The mechanics of Best Offer: now what? Buyer sent three offers, I countered the first, declined two

[momcqueen]

I need some assistance around the mechanics of a Best Offer, please.

I'm selling an item, Make an Offer is enabled. On sale right now for $146 plus free domestic shipping (not that it matters) but the buyer sent one offer, I countered with my lowest acceptable price which is $130. Then he sent two more offers which I declined because they were lower than that. I didn't counter those. 

So.... what happens now? 

I am to understand the buyer is still interested, he sent me a terse message which stated so, saying he would pay $130 with free shipping.

Can he still go back and 'accept' the counteroffer I sent him? Or was it immediately overwritten by him sending two more lower offers?

What is supposed to happen here next? I'm not intimately familiar with the mechanics of Best Offer. Not as a buyer nor seller. Is the buyer stuck with paying $146? Am expected as the seller to revise the listing for only his pleasure to purchase? What time period is supposed to lapse before he is allowed to send another offer? Is there etiquette to uphold? 

I'm unclear.

Thanks.

p.s. Prior to this, my last Best Offer was for $10 CAD from a buyer in UK yesterday who was making an offer on something with a sale price of $170. I flat-out declined that one, not bothering to counter at all. People! All my auto-declines were overwritten last week when I changed my handling time to 'close' my store for two days. Changing the handling time does that as a side effect. It's a thing. 

[rose-dee]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

My dimmest view of low-ballers is that they are trying to wear down a seller with insults in the hopes that the barrage of $1-offers on an item listed at $150 will cause the seller to self-doubt, making them second-guess their assigned value on that item. Like teenage boys throwing pennies at the street-corner gals, this would be the equivalent of seeing an opportunity and trying to take the fullest advantage of it by acting like a big bully.

My most generous view is that the lowballers are merely clueless and hoping to get lucky with a freebie. 

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Yes, I agree with you, and I think that is exactly what the majority of these offers represent.  These are petty "gamblers" hoping to take advantage of a moment of weakness on a seller's part.  There is doubtless a certain thrill involved when they do occasionally score.

And oh yes, there are certainly also some of the clueless amongst them.

At any rate, as I said I make some use of their shenanigans.  

[rose-dee]

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@sylviebee wrote:

When I asked who the predator was, I was comparing the person buying at the Garage Sale vs. on eBay and pointing out that if you want to call buying low and selling high predatory behaviour and stealing from sellers, then both are predators and people should stop buying at GSs because according to you it’s theft when they turn a profit.

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I'm not sure why you seem to take such umbrage at my musings, nor how we got off on the tangent of garage sales.  

In any event, I didn't suggest garage sale buyers were thieves by turning a profit, just that they need to be somewhat informed in order to avoid being taken advantage of by more clever and knowledgeable people, as in your earlier example.  Research resources for vintage and antique items are everywhere on the internet these days, for the sake of a few minutes' effort.  Still, I very much doubt this is the most common scenario for low-ball offers.  I think, as 'mj' pointed out, they are mostly the equivalent of trolls, roaming around hoping someone will take the bait. 

Incidentally, holding a post-graduate degree is not as unusual here as you might think.

(Ever heard of 'I'm-still-here'?  I'm beginning to wonder.) 

[ricarmic]

I do see sellers in my field offering a stamp worth 3c for hundreds of dollars with BO.

They most certainly have no idea what they are really worth.

I suspect they use the BOs to help them value it. Which is a pretty poor way to do it......

[sylviebee]

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@rose-dee wrote:

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Incidentally, holding a post-graduate degree is not as unusual here as you might think.

______________________________________________________

rose-dee, it never occurred to me that holding a degree is unusual or special.  Why would you conclude that I did?  In fact, what I said is exactly the opposite of what you concluded.

I mentioned it to point out that an education in many fields of antiques and collectibles is just as valuable and as hard come by as that degree is.

I responded to you the way I did because you called eBay buyers who make low offers predators and thieves.  That was a harsh statement.

[momcqueen]

That's an interesting point. I guess sellers who use Best Offer to determine value are contributors to this problem.

[pauperback-2]

No decrees here but the word I think you striving for is compunction

[momcqueen]

I also find it interesting that a thread questioning the technical workings of Best Offer takes about three seconds to always deteriorate into a discussion about how Make an Offer is so routinely abused. Maybe we should be pressuring eBay to fix this instead of finding ways to make it work. 

