Ebay forcing “Best Offer” & auction relists

[eurobeads]

Suddenly, in the last few weeks or so, the following is happening:

1) “Best offer” is being added randomly to listings even though the best offer button is turned off. I just noticed that when I’m about to confirm a new listing, it says this:
By tapping “List your item”, you agree to pay all applicable fees and receive reasonable offers from buyers. Learn More.
-I don’t get it...since when is “Best Offer” forced upon us? I don’t recall reading any news of this anywhere/in the updates. What is going on???
Note: I use the ebay app so maybe this is just an app issue (I hope)?

2) Auction items listed on .com are relisting themselves automatically (without the relist button on). The automatic relists are not being deducted from the number of allotted monthly listings, but annoying nonetheless....

Anyone know what’s going on?

[retroman_studios]

I also saw this behavior, fortunately I noticed it and turned it off.

It may be that certain items are flagged in the catalog as being potential for deals.

Now, as far as the impact, other than unhappy customers who don't get a deal and who may resent that you said no to an offer even though you have implied via eBay you did, it doesn't affect you unless you accept the offer.

[Anonymous]

It seems that lately eBay is becoming more absurd and insane and also become more greedy.  They already generate over $1Billion and they still want more??!!

[cumos55]

It is called..... Interfering with business.

[ypdc_dennis]

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@Anonymous wrote:

... become more greedy.  They already generate over $1Billion and they still want more??!!

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Probably because they took a loss in 2017 on almost 10 billion in revenue after expenses and taxes.

[frontline66]

they are forcing sales thru at our expense 

they had last week a way to turn off from their end if you called in …. that is now gone

I am new but 4th time I called in this week as I am not going thru all my ads to turn off …. the last couple took 2 to 3 tries to get it to post correctly 

I suggest you call in when it happens and tell them to turn off and do not hang around waiting for them to do it 

My last email to stated that each time one goes on to best offer and I see it I will just turn the ad OFF until this **bleep** is dealt with  

AND if they want to force sales thru they can discount their 10% charge  ….. maybe that's what required …. We just discount 10% to the buyers and take it off of EBAY's side … sounds fair to me! 

Good luck to all and we need to stand up this **bleep** or next thing we are wasting more time on changing ads and on the phone then actually selling which was the reason I came here 

Please remember when you call in that the person you are talking to just works and follow orders …..so it's ok to voice opinion but don't take it out on them   

[reallynicestamps]

@eurobeads

@frontline66

This has been discussed and complained about on the dotCOM boards for a couple of months.

First-- you are not required to accept an offer. Or even respond to it.

Second-- don't use the Simplified Sell Your Item form. Look in the upper right corner of the form and choose the Advanced form. This allows you to choose whether or not to accept Offers.

However, eBay no longer discourages buyers from making offers on listings that do not specifically ask for Best Offers.

So back to the polite refusal backed with the Blocked Bidder List if necessary for the persistent.

[ypdc_dennis]

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@frontline66 wrote:

they are forcing sales thru at our expense

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You are NOT being "forced" by eBay to accept an offer made for an item.

Just IGNORE the offers and they go away after 48 hours.

It is however, a bad policy by eBay to add best offer to a listing without the seller agreeing.

-..-

[frontline66]

I understand what you are saying and ebay said the same thing …..its that fact that im not going to micro manage and have better things to do then send replies back to people why their offer was refused …. So if Ebay wants to waste my time I can easily do the same thing back or just move bc this is just 100% wrong and if you let them get away with it what will their next move going to be ??? 

[momcqueen]

You don’t owe anyone an explanation for the reason their offer was refused. Just ignore the offers if you don’t want to be bothered. Pretend it’s just another piece of junk mail in your inbox.

