Is it a tendency from buyers on ebay to be greedy?

[rocketscollectibles]

I'm trying best offer on most everything since a few weeks already. I really like to give the opportunity to buyers to negociate, it clearly helps to sell some items quicker or items that would not have sold at the price we fixed. My problem with it so far i can already notice a clear tendency from buyers, most don't want fair discounts fair deals... They want to be gifted... I feel like a lot want the feeling that they won over you and that they're ready to decline fair offers for it. Most seems to be super greedy. And i feel that the ones not greedy who really wanted your item would have bought full price anyway without best offer

An exemple the other day i receive an offer of 3.50$ on a 5.00$ item free shipping, i just counter offer at 4.00$ cause there's almost nothing left on a 3.50$ free shipping sale. In my mind he can't decline it's win/win for both, for him it's just 0.50$, for me it's 10%. My offer is already a 20% discount. And he declined... For 0.50$... This situation happenned to me a few times already in different ways. Decline 1$ on a 10$ item, 5$ on a 40$ one, etc

I auto decline offers under 50%, i don't wanna go higher cause i wanna be able to send counter offers. I wanna let the window open for any talk. But at the same time i wonder if it's really worth getting all those greedy buyers wasting my time doing the maths, researchs and making me overthink to after just decline fair deals, or holding up 48h my listings by letting expire

I just wonder if it's an overall ebay tendency or really a thing in my category? Any experience to share

[reallynicestamps]

Overlooking my firmly held opinion that it is not worth listing for less than $9.99USD,  I think it is time to re-think your Best Offer parameters.

You would have had less stress on than $5+shipping card if you had set your parameters to refuse Offers under $4 and accept offers over$4.50 + shipping.

Again, as a proponent of Free Shipping,  I would have set my asking price at $6+ Free Shipping and parameters at $5 and $5.50.  (Shipping being LetterRate under 30 grams so 92c domestic or $1.30 USA) .

or holding up 48h my listings by letting expire

There is no holdup.

If there is a Best Offer in play but not accepted, the item is still visible in Search and can be purchased by anyone, including a buyer with a better Best Offer.

[darak10]

customers like this are just playing games, if they kill a deal over 50 cents they werent interested in the first place.  lotz and I have had this discussion before, as waves of cheapskates like this seem to come in bunches....you'll get a few then you wont see them for awhile then they come back.  There seems to be something to the theory someone put out at some point along the way that certain cheapskate buyers surf the community board looking for sellers bemoaning lack of sales /low sales issues and then hit the seller with lowball offers on stuff.  

i think the best explanation is that you are new and the bottom feeder types on here are going after fresh meat so to speak.  I did what you did in the beginning and then when the best offer option was turning my store into a free for all of folks asking for discounts, I turned the option off and never went back.  I dont do best offer deals anymore, too many bottom feeders wanting a deal on everything.  

My best story of lame cheapskate customer tricks was a fellow who bought something, asked for a refund claiming there was a 'paypal error' (there wasnt) concerning payment, and once he got refunded and the item was relisted he messaged me back and asked me to sell it to him at a cheaper price than what he had just paid.  I told him to stuff it and blocked him, but I still chuckle over the audacity of such a request.  

[byto253]

When taking offers you have to be like a duck and let the water roll off your back 😎   I don't list with offers but still get them in messages.  Some are amusing like $25 on a $50 item, with the added "i can pay today".    

There are a lot of folks that just blitz with low ball offers all offer the place and play the odds that they can get a small percentage cheap.  Some are sellers as well.  It is just part of selling.

I like  @reallynicestamps  advice on offer parameters as well.  For me, for anything that inexpensive I just list it at the selling price and basically forget it until it sells.  Then if after a few months it is not selling at all I may look at a price reduction, or for low priced stuff bundle it up to a price that is worth it.   Responding to offers on low priced stuff can eat up your time, a very valuable resource.