[rose-dee]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:
That's an interesting point. I guess sellers who use Best Offer to determine value are contributors to this problem.

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Yes indeed, and it doesn't occur only in the "stamp world" either.  

[ricarmic]

Well to be fair, why would I remember or speak about the the times it works ok.... (I have no problems with it)

As all humans seem to like to do, we tend to remember the problems and most emphatically bring them forward.....when it gets mentioned.

Someday if I ever have free time, maybe I'll ask an innocuous question and see if it devolves! It would be an interesting experiment!

[sylviebee]

Yes, these are two different topics.  I agree.

You posted about an eBay glitch and I responded because there seems to be a recent eBay trend to make low-ball offers.

It's not the same thing but that's why the thread caught my attention.

These past few months I've had more low offers than ever before (in fact, that's NEVER happened to me until recently), but I'm talking about getting offers of $25 on items valued in the $300 ball park.

This is something new for me.

(I have to agree with ric.  I like the Best Offer function and use it a lot.  It works well for me too.)

[momcqueen]

Please don't take my comment as critical, it was not meant to be. Some of the best discussions on a thread occur after it's been turned sideways, I'm a big fan of that. I just think it's interesting that whenever the subject of Best Offer arises, it's met with anecdote after anecdote of lowball offers that defy explanation. 

I've always gotten lowball offers, even when I had no BO enabled and even when my prices were much lower. It seems the nature of some buyers. I wonder if the better buyers have departed eBay as of late. Or if everyone is tighter with their funds lately. 

[sylviebee]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

Please don't take my comment as critical,............

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I didn't.  Just unhappy when threads deteriorate.  Hate when that happens. 

[rose-dee]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

I also find it interesting that a thread questioning the technical workings of Best Offer takes about three seconds to always deteriorate into a discussion about how Make an Offer is so routinely abused. Maybe we should be pressuring eBay to fix this instead of finding ways to make it work. 

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I'm afraid I'd have to disagree.  I'm not convinced there is any fixing that can or should be done with Best Offer.  My view is that the fixing needed is at the seller end, and I'll explain why.  

EBay has provided sellers with a lot of options with Best Offer which make it an unusually flexible feature.  With flexibility comes the problem of choice.  How, when, and on which items sellers choose to use those options can make the difference between success and frustration. 

It is possible, by strategic and selective use, to make Best Offer work well and avoid most of the abuses and aggravations of low-ball offers.  So I'd say in this rare instance, it isn't the Best Offer system that is flawed, but sellers' understanding of how to use it to maximum advantage which is the real genesis of all the complaints.  As a matter of fact I'd say it's one of the few features eBay has that shouldn't be tinkered with.  However, better seller education and more detailed information by eBay on how to use Best Offer would definitely be very useful.  I don't recall ever seeing tutorials on the subject on eBay's site. 

I say all this from having used Best Offer successfully for years.  Still, like many sellers who begin using Best Offer and complain about outcomes, I too started out fumbling around with it and making choices I wouldn't make now, which led to a lot of frustration.  

Best Offer isn't an easy feature to use well, although it seems simple enough on the face of it.  I believe it takes time, experimentation, tweaking and experience to get the most out of the possibilities of this feature, like a fancy gadget with a lot of bells and whistles -- just because they're there doesn't mean they must all be used.  It can probably also be said that Best Offer may not be the optimum choice for selling all items.  Lastly, and generally speaking, I think seeing the process from the buyer's point of view is an important part of using Best Offer most effectively. 

[momcqueen]

Or they could fix the bug that wipes away the auto-accept and auto-decline parameters when handling time is changed.

[pjcdn2005]

Not aiming this at any one person but I doubt that most buyers who make a low offer have any other motive than wanting to pay a small amount for that item.  There are always exceptions but I doubt that the majority are intentionally being insulting or are trying to make the seller lose confidence in their desired price etc.

Buyers often make a low best offer because they know that some sellers will accept the offer!   The seller may accept it because they purposely were asking for much more than they wanted or because they want to sell it quickly or for any number of other reasons. I'm sure that there times that a seller doesn't realize the actual worth but if they haven't done the research then they are the one at fault...not the buyer.

if it wasn't for sellers accepting lower offers I'm sure that there would be less buyers and sellers here because so many do buy here for low and sell for high.  I suspect that less do that now than in days gone by but it does seem to still be common in some categories.