[frontline66]

The problem is I value my ebay members and if someone takes the time to view my items and there is a the option for them to submit an offer then I should have the commitment to reply back …. as they have no idea if its spam from ebay or im actual entertaining offers  

Its just bad for business to ignore someone's time and effort to submit an offer bc people in most cases have googled and researched to put the offer in only to be a spam by ebay   

[retroman_studios]

I thought about adding a small blurb about the fact that eBay is adding Best Offer to listings, but haven't thought of a neutral wording. I may say something like:

"You may notice that all my items have Best Offer enabled. eBay is promoting "Best Offer" to increase sales for select items. Although eBay may suggest a recommended market value for certain items, I may not be able to consider all offers. You are welcome to submit an offer and if possible I will consider it."

[momcqueen]

That wording sounds reasonable to me.

[ricarmic]

I think the wording is fine, but what does it accomplish being in every listing? (I've adopted the "minimize my descriptions size over time)

Someone who is thinking of giving a best offer will still do so.

Someone who isn't thinking of giving a best offer read something of no use to them.

Personally, I would write a form letter to include in my "message" in my responses to the best offers I did receive, if I got a lot of offers. Maybe something like:

"Thank you for your best offer. eBay is automatically adding "Best Offer" to seller listings to increase sales for select items. Unfortunately I am not able to accept your offer at this time." (I didn't spend a lot of time wordsmithing this)

I have noticed no change at all in the number of best offers I've been receiving. I get very few, perhaps I am just lucky.

[momcqueen]

That’s probably a better tactic. Item Descriptions are read by only the rarest of shoppers anyway. Copy and paste from the canned decline text.

[frontline66]

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@momcqueen wrote:
That’s probably a better tactic. Item Descriptions are read by only the rarest of shoppers anyway. Copy and paste from the canned decline text.

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My friends you're missing the point I believe …. it's like if you seen an item on sale, you go to the store to purchase only to find out it's a misprint …. How does that make anyone feel like buying anything else in the store while you're there …. I'm guessing you leave upset and might not go back if it keeps happing ? I know that's what I would do if they had only used it as a marketing scam. Just my 2 cents. 

[momcqueen]

Proceed with this however you like. Just because we are all veteran sellers, it doesn't mean you cannot choose to ignore our advice. Good luck!

[retroman_studios]

Yes and No. When you go to make an offer, I am sure there are some caveats that are displayed.

Now, from a marketing aspect I did bring up a slight issue a few months back where eBay had a statement on search results saying a seller "accepts" best offers which to your point is misleading. A better verbiage would be "Best Offers Considered". But that's not as catchy. In the end, eBay just relies on caveats that are displayed to the user no matter how clumsy or badly done.

It's not outright "lying" or "deception" but it's more very poor communication which sadly eBay has not gotten better at.

Take it as you will, but I doubt you are going to make much headway in getting eBay to change short of some sort of lawsuit where it is proven that eBay was guilty of something. That costs money and is no guarantee anything will change.

My advice: Play the game eBay wants to play but play smarter.

[eurobeads]

I attempted to remove the best offers in bulk. It kind of worked. But the problem is on good till cancelled listings - when they renew, best offer gets re-added to them. I got fed up dealing with it so now I’m just going with the flow and leaving them be.

I agree that it’s bad business/poor customer service to ignore offers. It’s the same thing as ignoring a question from a prospective buyer. If I, as a buyer, make an offer and am ignored, i probably won’t buy from the seller at all. I would think « if this person is too lazy/rude to respond, then they will be too lazy to ship and rude if there’s an issue with my order ». But that’s just me.

As for the automatic auction relists, they do count towards the monthly allotment and I figured out that it’s a flaw with the ebay app. On the app, when you relist or «  sell similar » auction items from your unsold box, the « relist this item up to 7(...8 etc) times gets ticked off on its own. So now, I go to my computer to relist unsold auctions. What a pain...

[ricarmic]

An interesting and timely thing, I just moments ago got an offer from a fellow that wants to combine 4 lots together and get a bit of a discount on them all.

I've gotten this kind of note all along but I noticed after responding to this that this fellow used the new make an offer process (none of the lots he's speaking to have best offer applied by me).

So I'm not unhappy with it at all, it will likely generate a decent sale that I may not have had otherwise.