ebay is adding best offer to .ca auctions

[maximus7001]

Ebay is now adding best offer to auctions without it being selected. They are also taking the auction starting price and rounding up to the next $ and dividing it by 2 and using that amount in the "automatically reject lower than field".

Got a super low ball offer today which is what alerted us to this. So we checked all of our auction format items. Not all had it done to them but MOST did. This is only being done on .ca as no .com or .co.uk auctions are affected. We do not do the offer thing.

We checked with 2 other sellers that we know and it has happened to only one of them. Everyone should have a look and see if it has been done to them.

We attached a picture.

[Anonymous]

As I have said before that eBay is "hacking" into our auctions and add something that we don't want like make offer.  I got about 20 of them and I had to remove them.  The auction price is enough low and I don't need eBay to tell me to make offer and take lower prices!!  Duh to eBay!!

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

This needs to be brought to the attention of eBay staff immediately based on the several recent reports. This is wrong if it is going on behind sellers backs. These items are our inventory. Not theirs. Only we know what we paid for our stock and we need full control!!!

-CM

[cumos55]

It was months ago that this addition of a Best Offer Option  to listings was noted in discussion boards on eBay.com.  Not too sure if it was auction listings, or GTC listings.

If  Best Offer was added to GTC listings,    it could have been added to listings  over 16 months old on eBay,  and/or  with "too" high a price.....  Seller would remove the Best Offer Option, only to have it reappear in the listing

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Many sellers do tend to list items at high prices.....  sometimes considered "too" high.  Book sellers love to do this, especially if there is no  other listings for a specific book.....  on eBay.

Sellers with high prices  do not recognize the value of "Fair Market Value".

Fair Market Value is a price where a seller sets a price ...... a buyer  accepts that price, and purchases the item reasonably quickly.

[momcqueen]

This was announced in one of the most recent Seller Updates: it's a feature. Ebay will add (without asking) Best Offer at no fee to the seller to existing auctions (or sellers) they consider to be under-performing.

I'd recommend simply ignoring those offers if you don't actually want to take them. 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

I add best offers to my listings where I believe it is feasible. To date, I have not noticed that being added to any of my listings by eBay. Not to say that maybe it has been done without my knowledge. Who knows?? But eBay doing it at their whim to be doesn't seem like good optics. Could it also be included automatically accept ANY eBay offers? Again, who knows and after the fact you, as a seller would have limited options to escape something you DID NOT do!!!

Too much changing the rules in the middle of the game!!! Similar to eBay's catalog adding information to our listings after the fact that are incorrect or not applicable.

-CM

[cumos55]

Here is how to find out which listings have a Best Offer Option included.

Start with the Seller Hub summary page

click on ..... Listings... with Orders to the left and Marketing to the right

Click on ... Search ...  three lines below the word  ... Listings... and to the left of the word  ... Summary

Go to the box two rows below this .. Search ... word....  The wording in this box is ... Item Title

Click on the arrow to the right of the wording ... Item Title ....  in this box .... The second line is Best Offer

Click on Best Offer

Click on ... Search...  in the box immediately below the box with Best Offer....

All of the listings with the Best Offer Option will appear 

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Yes. But which listings have had that added without our knowledge? That's my only concern.

-CM

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Wonder how long before Wally World etc starts taking best offer? Hmmm!!!!

-CM

[esclyons]

i have best offer enabled on all my listings, except my auction style listings, and last week i had best offer added to 3 of them,, way to go go ebay, so i set my auctions, at the lowest price i want , and ebay enables a best offer feature,, some one who is around for this week's tyler session, can please bring this up.. 

tyler@ebay

[retroman_studios]

There is a huge thread on the US boards regarding this. Apparently, eBay should only be doing this if you used the standard  listing tool, as there is another tool you can list with that won't be affected. Regardless, you should receive an e-mail from eBay saying your items can now accept best offer.

I pulled all my items from eBay due to this as the complexity of it all has gotten to the point where someone like myself, a hobbyist who doesn't do major selling but casual, and who has developed a certain routine that works for me....is now punished for researching prices but eBay still wants to sell cheap cheap cheap.

Especially since many of my items are hand made, so labor is not cheap. That part cut me the most. If something is hand assembled, there is a higher cost that is to be expected. There will always be a customer that will enjoy that premium. You may have to wait a while for that customer, but they will come around eventually.

Word is that this feature will not be going away.