[ricarmic]

I also get a chuckle out of sellers with a BO on something priced at $1

Strange things on both ends of the spectrum.....

[i.am.vivian]

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

it would be helpful if somewhere ebay spelled out exactly how the mechanism of a Best Offer work. I recall that the third time a buyer submits a Best Offer to a seller it warns the buyer very clearly that 'this is your final chance' to do so but neglects to specify exactly what 'final chance' means. 

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http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/best-offer.html#fine

I'd say "final chance" means it's final.  Last chance.  3 and that's it.  No more.  The eBay page says:

Best Offers are good for 48 hours, or until the listing ends, whichever comes first.  That means any offer will last for 48 hours, including the 3rd one.  It also says,

You can make up to 3 Best Offers for most items. Expired offers, declined offers, and retracted offers all count towards the limit of 3 Best Offers.     So however the seller responds (or ignores), 3 offers are 3 offers.  They all count toward the total.  The last one made (be it the first & only, or the 3rd & final) linger for 48 hours if not accepted. 

But then that's it.  3 offers, no more.  It does say "final".  The reason will be so that the lunatics don't come back in 2 days and play the seller's listings all over again.  And again and again.  The system blocks the user ID same as when the seller blocks for UI strikes.  On any listing you will never see an ID (yes I know they're disguised but you can still tell) that made more than 3 offers. 

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@mjwl2006 wrote:

it would be very nice if ebay could fix the glitch that causes all my auto-accepts and auto-declines to be wiped away when I alter the handling time. Handling time has nothing to do with a Best Offer parameter so I don't know why changing one eliminates the other. 

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Agreed.  Does the same thing happen if you change anything else in the listing? 

[momcqueen]

No. Or at least not that I've noticed with the exception of what I explain below.

I started a thread about this in the summer when I discovered there was in fact a reason my auto-decline limits had vanished on listings with Make an Offer enabled. Changing handling time is considered the same as 'altering a shipping service'. Altering a shipping service wipes out a seller's Markdowns on any listing changed as well. For reasons unknown. It has been this way as long as I can recall.

Changing handling time halts all markdowns and eliminates the Best Offer parameters too. I asked R at Board Hour the reason for this and he said it must be a mistake. If that's the case, I wish they would just fix it already. Each parameter must be added to the listing manually, there is no Bulk Edit action that allows one to do it en masse, and to have to keep resetting them is very time- consuming.

When rarely I put my store into vacation mode, I don't 'hide' the listings, I match my handling time to the number of days I will be out-of-service. So there's been a few times in the past months where I needed to do that for various reasons. And every time, this issue with Best Offers rears its ugly head. I have the auto-levels set and then they vanish.

[zee-chan-jpn-books]

I don't think garage sale is quite comparable to best offer on eBay, because with garage sales, there's usually no price tags attached to the items being sold (or they are priced pretty low) and you make offers to the seller and the seller can decide whether or not he/she is happy with the price. The item could be worth $50, but if the seller no longer desires to keep it and does not want to spend effort to sell it for higher, he or she might be perfectly happy with selling it for $5 or $10 just to get a bit of quick cash back (either that or it'll continue to sit home and collect dust). I have done the same with items I have sold at garage sales and even if I only got $2 for it I wouldn't feel ripped off as I'd have dropped it off at a donation box somewhere if I didn't sell it. If they managed to resell what they bought from me for $50, then well good for them 

Whereas with eBay Best offers, there *is* a price tag attached so making a low-ball offer doesn't seen as appropriate. When I accept best offers I usually accept it if it's within 10% of my listed price, or if the buyer is making offers on multiple items at once I'm happy to accept lower. I don't set auto-decline because I want to be able to add the low-ballers to my BBL. And as I have mentioned before, I check the feedback history of buyers who make offers, and if I see excessive neutrals / negs I decline and block them as well. I don't think there's one "correct" way to use best offers... everyone uses it differently. I don't overthink about low-ballers and I don't think offers as insults in any way. I shrug, block if low-ball / neg abusers, and move on.