000 item.

    I get a few low ball offers, which I either ignore or reject.

    Most of my sales are full price.

    I do review offers. Maybe the price is out of touch with reality. Maybe I have too many of them, and I am willing to have less of them. Maybe it has been around too long. Maybe I think 1 sale might lead to a bunch.

    Some people will offer less, no matter what the price is, just because that is the way they are.

    I would rather sell 5 items at $45 than 0 at $60.

    I also do not believe in holding inventory for years. I try to buy intelligently, price appropriately, turn it over, and move on. Most of my stuff moves in less than 6 months.
  • LindeDadLindeDad Posts: 18,766 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>Why do you use Or Best Offer selling on eBay? >>



    I don't either.image

    And low balls is a quick trip to penalty box.

    image
  • ebaybuyerebaybuyer Posts: 2,984 ✭✭✭
    people confuse "best offer" with "will take any offer"
    regardless of how many posts I have, I don't consider myself an "expert" at anything
  • LanceNewmanOCCLanceNewmanOCC Posts: 19,999 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>people confuse "best offer" with "will take any offer" >>



    imageimageimageimage

    <--- look what's behind the mask! - cool link 1/NO ~ 2/NNP ~ 3/NNC ~ 4/CF ~ 5/PG ~ 6/Cert ~ 7/NGC 7a/NGC pop~ 8/NGCF ~ 9/HA archives ~ 10/PM ~ 11/NM ~ 12/ANACS cert ~ 13/ANACS pop - report fakes 1/ACEF ~ report fakes/thefts 1/NCIS - Numi-Classes SS ~ Bass ~ Transcribed Docs NNP - clashed coins - error training - V V mm styles -

  • TwoSides2aCoinTwoSides2aCoin Posts: 44,651 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I have no answers to your question. But I did add 1 to my post count today.
  • ebaybuyerebaybuyer Posts: 2,984 ✭✭✭
    lol @ two
    regardless of how many posts I have, I don't consider myself an "expert" at anything
  • thisnamztakenthisnamztaken Posts: 4,101 ✭✭✭✭✭


    << <i>people confuse "best offer" with "will take any offer" >>



    There's more truth to that than poetry. After trying to sell a year or two with BO's I soon found out that the majority of "offers" were lowballers/give-away seekers who think "or BO" means "desperate to sell". Now, whenever I sell with a BO option I make sure I include a auto-decline and a auto accept price in my listing.

    OTOH, as a potential buyer of a "BIN or BO" listing, more than once I have lost out on a nice coin by placing a (decent) offer bid only to have someone else BIN or offer a bit more while I was waiting for acceptance.
    I never thought that growing old would happen so fast.
    - Jim

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