Best Offer Auto-Decline Reset as a Side Effect to Changing Handling Time via Bulk Edit

[momcqueen]

This one had puzzled me all summer: suddenly I was getting insulting lowball Best Offers on items where I swore I had set an auto-decline amount. Like $1 CAD on an item where the asking price was $179 being the most recent example.

I took the problem to Raphael at the Board Hour but when he asked for more information, I mistook that request for more information on another matter and incorrectly complied.

In the meantime, I figured it out myself so I thought I would share it: Best Offer Parameters (like auto-accept or auto-decline) are arbitrarily reset as a by-product or side effect of changing your handling time by Bulk Edit. 

Yes. So. My handling time has been set to same-day for more than a year now EXCEPT when the lockout-strike was first looming in June, I extended it to ten days as a precaution. It should come as no surprise to people who do a Bulk Edit or revise existing listings that changing a shipping choice will knock off your markdown for no good reason, so I am used to it. That's the 'Revising Shipping Service Will End the Promo on This item' orange flag. 

But I changed my handling time in June and then back, and in August for a short out-of-town trip and then back, and now it is extended again in case there is another lockout-strike. The reset to no auto-decline or auto-accept is the 'Best Offer Parameter Change'. I'm not clear on the reason that changing your handling time should knock-off your Best Offer auto-declines or auto-accepts, but it does. Absolutely, it does.

Each time I have changed my handling this summer, I am hammered by lowball offers which make me question the sanity of myself and those around me (Didn't I do this already, like three times? and They can't be serious, can they?) and I then must go and individually revise each listing to prevent more of the same from occurring. Until I have to set my handling time back to normal, I guess. 

The proof is in the screenshots. The only consolation is that now I have determined the underlying problem. It's changing my handling time. 

[i.am.vivian]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

This one had puzzled me all summer: suddenly I was getting insulting lowball Best Offers on items where I swore I had set an auto-decline amount. Like $1 CAD on an item where the asking price was $179 being the most recent example.

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I've never had one THAT bad but think if I did I'd have thought  "$1, huh?" and responded with a counteroffer of  $178.   

[momcqueen]

Oh, I had to grit my teeth. Plus, it came in the middle of the night so my sleep was interrupted. In the end, I could think of no way to counter that didn't involve telling the buyer exactly what I thought of their offer so I simply declined. Eventually, should they keep this up, they'll figure it out and I won't be the one who wasted my energy teaching them. 

One dollar. I had a whole host of snippety one-liners ready for that one. 

[silverpinups]

Any Buyer that makes an offer that "low" gets a one way ticket to my "Block Bidder" list!

[momcqueen]

Yah. 

[momcqueen]

.... And the item was already on markdown for $179 with an actual price of $189. Even an offer of $100 would have annoyed me. The auto-decline is/was/is/was/is/was/is set to reject anything under $150. 

[silverpinups]

I wouldn't use auto-decline, say a potential buyer offers you 140.00 for your item and it automatically gets rejected so the buyer disappears.

You need to negotiate with buyers... instead of auto-rejecting it, you counter them at 160.00 and perhaps the Buyer decides to met you halfway at 150.00. 

This is what OBO is all about... Buyers want to deal with a real person at the other end of the transaction.

Your losing sales using this method.....

[momcqueen]

I don't think so. The $150 low limit would be accepted only under certain circumstances.

The way I use Best Offer is as follows: I pick an uncommon item or a bundle that only I am offering and include Free Domestic Shipping. This gives me an extra $15 to $30 to play with in terms of an amount which I would accept from an international buyer paying his or her own shipping versus what I would consider from a domestic buyer. And then too, I look at the value of Free Shipping on a domestic offer. If the Make An Offer is coming from someone who's postal code in Canada will cost $30 to ship to with me paying free shipping from the selling price, it's that much less than I am willing to move on the Offer price.

Best Offer is applied selectively for me. And I've never had a buyer respond to even a modest counter offer so, in my experience, it's essentially a waste of time. They have their limit, and that's it. 

[momcqueen]

And it if doesn't match my limit, that's fine. But I resent having to one-at-a-time-decline one dollar offers. 

[silverpinups]

Yes, but having to decline insultingly "low" offers doesn't happen that often... the human element is important for on-line sales.

Society has changed to much over the last 20 years, with technology taking over.... people need to communicate as much as possible.   

We are selling in completely different spectrums, but we're still dealing with sales regardless, so we'll just have to disagree on this one.  

[momcqueen]

I am more than happy to discuss at great length any and all details about a product I sell, or the line it comes from, but I'm not here to haggle. And I do get a TON of insulting offers. Perhaps it is peculiar to toy sales. In fact, I get Best Offers via Messages weekly on items that don't even have the Best Offer option. 

I used to feel the way you do, and quite strongly at that, until I had to deal with all those way-too-low offers and items that didn't even have BO available.

As a buyer, I've made offers on items but I have always been conscious of a range around the price that I felt was proper like maybe give or take ten per cent. As a seller, I go to about 25 to 30 per cent. Not lower. The buyers who send offers for half of the asking price (or less) don't warrant the time it takes me to counteroffer to them. 

The more you ask people to pay for an item, the more they need to want to have it. It's human nature. 

The lowballers can go test their game with another seller who has time and patience for it. Maybe the newer sellers still do. At least, that's when I did. I don't anymore. 

But you're right, we'll just have to agree to disagree on it. 

[cooltoycars]

This is exactly why I don't use the make an offer feature!

[momcqueen]

Here's a reason I use it with caution. From another seller's feedback, and it's not the first time that I have seen this left for sellers. For the record, I'm fairly certain this fits grounds for removal.