best offer retractions

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

I would like to retract a counter offer that I sent to my buyer. Would this result in any defect? Thanks.

[rose-dee]

I use Best Offer often as a seller, but I must admit I've never had to face this unusual issue.  Still, the deal is not a transaction until the buyer actually accepts your counteroffer.  

There's a chance the 48 hours will pass without buyer acceptance and your counteroffer will expire, but I'd personally rather not let that happen.  At that point, it does become a transaction, and you could end up with a defect (my best guess is that it would be treated by eBay as a seller-initiated cancellation).   

What's the reason for wanting to retract -- serious mistake in the amount, or concern about a problematic buyer? 

If it's either of these, and it's essential that you get out of the potential transaction, I would not wait.  See if there is a drop-down box somewhere on your item page allowing you to retract your counteroffer.  If not, you may be obliged to follow through with the transaction unless you're willing to take the defect. 

If you don't see any automated feature to enable retraction, you might want to call CS.  If your reason for withdrawing the counteroffer is strong enough, they may be able to do something for you. 

Best of luck with this.  

[rose-dee]

It also occurred to me that if the buyer has not yet accepted your counteroffer, you might be able to simply end the listing.  I'm not sure what the ramifications of this would be, or even whether it is permitted once an offer has been made.  Essentially I see Best Offer as a sort of slow bid process, and eBay may regard it the same way, restricting ending the listing during the 'negotiating' phase. 

You could try finding out about this from CS if no other seller pops up with a definitive answer.  I suspect this is a pretty rare occurrence for sellers. 

[pierrelebel]

From eBay:

If you make a counteroffer and the buyer does not respond to it within 48 hours or before the listing ends, whichever comes first, the counteroffer automatically expires.

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/best-offer.html

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

Here is the situation:

Buyer made best offer on four of my items around 36 hours ago. Three of those items ended (30 days were up). One is still live. I sent my counteroffers stating that the counter offer prices are only applicable if he accepts all 4 of them together. Now there is only around 12 hours left on the last offer before it expires. I am aware of the 48 hours expiration.

If if he somehow clicked accept on that last item before it expires, but won't re-buy the other three items (I could relist them if he asks), then by selling only one item at the counteroffer price, I'd actually lose a small amount of money. That's why I want to retract my counteroffer.

---

when I click on my coUnteroffer price, I'm shown the following. I don't know if it counts as "changed description" as the other three items expired. I didn't dare to click "continue" to see if I can retract my counteroffer as I'd rather lose a few bucks than get a defect......

It's OK to retract a Best Offer if:

You accidentally enter a wrong offer amount (for example, you submitted an offer for $9.99 instead of $99.99).
The description of an item you have placed an offer on has changed significantly.
You cannot get in touch with your trading partner by email or telephone

[rose-dee]

Well, it appears the drop-down options you refer to would apply equally to a counteroffer as well as to the original Best Offer, in which case you should not get a defect as long as the buyer hasn't accepted.  But as I say, I think this is a rare situation, and certainly not one I've ever had to deal with.  

Rather than waiting for a seller to pop up here who may have had to do this and knows for certain whether it resulted in a defect or not, I think I'd try calling CS.  Have you tried ending the listing?  

Alternatively, you can sweat it out until the 48 hours expire and hope your buyer is co-operative about the other items.  If the actual monetary loss is small and you can't get a definitive response from CS, that may be your best option. 

Incidentally, I don't think I'd advise making a counteroffer conditional upon the buyer accepting other offers.  That could get rather messy, as the buyer does have the ability to accept or reject any one or more offer(s).  If he accepts half and rejects the other half, you're pretty much stuck with whatever offers you've made that have been accepted.  I'd just make my best counteroffer on each item individually, and live with the results. 

[dutchman48]

As Pierre said, end the listing, any offers or counter offers are void and start over.

Never make any offers or counter offers dependent on other than the 1 item you are dealing with.

Packaging after listings have ended may also be against Ebay policy

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

I think I'll just wait it out for a few more hours and hope this zero feedback buyer clicks nothing. Even if he does, It's only a few bucks loss, which is okay considering I have a rather good week with quite a few sales right before all of my listings (from last promo) expired.

i rather keep that listing (multiple quantity) live as it had a couple sales already and has watchers. 

And I would rather spend the time sleeping (which I did) than calling CS about this...

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Packaging after listings have ended may also be against Ebay policy <--- what do you mean by "packaging after listings have ended?"

Thanks all 😃

[dutchman48]

Adding other items not listed any longer to the one that is still listed and combining everything into one package deal

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

The zero feedback buyer didn't do anything by the time the 48 hours mark was up.

Then today that buyer's DAD (as he said) sent me a message in all CAPS telling me to send him an invoice for all 4 books that his son wants to buy for $36 USD......

in my original counteroffer message, I counteroffered $46 CAD and mentioned that it's roughly $36 USD. Technically speaking my listings are all in CAD. Also, this buyer didn't buy anything from me so I can't really send him any invoice.

Lastly, this "dad" has left two negatives and four neutral responses over ~100 feedbacks he had left to others. That already spells "trouble" to me and I'm not interested in proceeding with the sale.

What's the best way to respond? Or should I simply ignore the message and block him and the "son" 's username? 

[femmefan1946]

Block them both.

Either timewasters or difficult.

Then have a nice nap.