[ricarmic]

Generally in my world for an item that has been available for at least a couple months*:

-if the offer is reasonable, say 90%** of asking I'll automagically accept

-if the first offer is close to being reasonable, say 80 to 85%** I'm inclined to accept

-if the offer is too low, below 80 to 85%** but within the realm of reason I reply with my best offer and don't budge

-if it is stupid low, like $50 for a $1,000 item (which has happened to me!) I simply do not respond at all. This also delays repeat stupid offers because it sits or a day or two or whatever before it expires. If they keep coming back and it's a grouchy day, I'll block them.

*Anything that is new, I do not offer or accept offers. If someone sends me an offer, I advise that I cannot offer a discount because it has been newly listed and if it is still available in a couple months, remind me of their offer.

**The percentages are for relatively new listings, anything say up to 2 or 3 years running. Anything that is 5 to 10 years depending on what it is the % will be different as in lower - remember I have items that have been running more than 10 years, a 10+ year item just sold a couple days ago....at full "promoted" price.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

Don't take 'Best Offers' on items that cheap. Use the 'Send Offer To Buyer' feature instead. Don't enable counter offers when sending an offer to a buyer. 

The problem with items that cheap is that they have small margins, which makes it difficult to negotiate best offers. It can go both ways, they can think you're a stickler for countering over something as small as 50 cents the same way you perceive them as greedy for declining a 50 cent counter-offer. A buyer isn't worried or going to understand about your margins. With margins on cheaper items being so small, this is why the 'best offer' feature doesn't always work well. It's a waste of time.

[ilikehockeyjerseys]

I'd look at it this way. 

Long term, you can't make a reasonable return on your labor if you list items for $5. There likely are some wholesale items that have very low costs, and take a minute to pack, where if the volume is high enough it is worth it. But they are the exception to the rule.

In terms of the OP, it is clear that they are new to eBay and eager to learn about the platform. There is value in listing things for $5 if it is an avenue for them to learn about selling on eBay. eBay isn't rocket science, but there is a lot of nuanced stuff, policies, etc. While they might not be making a high hourly rate with the labor required to deliver a $5 sale, they might learn valuable information that will help them if they decide to scale up their eBay store in the future.

[rocketscollectibles]

Overlooking my firmly held opinion that it is not worth listing for less than $9.99USD

As a cards seller, i'm not at this point where i have only rare, holographic and 1st edition cards. Ultimately i think this is what a cards seller should try to reach, but it really depends of the ambition you have and a lot of other factors. The goal i think with cheap cards if you sell those individually is to be able to push buyers to combine them when they buy, that's something i'm trying to figuring out. I'm thinking about a model where cards over 5$ got free shipping and cards under 5$ have shipping, but free if combined to a free shipping one, or something like this. I would like to do cards lots and do auctions too, this is probably the best way to sell cheap ones, but i tried a few auctions to test it out and had 0-5 views no bid while it was underpriced so this is very scaring me

Like said too it's not bad to sell low price items especially with a low feedback profil like mine, to build rep and score. I gave away bigger discounts that i wanted on some sales, just to do sales. Thinking about it it's probably a mistake to do 0.50$ counter offers, i might should take every sale just to boost my ebay for the moment. It's hard to know at which price a card would sell too, this 5$ card might will never sell at 5$ i can't know

It can go both ways, they can think you're a stickler for countering over something as small as 50 cents the same way you perceive them as greedy for declining a 50 cent counter-offer

I understand this, but when you counter offer at 4$ a 3.50$ offer on a 5$ item, reality is that you already give him a 20% discount on your BIN price. Seller is suppose to discount 1.50$, but buyer can't leave away 0.50$, that's exactly what i meant by they don't want fair deal. It's not about that 0.50$ and being cheap on my side it's more about doing a fair deal. 25 to 40% discount is not a fair deal, and that's what most buyers are looking for from my small experience

[ricarmic]

In my world (stamps) it has "always" been the case that generally if something would normally sell as a BIN for $10, it will auction around the $5 mark. This isn't always the case, rarer stuff doesn't follow generally.

I would say in the current world it has gotten worse I see pitiful realized prices for auctions with low start bids.

When I auction things, I auction them for the same price as they will be if they don't sell and end up in my store. (like femme I don't sell stuff under $10 normally).  So when the auction item ends unsold, it simply gets relisted as a BIN for the same price it was at auction. The auctions attract a different group of buyers and/or bring visibility to other items in the store.