[lady.stark]

When I transformed a few Fixed Priced listings into an auction format, I noticed that the "Best Offer" box was ticked off. Sometimes I left it there, and sometimes I deleted it. Maybe you did the same thing and did not notice that said box?

[reallynicestamps]

Just because someone offers, the seller does not have to agree.

The seller can ignore, refuse or accept an offer.

The seller can also set an automatic decline on any or all offers at a certain percentage.

But offer on Auctions are a really really stupid idea, promulgated by some bright sparks who doesn't understand how auctions work.

[maximus7001]

"When I transformed a few Fixed Priced listings into an auction format, I noticed that the "Best Offer" box was ticked off. Sometimes I left it there, and sometimes I deleted it. Maybe you did the same thing and did not notice that said box?"

The auctions we have were never buy it now. They are not really old either. Most of these items get have different new lot numbers from the manufacturer each month. We are very observant of all auction details and would have noticed it before.

We pay a bit more than the offer amount ebay set to buy them in the first place. How stupid. We would end up paying $5 or more to give them away for free.

The majority of the affected items are usually listed on .com but this time the ebay 50% off selling fees promo is the only reason to have these switched to .ca for the duration of the promo. Not all were affected either, just most.

[heartovermind]

Or, perhaps a faster way to quickly see which of your listings have the Offer option...

while not logged into your account, in the search box look up one of your items, then search, click your listing, in that, select "Seller's Other items", scroll down and look which ones say Make Offer...

[rose-dee]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

Just because someone offers, the seller does not have to agree.

The seller can ignore, refuse or accept an offer.

The seller can also set an automatic decline on any or all offers at a certain percentage.

---

While all of that is true, my concern would be the perception of desperation that is created by a whole lot of my already reasonably-priced listings displaying best offer (without my authorization), and that fact that eBay is directly interfering in my listings without my consent.   Not to mention forcing me to waste my time dealing with offers I didn't want to have in the first place. 

I've used best offer very successfully over the years, but always extremely selectively.  A willy-nilly, all-over-the-place approach to me screams "fire sale", "we're desperate to sell", "try your hand at getting a really cheap price" -- in effect turning sellers' carefully considered price point listings into pay-what-you-want yard sales.  How ironic!  EBay spent years obliging sellers to up their game and act like professionals rather than driveway unloaders.  Now that they need the fast cash, they're happy to turn us into nickle-and-dime sellers.  By arbitrarily slapping on best offer wherever it (or more exactly, its bots) decide, eBay has launched a race to the bottom at the cost of its sellers, i.e. making sure it captures its fees at any price.   

I have no doubt that eBay understands the psychology of a seller faced with the choice of a low offer or no offer.  I think few sellers can resist engaging somehow where there is an open offer. 

So it's indeed a brilliant stratagem on eBay's part: spread the low-ball pricing all over the place, better more sales at $10 a piece than allowing sellers to wait for the right buyer willing to pay a reasonable price.  It's pressure, pure and simple.  What does eBay care whether their next $10 million in fees comes from a million $10.00 sales or several thousands of $50 sales?  

I really abhor this kind of interference by eBay.  But what I find almost worse is the deception and hypocrisy, amounting to a complete disrespect of its sellers.  Touting such an arbitrary intrusion as a "feature", when it knows very well that it's coercing and exploiting its own sellers (many of whom are paid subscribers), is to my mind despicable.   Sorry eBay, you don't get the good service award for this one. 

[reallynicestamps]

I agree that it is unwarranted and absolutely agree that it is a Bad Business Practice.

Having a lot of long-tail items for sale, I don't mind the 16 month warning. That encourages me to rethink items that got a lot of views but no sales. (It may be counter-intuitive, but a Fixed Price item that gets few views is just looking for a home. An item that gets lots of views has a problem or it would have sold.)

[rose-dee]

Yep, I'm always surprised at how many of those long-tail items do get picked up once the right buyer comes along.  I think this is especially true if one is selling vintage or collectible items, but probably not mass-produced Iphones or T-shirts. 

But eBay is wanting its fee money faster these days...

[maximus7001]

Well they did it again. New item 10 day auction listed 3 days ago. It was not like that 24 hours ago when we checked all of our auctions for this. This is insanity. Who is the idiot that decided to do this?

[femmefan1946]

@retroman_studios

Apparently, eBay should only be doing this if you used the standard  listing tool, as there is another tool you can list with that won't be affected.

This seems to be being added to the  Short /Simplified Sell Your Item form, but not to the Advanced SYI.

Since the Simplified form is the one shown to newbies, angst and chaos ensue.