I agree with 'silverpinups' comments. I've used Best Offer satisfactorily and successfully for many years, but it does take some consideration of the nuances of the process from both seller's and buyer's viewpoint.
For example, I never decline an offer, no matter how ridiculous, and I never use auto decline, for two reasons. First, buyers will look at the offer history. Too many "declines" can signal a difficult, truculent seller, or cause a potential buyer to feel it's useless to make an offer.
Second, there is an advantage to the 48 hour period during which an unaccepted offer is still alive -- it can be an enticement to other buyers to make an offer, or at least look at an item and perhaps come back and make an offer (or buy at full price) later if it doesn't sell immediately. Although I must admit I've only twice had active competing offers on items, it can happen, particularly on rare items or those in high demand. This is one reason why I use Best Offer judiciously, on items where I expect there may be greater interest and where there is enough value to allow for some "wiggle room" in negotiating a price.
Which brings me to another reason I think Best Offer can work well: some buyers like to have the experience of getting a bargain, and having input into the final price. I understand that, and am happy to give them the opportunity.
Yes, buyers can make only 3 offers (I'm not sure what the "refresh" period is for a buyer to make further offers, or even if there is one), but I don't think I've ever let it go that far. Here's what I do:
- Buyer makes a very low offer -- I may decide to let it sit until expiry, or I'll make one counter-offer. If it sits, not only may it attract other buyers, but it's less likely to turn off the buyer for good (who, given the benefit of the doubt, may just be testing the waters), and less likely to make me look like a permanently irritable stinker with dozens of "declines" to my name. There is an argument to be made, from the buyer's point of view, that if a seller declines most offers, what the seller really wants is something close to their listed price, so why use Best Offer at all?
I learned this lesson from my experiences as a buyer. I once took a chance on a seller with a list of declines and made an offer that was within 10% of the asking price, which was then declined. I went away rather disgusted that I didn't even get the courtesy of a personal reply or counter-offer. All it seemed to me this seller was doing was losing sales waiting for the perfect price. A bird in the hand...
- Buyer makes an offer that is somewhat low, but close enough to warrant a bit of negotiating. I counter-offer, usually splitting the difference between the buyer's offer and my initial price if the buyer's offer is reasonably close to my desired selling price, or I counter with something just a few dollars above or below my desired selling price.
- If the low-ball buyer comes back with a much better offer, I'll proceed as usual. If he makes another low-ball offer, I'd let it expire then block him. Frankly, this has never occurred in all the years I've used Best Offer.
In any case, I generally prefer to never let any offer go without response unless it is so low as to seem impossible to negotiate to a reasonable price.
Part of the key to using Best Offer successfully I think is having a clear idea beforehand on how much you are willing to accept for an item and not allowing yourself to get bogged down in a back-and-forth until the whole potential of the transaction disintegrates, as happened with the one you described.
Communicating when making your counter-offer is essential (there is a small box -- about 250 characters -- for this when counter-offering). What I believe is most critical is keeping the buyer interested and engaged, especially if his first offer is anywhere remotely near the "ball park". You never really know how flexible a buyer may be, and whether he's just thrown out a number in his first offer in the hope it might work.
Accordingly, usually when I counter I say something along the lines of: "Thanks so much for your offer, but I'm afraid I can't go below $XX for this item. If you can meet me at that point, it's yours!". In other words, I'd love to sell this to you, if you can move the needle a bit. The counter-offer itself will show on the listing in the meantime, which may help to attract other buyers too. You'd be surprised how many times buyers accept my counter-offers, I'd say it's around 90%. The others just disappear without actually being declined, and that's fine, no harm done, no one is insulted, no one feels abused.
There's no need to feel insulted by truly low-ball offers. These are just opportunists, skimming around, hoping they'll get lucky, which they likely sometimes do. It's the law of random reinforcement. I tend to look at any bargain-basement, unaccepted, unexpired offers as a good means of attracting other buyers, a kind of free advertising if you like, since eBay will show all offers as pending, regardless of their size or bona fides. Other buyers have no idea whether the offer may be a decent one, about to be accepted by you. In other words, even the bottom-skimmers can serve your purposes.
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