The important thing is to find and retain the good customers.

This was a long version of saying that groups of cards might work as BINs when you are auctioning individual ones and get you decent prices for them as BINs. (This is exactly what I do, I generally sell groups of stamps). The problem with BINs is that one needs to be patient. It can take months or years for them to sell.

The good news is that with BINs you can over time acquire good, repeat customers and if you provide good value and customer service they will keep coming back!

[rocketscollectibles]

The important thing is to find and retain the good customers

The huge problem with ebay i feel that there's favoritism in the algorithm or something i can't figuring out. I see very often big sellers selling the same cards i have exemple for 10$ with dumb stock photos while i'm strugling selling them for 5$, with twice the work. I don't understand hows that possible . What i mean is that good customers are extremely hard to reach, i feel like i need to sell most everything i have discounted to do sales since i'm selling. I feel like a small fish in the ocean, i can't reach much the good customers at the moment

[rocketscollectibles]

Feedback system does not help at all. I have maybe one positive feedback in my last 15 sales. Impossible to compete with those 4000 score with my 15 and selling to no one leaving feedbacks, pretty sure this is still a problem to the buyers eyes

[ricarmic]

I think too many times folks focus on the price only.

It is my belief that the eBay algorithms favour:

-fast selling items (may not necessarily be the cheapest), so a higher priced multi item will outsell a much lower priced item because it's been deemed "popular" by the algorithm

-sellers selling lots of stuff

-sellers adding new items constantly

-items with free delivery

-items with fast shipping (ie same day shipping will be above 2 days)

-of course sellers without or with few defects, slow shipping etc (but NOT negative feedbacks)

-sellers with a high sales turnover rate ie they have a relatively higher percentage of their items selling

-an auction item with lots of views and especially bids is escalated

-other things I haven't thought of too....

If you watch some of the sellers outperforming you, compare what they are doing compared to you. Aside from the price, I suspect you'll see some of the things I have on the list above that they are doing or have in their favour.

[reallynicestamps]

Also don't forget there are a lot of people who believe that the more they pay for something, the better it must be.

While there is some truth to that, it is not always true.

Sometimes the high price is based on popularity, or being the "in" colour,  or being mentioned in a current show.

I had a friend in the antiques business with an interesting pricing strategy.

He  would get in new pieces, and set a price based on his costs.

After 30 days, he raised the price.

After another 30 days, he raised the price.

After another 30 days, he raised the price.

And after another 30 days, he sent the items to auction- if I remember right, at the Month Two price.

The thing is.

Most things sold in Month Three.

And his customers would be dropping in often, because he did have a constant turnover of product. So they had seen The Thing at $100 then at $150 then at $200 - and they were buying at $200.

If it sold at auction, he got the $150 Month Two price (or sometimes more) less commission. Which was a little more than he had been willing to sell it for in Month One

I wouldn't necessarily try it myself, but it worked for George.

[rocketscollectibles]

Had one more offer like this today offering 2$ on a 5.75$ card. I had auto decline for 50% and more discount i think, he instantly offered 3$ and then i received the offer. I do the math and i would do 0.25$ profit on a 5.75$ BIN card so no way i would accept, i counter offer at 4$ which is like 20-30% discount, on a card that have only 4 or 5 listed on ebay and for 7.50$+ (in better condition). Logical offer, fair deal, good research on the average listed items market. I'm doing the thing right, but it seems dead. To my eyes he can't decline lmao it's 50% the price of the other cards listed. But it seems like i did sent a deal breaker again, just not working for me

My personal feeling from experimenting best offer is that buyers literally never accept a counter offer. I'm starting to think it's really because of ego. Like i said in a previous message i feel that most of the persons i'm dealing with want the ''i won'' feeling and they don't have it by accepting a counter offer whatever the amount is

So i decided for the moment to narrow my auto decline to 25 or 30% (I'm thinking about just remove it too). It's an assuption but i feel that if it was auto declined at 3$ there's odds buyer would have himself offer 4$, but because it was me and with a message the ego is there from buyers, they don't want to give me what i want. So i'll let them having the ''i won'' feeling and ego fight with a bot, while i have what i want without doing anything. No waste of time for micro amounts. I'll let them try to reach my 25% discount and then i don't have to counter offer and i can just accept

[byto253]

When I see offers are availble, that tells me the BIN price is not the real price.  I think you are right to set the auto decline to the price that you are willing to take.  That leaves it open for some offers that are above that.

