When Ebay says to make an offer for an item that you have for sale at 425.00, tell the buyer that he'd be responsible for postage, insurance, and signature fee, which would be $20.00.
Do they make you show "Make An Offer" in the listing? I thought that was something the seller had control of.
In every case where I've made an offer (and had it accepted), and the seller didn't specify Free Shipping, eBay has charged me for my offer price plus the shipping fee. Are you seeing something different?
Make an Offer is always only for the item and shipping is extra unless free shipping is specified. It works the same way as if you won the item as the highest bidder. Of course you could contact the seller and make different arrangements with your offer.
Selling on eBay is not as hard as people on here make it seem. As a seller the terms of sale are up to you. Pick a starting price you can live with. Either charge for shipping or factor it into your price. Either don't use the make an offer option or only accept offers that make sense to you. No one needs to worry about being ripped off unless you let it happen.
It’s not required to have the best offer feature. Some buyers do make offers anyways in email but sellers don’t have to have the feature or entertain the offers if they don’t want to. There’s policies where being critical is warranted that’s not really one.
There are many other worse ways to get screwed on eBay. This is hardly at the top of my list. It sounds like you are doing more of the screwing than the buyer
I read your thread title and it immediately thought of one of the oldest posts on CoinTalk. Like one of the original threads from way back when in 2002. I was thinking you were resurrecting it, but it was not the case, and your thread is of a slightly different nature. Well, now that I have you curious, he it is: How to Avoid Getting Cheated on eBay was what your title reminded me of. Now, if you think it's weird I have 17 year old thread titles floating around in my brain, i don't have a photographic memory or anything, it's because I am working on a data compiling project, and these very old threads interest me. But to your original question, I have likewise paused and thought before I submitted an offer when the shipping is not listed as free. And I even backed out of some "Make Offers" before I submitted them, for this very reason. The shipping is added to whatever offer you are making, at least when I last did it. So if the shipping fees are onerous, such as on some heavy purchases, well it can make some accepted offers still a bad deal for the buyer, and it you really low-ball them to try and keep your overall offer + shipping at the price point you want, well that makes you look bad to some sellers if it's like 20%+ off the listed price.
I don't understand the point of this thread. Winning bid amounts, buy it nows, and offers have always been handled separately from shipping costs from day one on eBay. Nothing has changed. You either accept an offer or you don't.
There was a thread talking about strategies on ebay a little while ago. As i said there, everyone is looking for a deal. If you price something at 500, and someone offers you 450 (and you accept), they'll feel like they got a deal. In my experience, it is easier to sell things this way then pricing you product at your rock bottom price. More wiggle room, and hey someone might even buy it for the high price. Also a note, i always build shipping into the price. No one wants to pay for shipping.
The point of this thread is that the buyer thought that the buy it now should have included postage, insurance and signature confirmation. Now he's threatening to give me a bad review.
You of course are 100% correct, however, you are missing I think why the buyer was surprised or confused about the shipping. I have both purchased and sold hundreds of coins on eBay. Many, but not all sellers, have "free shipping". If you are making offers on say several coins, or many coins (like I have), well, you might accidentally forget that 1 out of the 20 coins you are making offers on did NOT have free shipping. So, you didn't back that cost out of your offer, and so later, when you think you say absolute max offer of lets say $400 turns into a $420 offer, you might be a combination of surprised, sad, and /or mad. The seller accepts an offer, (yay!), but the buyer gets a bill for an higher than expected amount. (boo!) The fault is 100% on the buyer, if they overlooked the shipping costs or mistakenly thought they were included in the offer amount. I don't think anyone is saying otherwise. But, if you are trying to understand the situation, think from a person's perspective that are accustomed to BIN with free shipping, and how one without it might throw you off. As I already posted, same thing has happened to me, and I've been using eBay like 20 years. The buyer is wrong to think this is the seller's fault, or threatening bad feedback. He just needs to take the shock, the disappointment, and suck it up as a learning moment, and small loss, and move on. But many people are not rational, or even good for that matter. It's easier for them to blame someone else, and that is unfortunate for this seller.
Well, THAT sounds like a clueless buyer, and also gives you an ironclad case for having negative or neutral feedback removed. Feedback extortion is explicitly against the rules.