eBay

rose-dee · ‎08-06-2017

Please tell me I'm not alone in noticing this...

Tonight I had a buyer contact me through eBay Messages to ask what sort of offer I'd accept on a "Best Offer" item (I was on .ca, the buyer was in the U.S., so likely on .com). Normally I don't care for the idea of suggesting offers to purchasers, but in this case I decided it might be worth a try (through the "make an offer" button, shown as an option on eBay Messages). So I sent an offer, along with some conditions and explanations in a message, using the said magic button.

I went back to print out my offer and message for reference, thinking a copy would bounce back to my eBay Messages "sent" box, but no such luck. I tried on .com -- nothing. Then I clicked on "Manage Offers" (a tiny little drop-down to the left of the item on the Orders Management list on Seller Hub (on .com), and a screen popped up indicating an offer of $X had been sent to the buyer. That was all, no copy of the actual message I sent. (See Screenshot #1 below). I checked my personal email account (the one linked to eBay/Paypal). Nothing. I looked at the actual listing on both .ca and .com. Nothing (usually the green bar above the listing lights up when an offer is pending).

This was bad enough, but after going back to eBay.ca, I discovered the existence of the offer hadn't registered at all. Using the "Review Offers" drop-down feature next to the item on Selling Manager gave the result in Screenshot #2 below.

Well, I'm unlikely to ever try this feature again. Incidentally, I've noticed other things not being communicated between .ca and .com lately, such as "shipped" status when updated manually on .ca.

I'd say this is not a good result. Has anyone else noticed such gaps lately between the two sites? If I'm around and remember, I think I'll bring this up with @tyler on the Wednesday board hour this week.

Screenshot #1 -- from eBay.com, at least recording the fact of an offer:

Screenshot #2 - The same item, viewed on eBay.ca -- apparently no Activity.

ricarmic · ‎08-07-2017

Other than whilst I'm on this board I "live" on .COM

So my experience is from using "reply with offer" from .COM

My medium old age is perhaps showing, I can't recall now if anything of the message attached to the reply offer shows or not, ie I don't recall if I can see the sent message, I'm beginning to believe I couldn't even see that.

I am certain of these 2 things:
-I know of no way to subsequently know what the replied offer $$$ amount was (Being an OCDish kind of person I worry that I mistyped my offer and often wish to check, have never found a way)
-I don't think I ever found a way to see it via "manage offers" after I let the opportunity pass right after it is sent.

momcqueen · ‎08-07-2017

That seems like a programming oversight, to be sure. What is the next step in the flow if the buyer accepts that Reply With Offer? Does the agreed price simply materialize as the selling price?

ricarmic · ‎08-07-2017

As far as I recall, everything looks the same as a normal best offer process once they accept. (I can't find any examples)

All the normal email messages etc arrive and the price shows as the accepted offered price in them (except if you look at the sold listing via a search, it shows the original price. I think if you open the actual listing you then see the best offer price but I don't remember if I've ever checked that and I think that's the same for a normal accepted best offer anyway.)

pjcdn2005 · ‎08-07-2017

@rose-dee wrote:
@dutchman48 wrote:
Also, with all the stuff on .com not on .ca, possibly you should have closed out of .ca, relogged into .com, and dealt with it on .com totally.

I wonder if I'd done that (logged onto .com and dealt with it from there), whether I would have got a copy, either to my own email account, or to my eBay Messages, of my offer - including my text message that went with it? Have you ever tried this from within .com, and if so, what happened?

This being not the only thing I've noticed that hasn't been communicated from one site to the other, you may be right that it's probably better to deal with .com listings exclusively on .com and .ca listings from .ca. A couple of weeks ago I was shocked to see a warning on .com on a couple of my listings saying shipping was nearly 2 weeks overdue. I'd manually marked the items as "shipped" on .ca, but apparently that data didn't get sent to .com.

