Lowballin' Offers on Ebay??

I'll lowball one time if not good enough I'm done, no more offers. I also only allow the seller a 12-hour window.

 

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I make offers occasionally, but most often I receive offers from sellers after putting BIN items on my watch list. This let's them know I'm interested and I usually end up with a 10% to 25% discounted offer on the coin. I'm usually happy with that, but may counteroffer to shave another dollar or two off. This helps me when this happens because then I have an idea of what to offer on other items from that seller. As stated before, many sellers put a limit on their offers, so anything below that price is automatically declined. Also I often let a seller know off I'll be buying several items and the discounts are usually steeper.

 

Preconceived notions of byers by sellers have killed more legitimate sales than stupid advertising. I called a real estate agent to set up a viewing of a piece of property they had advertised. The agent asked if I had been pre-approval letter for a loan, it kinda set me back some, when I said no, she said that I "shouldn't look at property and get your (my) hopes up if I wasn't sure that I could get it financed." My issue, I was paying cash, needless to say she isn't selling me anything.

 

This happens for me a lot too. Some sellers are more motivated to sell than others. Some will never send out a lower offer or don't know they can. Many things I've watched, including coins are commonly marked down 15-25% by the seller to try to get you to buy. Things are marked up a lot because ebay is greedy!
If you're lucky enough to have a store, you only lose 8% of the sale. Now you have to spend your time to box it up and pay to ship it. So if you pay a seller $100, they're ending up with about $82. Average guy that doesn't have an ebay store? He's left with about $77 out of the $100 you paid. Maybe even less depending on shipping costs. I paid $14 to ship and insure a sportscard in a small box yesterday. Regular priority. The buyer paid me like $4 for shipping. Everybody wants a deal and so do I, but you do have to realize there is a cost to doing business. This is why lowball offers are frowned upon. Buyer's don't think about what seller's are actually ending up with after the sale. It isn't worth your time to lose money or break even selling.

There's a coin I'm looking at now that is listed too high. The seller is willing to accept 14% off, but that discounted price is still 18% over the current price guide value. I don't know what he bought it for but at this, I realize the guy probably isn't going to make $50 on the deal when it's all said and done. So if I offer $60 below his offer, I'm just wasting his time and mine. Not gonna happen. You also have to look at what the person is selling. Is this an average person trying to sell a few coins they know nothing about? Or is it a dealer with pages of inventory selling 4 and 5 figure coins? The two don't have the same obligations or dealing capabilities.

 

The two sellers I specifically am referring to are top rated sellers with extensive inventory. One seller over 2,000 items on BIN. And I often get those offers from them. I've watched some of these items for up to two or three months, so at that point, I think these sellers are just trying to make what they can on it. But, I often purchased multiple items with combined shipping to help cut down the costs for myself and the seller. I rarely buy anything with free shipping though. Of course, I'm not going to offer $25 on a coin a seller has for $50, I know better than that. Will I try and get it for $45 plus pay for shipping...sure. I think where I come out ahead is I have a few specific collecting areas, so I may be the only person in months whose even shown interest in a certain coin, which is motivation for the seller to sell too. As an infrequent seller in eBay, I do know the pain of everybody getting a cut of the profit. What I detest now though are those pesky sales taxes!

 

I usually look at coins with the coin marked at price guide value, and make an offer less. The price guide value is always a little high. I am always looking for a deal. Some sellers I have saved that are listing around price guide and are taking 10 to 20 percent less. I will always sell on eBay and never to a dealer. Dealers around here give you Greysheet minus 10 percent. Even paying the selling fees on EBay I do much better than that.

 

+1

 

For a while that was true, but over the last year I'm seeing a lot more new BIN listings with shipping additional. It did catch my attention. I'm not sure why it's becoming more popular; I'm with you in thinking that bundling shipping into the price probably works better.

The one exception is if you're listing a lot of items and expecting people to buy several things at a time. I'm not sure how to do an automatic discount for shipping when buying multiple items, which is what I'd prefer to offer (if I started selling more again).

 

I hate haggling.

You put a price on an item, I'll decide whether or not to pay the price. I make one offer on an item, you decide whether you want to accept it. That's about all the negotiating that I'm interested in doing.

Not sure what the definition of "low ball" is here, but I offer what I believe the item is worth and/or what I'm willing to pay. I do not buy collectibles with the intent to sell them at higher prices. If I were to do that, then it stands to reason that I'm ripping someone off at one end or the other (bought it for too little or sold it for too much) and I wouldn't be happy with myself if I essentially made money by ripping people off.

 

I have never bought an auction coin. There's too much involved for me. I also, have never sold a coin that was in my stable. I guess I'm too selfish. I bought a coin from Rick's show once, but the price was fixed and I was stupid to pay it. I started late in life finding that I like collecting coins, but not the buy and sell process. I select coins that fit in my collection. I like to collect the American Silver Eagle Proof coins and the Uncirculated coins as well. I will buy a set of coins that has an ASE in it. I don't have a book where I would put my ASE's in as of yet, but I think that I am going to start one if I can find one that I like. Any recommendations? The oldest ASE that I have are three 1988 RAW that I got from my father's collection. He "collected" coins if you want to call what he did collecting. All the rest of my ASE's either came from the Mint or one of the on-line outfits. I've got a long way to go to catch my ASE collection up to date. When I bought an ASE from Ricks, I got a book about ASE's, but it stops at 1917. I really like that book, but I would like one that is current and even has places to add new releases. Any idea where I might get a new one?
Thanks to all of you. I have learned that my collection is for me and your collection is for you and we both have to remember that we all have our likes and dislikes.

 

gotta be careful for me, I offered a lowball offer only to find out the shipping costs were buried in the offer. I have learned most of the time, Check the shipping cost before you think you really got a good deal.

 

Often. I usually pair my offer with my judgements, recent sold prices etc.

I get 1794 Large Cents for 40-75$ regularly when lowest listing is 100-250$ simply based on history.

You can find alot of deals, and alot of opportunity. Its all about timing too. Recently listed auctions with best offer, send an offer if you peg an auction within the first few mins youd be surprised how many sellers would rather take the money now, then wait 7+days.

"Saw your auction, this is my offer cash now, instead of waiting 7 days. Otherwise Ill bid once and let it ride" they dont know you bid 100$ extra to cover, maybe this is dubious but it is ebay.

 

Always! Shipping can eat away! If its over 8$ I wont get it unless i can offer low enough to be fair. 4$ to ship a coin is more then enough for safe protected shipping in any case.

 

When you agree to look at offers on ebay, you can check to automatically reject any offer below a certain amount.

 

Priority shipping with $200 insurance costs $14. I just paid it two days ago.

 

I dont usually buy insured shipping options, my budget is usually very low but yeah thats very nice and affordable if you need it.

 

I pointed that out because we were talking about over priced coin on ebay , and really there are a lot of factors that go into a seller pricing their coin. I just thought about it today and I thought well what if that seller paid that much for that coin then surely they would not b look at a book for the value of their coin when they knew what price they paid for it. I don't know many people want to give their coins away for less than they got in them. I know I've paid too much for a few of mine no doubt.

 

I HAD ONE GUY MAKE OFFERS ON OVER 30 OF MY TOOL LISTINGS, ALL FOR 1.00 I SURELY BLOCKED THAT NITWIT..

 

omg and i'm sure he could buy them all day long for 1.00 somewhere else too huh?

 

Was he serious or was he just trying to get your goat?