I really don't see the point of the Best Offer feature. If you're selling, you have a price in mind below which you will not go and you set your BO filter to accept any bids at that amount. How is that different from simply starting your auction at that figure? If you accept the BO amount then you're locked into selling at that amount whereas if you're starting an auction at that amount then you may get higher offers. If you're buying you may get a bargain by edging your offers up hoping that the magic number is less than the maximum you're willing to pay. But if you don't reach that magic number then you're locked into having to pay the full listed price if you really want it.
Nope, which is the whole point of it. Every now and then I scroll through my listings and it says one had an offer that I don't remember getting. You can then click on it, and laugh at the low offer.
With the offer format, all it takes it one interested buyer to try and get a higher price as a seller. You can negotiate with them if you want, and try to get a little more money. With an auction, if you start it at your minimum, and there is only one interested buyer, that's where it ends up.
This is the reasoning. Plus with auctions, many ignore the ones that don't start low. For example, when I've done auctions for an $80 item, I get few views and usually no bids. If I do a best offer with a bin of $100, I tend to have more views and a better likelihood of selling the item at $80. It might not seem logical, but many people don't act rationally. Quite a few will feel like they received a good deal at 20% off 100 BIN but at the same time avoid an auction that has a seemingly high start at $80 vs a true auction beginning at $0.99.
Two recent anecdotes from me: First I had one similar to your's ddddd where I offered like $46 on a $48ish buy it now and got declined. I would have gladly paid 48 too lol. Don't have a BO option if you won't come down $2 just have a firm price Second one I made an offer about 8% below BIN on what would have been my biggest buy ever awhile back. I set a firm ceiling where I felt comfortable putting that amount of money out for the coin but still was a little uneasy making such a big offer. It got auto-declined. So I thought no big deal wasn't meant to be. A day later the guy messages me that he wants to accept my offer and he lowered his auto-reject. Was a weird spot because I felt a little relieved when it got auto-rejected but I still wanted and loved the coin. Decided to think on it for a day and decided to ultimately just pass on it at that time. I messaged him that if it was still unsold down the road I'll readdress it. Kinda anti-climatic story I know but just was an interesting spot created by the BO option that had some emotional highs and lows lol
Also, I'm going to add in the BO option on my listings now with auto-reject set to avoid annoying ones. I've had a few coins that get double digit watchers but don't move, maybe an offer button will get them sold.
It might help, but in my experiences if there are that many watchers and one is interested, then they will message you with an offer even if you don't have it set up. I have occasionally made sales that way, but most often the watchers are just seeing if it sells or if you change the listing to a no reserve auction starting at $1.
Another tip for buyers: Be prepared to pay for the item if you make an offer. I'm not referring to @IBetASilverDollar 's case where the seller declined and then wanted to do the deal. What I mean is if a buyer makes an offer of $x and the seller accepts, pay $x. Don't try to renegotiate or back out (unless there is some extraordinary case).
One more buyer tip: Don't show your cards. This means don't tell the seller I'm offering $x but can go higher if needed. I actually had a buyer that sent me an offer and wrote in the message box that they could go higher. I sent them a counter offer for higher, they accepted, but then they never paid! So that buyer broke two rules!
And a seller tip: Check all the terms and details for the buyer. I once had a buyer make an offer that was slightly over full price, but they wanted free international shipping to Australia. The shipping was a quarter of the price of the item, so no deal could be reached.
I'm not expressing an opinion, but if I set a price, I don't have 40% worth of negotiation in it. I seek turns, not margin, with set prices.
Everyone has to use what works best for them. That is why there are no set rules, just tips and preferences. And I do agree that 40% is excessive in most cases. I just use that because it seems to be the benchmark where I capture the majority of serious buyers and cut off the majority of lowballers.
I enjoy the offer feature as a buyer because I would like to get a deal of course. I try to find a price lower than the buy it now price and yet not so low that the seller thinks I'm a jerk. Sometimes I accidentally wander into jerk territory, I admit. I sometimes also just don't know what is fair on something and would rather pay less than more if it is an area I am not familiar with. So I will send out a floater offer. If it gets auto rejected (by how fast the decline comes back) then I know I am way off and move the offer upward or abandon ship if I am just going to be not a contender. If the seller is nice enough to respond even to what is probably a really low offer on my part with a more appropriate offer that is way out of my price range, I at least respond in my decline of their offer with a "Hey, I had no idea and I am out of my league." I don't like wasting people's time so being polite and responding feels like the kind thing to do.
A lot just prefer BIN over auctions in general since they want to get the item they like right away and not have to wait or clear time when it is ending
And, getting sniped at the last 5 seconds is really annoying. Please just let me buy the darned coin already!
Agreed. I'd rather just buy it and know I got it. I almost don't even bother to look at auctions on there anymore
All of my listings are run as a BIN with BO enabled. I do not set auto accept or reject. I so enjoy getting that notification from eBay about an offer or the cha ching sound emanating from my iPhone. I like to review every offer that comes in whether it's high or low. For the ridiculously low offers such as $50.00 for a $200.00 item, I just respond with a counter offer of $199.00. I usually don't hear back from them after that. It get's my point across without a snarky remark (which of course I would like to do). When people send me offers that are reasonable but a bit below my acceptance level, I send them a note thanking them for a reasonable offer along with my counter offer. On the buying side, I know how much I despise ultra low slap in the face offers and will never make any. My unwritten rule is 25% below the BIN price for my starting point. Now if the the BIN is WAY above market, I simply don't even bother. I may let it go through a few list and relist cycles and then give my highest offer along with a courteous note to the seller. I have found that around half of my items that sell are at my BIN price without the buyer even bothering to make an offer. This is why I like to do the BIN's. My BIN prices are set at a good percent over what I need to get out of the coin. Which of course leaves ample room for negotiating, which I love to do.
I've made some of my best purchases on eBay through auctions. Of course I avoid auctions that start the bidding at above my buying comfort level. But man, you can make some great buys on regular auctions. An example, just less than a year ago, I came across an auction for a 1909 VDB Lincoln Cent in PCGS MS-65RD. The starting price on it was $50.00. I put in a snipe bid well over that and somehow all of the potential buyers out there missed it and I won it for the opening bid of $50.00. I was shocked! When I received it, I was blown away by the quality of it. I sent it to CAC where it got a green bean. This is an example of why I will never run an auction on eBay, it's just a complete crap shoot for the seller. I felt bad for the seller of the Lincoln Cent and I was certainly prepared to pay quite a bit more for it.
Your example is a perfect reason, from the seller's perspective, to do a buy-it-now. Too many bidders just want to look at auctions starting at $0.99 and ignore good ones that start with high opening bids. If doing auctions it seems like the $0.99 ones work better than starting at any other number for many items.