As ric mentioned, this has nothing to do with communication between the two sites, it's just the way it works. I agree that we should be able to see the offer but for some reason it wasn't set up that way.

silverpinups · ‎08-07-2017

Anytime I receive or respond to my Best Offers on ebay.ca-created listings, I get a Message in ebay Messages as well as emails about it. Plus, i can see Offers in my Selling Manager and on the listing itself.

My problem might be a Microsoft outlook issue (hotmail). It's funny that I receive the "best offer reminder" but not the original best offer to my email address...

Everything on eBay.ca and eBay.com is fine in terms of offers.

silverpinups · ‎08-07-2017

Like I said to mj, it might be a hotmail issue but with eBay who knows.... it might be time to switch to gmail.

tyler@ebay · ‎08-10-2017

Hi @rose-dee - great observation!

I can confirm what @pjcdn2005 is saying: 'Respond with Offer' (or 'private offer') does not send a copy to your email address or your eBay message center. I do not have a good reason as to why this is, other than that the high level details of the offer is kept in the 'Manage Offers' section (My eBay>All Selling>Review all offers). I have submitted a suggestion for an enhancement in the past, but haven't heard back on it. I'll use this thread as a further example of it causing confusion.

If this potential buyer accepts your private offer, it will be treated as any other Best Offer sale and show up in the sold section.

Thanks!

Tyler,

rose-dee · ‎08-11-2017

tyler@ebay wrote:
Hi @rose-dee - great observation!

I can confirm what @pjcdn2005 is saying: 'Respond with Offer' (or 'private offer') does not send a copy to your email address or your eBay message center. I do not have a good reason as to why this is, other than that the high level details of the offer is kept in the 'Manage Offers' section (My eBay>All Selling>Review all offers). I have submitted a suggestion for an enhancement in the past, but haven't heard back on it. I'll use this thread as a further example of it causing confusion.

If this potential buyer accepts your private offer, it will be treated as any other Best Offer sale and show up in the sold section.

Thanks!

Thank you Tyler! Even though I list the majority of my items on .com, I mostly "live" on eBay.ca, and tend to respond to messages from there). It would be very helpful if the details of the offer were communicated back, either to .com or .ca (preferably to both) so they could be kept by the offeror and/or printed out.

I was a little bit concerned that if the buyer had any issues with the content of my offer (which contained some terms), I'd be more or less working in the dark, having no actual record of what I'd said. In some circumstances, the terms could be essential to the transaction, and it's always better not to have to rely on memory in such situations.

rose-dee · ‎08-11-2017

@mjwl2006 wrote:
That seems like a programming oversight, to be sure. What is the next step in the flow if the buyer accepts that Reply With Offer? Does the agreed price simply materialize as the selling price?

I think I can now answer that (and confirm what Tyler said above). The offer must have been accepted, because the item simply popped up on my "Sold" list at the price I'd offered. No message through eBay confirming my offer had been accepted, although I presume the buyer must have been presented with something that looked more or less like the usual eBay offer. I should have asked whether the buyer received any message in their eBay Messages inbox.

I can also say that that item itself shows up on my sold list at the originally listed price. I'm wondering now how it will be picked up if/when the buyer leaves FB -- I hope it reflects that an offer was accepted. I rather like the idea of prospective buyers looking at my FB page being able to see that I'm willing to entertain offers.

lady.stark · ‎08-17-2017

@rose-dee wrote:

I should have asked whether the buyer received any message in their eBay Messages inbox.

I'm wondering now how it will be picked up if/when the buyer leaves FB -- I hope it reflects that an offer was accepted.

As someone who accepted these kind of offers through messages, I can confirm that the offer does show up in "My messages" on eBay.

As for how it looks on the seller's feedback page, no, it doesn't show that an offer has been accepted. It only shows the accepted price without any mention of the Best Offer. For example, let's say an item was listed at $65, but the seller sent an offer at $55, it's the $55 that will show on the feedback page (the listing will still show the original price of $65 though, and not the offer).