[clemowbooks]

Low priced items are not a good fit for Best Offer.

If the minimum wage is $15 an hour, that's 25c a minute.

Are you making 25c a minute on your labour?

If not, this is a hobby and that's fine too. But then accept that it is a hobby and not a business or even a side hustle.

[rocketscollectibles]

I personnally wanted to have best offer on everything because cards value is very something weird to evaluate. Cards have the value that people gives to them. It's just a piece a cardboard worth physically nothing when we think about it. What i mean is that it's not because everyone sells the same card than you at 8$ that you will too, i think we can either miss value or overrate a lot it's very hard to fix a real price to a specific card and that's why best offer is good. Mostly to have infos faster if you overrated one

I'm just very surprised how people give up what they want for such micro amounts. There's literally no way you enter in a store IRL and expect to pay 10$ and go back home because seller asked 10.50$

[needsmorerobots]

You're always going to get people looking to save as much as they can. You can admire their tenacity for saving a buck or be disgusted.

I think any offers you accept shows up in your  feedback page. Accept too many offers and it may be similar to ringing the dinner bell.

Regardless of how low the offer is, I treat everyone making offers with an equal amount of respect. Sometimes it works to my benefit when I need to purge old stock. Other times when a buyer offers a very low amount, we've come to a mutually beneficial price after it's explained why I can't accept their offer (newer stock, lowest retail price among sellers, etc).

[rocketscollectibles]

What do you guys think about taking the time to insert a message and explanation when you decline or counter offer? Do you doing it? I'm always doing it but i wonder if it's really worth the time thinking and writting. For me most of the time it's just either ignored anyway or responded with not much sense

As exemple my last offer i wrote. I receive first a 40% of BIN price offer and it's auto declined, second offer raised to 55%, i counter offer telling him my best offer and why, and the buyer counter offer with the same offer saying it's already overpriced. But there's only a few of this card listed on ebay and they are literally all twice my BIN price. My card is in worst condition but 50% the price of the others and i add a 20% discount on this and i'm answered that it's still overpriced... Not sure if it's ebay in general or it's just my category but it's really always like this. It's been quite a few times i have to set up auto accept to the offer i tell em and auto decline under and let the buyer deal with the bot if he want the item cause i'm just done wasting my time

I like dealing normally but at the same time in here most are either illogic or really playing a game... I'm honest in my approach and i never know if buyers are serious, lost or just tryna fool me. It's a jungle and just really annoying. It might be my category i don't know, but yet i have a weird experience of best offer

[retroman_studios]

I'm going to give you my cold, jaded opinion on Best Offer, but do note, I'm no longer selling on eBay, so my comments might be dated.

About a year or so ago Best Offer started popping up on people's listings, and we all were trying to figure it out, and it was wrestled out of one of the eBay reps that it was a "new feature" that was rolled out.

So essentially, I'm not sure if they are still doing this, but let's say I have a bunch of stuff for sale, and eBay thinks I have it priced too high, they enable Best Offer, and the default limit for offers are set to 50%. So a buyer could request up to 50% off right from the get go. That doesn't mean you have to accept, but it certianly told me how much eBay "valued" my merchandise.

That aside, I played with Best Offer too, and found for large items that were expensive, it was a benefit, but small items not so much.

I suggest you don't use Best Offer for anything under $100 unless you want to get rid of it quick.

When I had items I didn't want Best Offer on, I enabled it but set the values for Best Offer to be within $1 of my actual price. Lowball offers were ignored and if they messaged me complaining, I ignored them.

Best Offer is sorta like how in some countries you can go to markets and haggle. The problem is on eBay, sure they can haggle and maybe get a deal, but they still have 30 days to make your life miserable especially for low value items.