BigO Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 I saw an arcade game manual for an obscure machine on e-bay with the "Make Offer" option. I made a pretty low offer that was immediately declined. There obviously wasn't a person behind it responding to my offer. I eventually offered half of the $20 "buy it now" price and again got the immediate decline. I assume there's a reserve type function on the "make offer" option. It makes sense to weed out stupid offers, but a $10 offer for a raggedy looking copy of a paper manual that I can't even look through before purchasing "As Is" doesn't seem insulting. There's only a scan of the cover: for all I know that's all there is. Apparently I used up my three wishes because it now says I can't make another offer. That struck me a bit weird considering that it's an automated response. It might be worth the asking price if I hadn't already figured out what I needed to do to fix the machine. But, I found the "make offer" process and the $6.00 shipping off-putting so probably won't end up buying it. Since the seller has 100% feedback on hundreds of sales, it's pretty safe to assume that I must be the problem here. Is my experience typical? (If there even is a typical experience) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockin' Kat Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 I've gotten some good/fair prices with the Best Offer option. It just depends on the seller and I'd suspect the timing too... if you wait till it's with in a few days of the end for the listing the seller may be more likely to take you up on it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldjd Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 Yes there is an option when you put "best offer".The seller can set it wherever he wants,so if you low ball it,its automatically rejected.I found that most of the time the seller will br 10-15% lower then asking price. However,depending on what the item is,the seller may also be fishing.....because they dont what the real value might be 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
krae_man Posted February 7, 2011 Share Posted February 7, 2011 (edited) I had one where the BIN was $28 and the seller offered free shipping to the US and said "Contact the seller for shipping outside the US". So I ask him how much shipping to Canada is and he says $6. So I submit a best offer of $24 because I was willing to pay $30 total including the shipping cost and the seller gives me a counter offer of $27 with a note that says shipping included. I don't know why he countered me with a lower offer but he did and I accepted it. Edited February 7, 2011 by krae_man 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caver Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 I don't know what the exact system is for low offers, but what upsets me is not being able to offer less then $1.... There are a few items with $3-5 BIN's + $3 - $5 (inflated) shipping that I'd like to offer maybe $0.50 + the inflated shipping and the system won't even allow it best I can tell.... I'm not sure if it's ebay as a whole, or just the sellers I've tried with, but I find that frustrating.... Otherwise, it's usually like oldjd said... 10 - 20% even if the item is only worth 50% of what they're asking.... though like others have said sometimes you get a deal.... Normally the sellers that have stores, and do the whole sell on ebay as a part of life are the ones not really willing to move much on their offers, the ones that are more flexible are normally the people just getting rid of stuff... Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevincal Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 Unfortunately most buyers abuse the best offer option. They think it means "oh look, I can seriously lowball this guy". I dont even know why some people make the offers they do... Thankfully there are some decent people who offer fair prices. For Instance, say I'm selling a game for $25. It sells on average for $20 but as high as 30. most of the time people will offer $5-13 instead of a realistic $15-20... And then as a seller when I counter offer (usually meet halfway in price), most of the time they disappear or act like im trying to rip them off... kind of annoying but again, thankfully there are people out there that actually use their brain and deals are made where both sides are happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigO Posted February 8, 2011 Author Share Posted February 8, 2011 The item went unsold. Given what it is and that the seller wouldn't take 50% of the BIN price as an offer, I expect it will be relisted. I imagine it has been listed several times before. Based on feedback, the seller deals in this same type of item a lot. So, I guess he knows what the market will bring. If relisted, I might make a slightly higher offer. He's got 100% feedback so it doesn't seem terribly likely that he's going to sell me one piece of paper for that. I might also research to see if there are other machines that use the same board. I might get lucky and pick up a somewhat useful manual that way. I like having the service manual. I guess it's like a security blanket. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+poobah Posted February 8, 2011 Share Posted February 8, 2011 Unfortunately most buyers abuse the best offer option. They think it means "oh look, I can seriously lowball this guy". I dont even know why some people make the offers they do... Thankfully there are some decent people who offer fair prices. For Instance, say I'm selling a game for $25. It sells on average for $20 but as high as 30. most of the time people will offer $5-13 instead of a realistic $15-20... And then as a seller when I counter offer (usually meet halfway in price), most of the time they disappear or act like im trying to rip them off... kind of annoying but again, thankfully there are people out there that actually use their brain and deals are made where both sides are happy. I think it usually plays out more like this.... Seller lists a game that sells on average for $20. Lists it for $30 BIN, plus a few dollar markup on shipping. They refuse any offer under $25, when in reality they'd have to take $15 just to match the market. Then of course, they re-list it forever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigO Posted February 9, 2011 Author Share Posted February 9, 2011 I think it usually plays out more like this.... Seller lists a game that sells on average for $20. Lists it for $30 BIN, plus a few dollar markup on shipping. They refuse any offer under $25, when in reality they'd have to take $15 just to match the market. Then of course, they re-list it forever. Now THAT is just exactly the sort of cynical attitude that I can relate to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss 2600 Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 I've submitted offers a few times on eBay. One time I got a counter offer which I accepted. Two other times I made offers on posters. One, for example, was selling for $16.99. I offered $13.01--automatic rejection. Then I tried $14.44 (15% off)--automatic rejection. I had one try left, so I offered $15.30 (10% off) and success. That happened with another poster, too. I thought that it was kind of lame that they'd give you an option to make an offer and then you'd only be able to save $1.69. What's the point of that? Oh well, I guess any saving helps. Definitely the big mega sellers on eBay with the 10s of thousands of feedbacks will set a price (probably 10% or so) that they will accept for offers and let the automatic system deal with it. The smaller sellers will actually look at and consider offers and either accept of make counter offers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevincal Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 just today i got some offer like $5 for a game that is worth 50... that is the crap im talking about. some people are just idiots. then again a good number of people dont like me on some forums so probably they are the ones lowballing me trying to piss me off heh. in the end i dont care, doing well on ebay.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+poobah Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 just today i got some offer like $5 for a game that is worth 50... that is the crap im talking about. some people are just idiots. then again a good number of people dont like me on some forums so probably they are the ones lowballing me trying to piss me off heh. in the end i dont care, doing well on ebay.... Yah, that's always fun. Then again, "worth" is always interesting. Some sellers think a loose basic cart is worth $19.95 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockin' Kat Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 just today i got some offer like $5 for a game that is worth 50... that is the crap im talking about. some people are just idiots. then again a good number of people dont like me on some forums so probably they are the ones lowballing me trying to piss me off heh. in the end i dont care, doing well on ebay.... When you get this you should counter offer them $49 or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevincal Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 just today i got some offer like $5 for a game that is worth 50... that is the crap im talking about. some people are just idiots. then again a good number of people dont like me on some forums so probably they are the ones lowballing me trying to piss me off heh. in the end i dont care, doing well on ebay.... Yah, that's always fun. Then again, "worth" is always interesting. Some sellers think a loose basic cart is worth $19.95 Well I always check ebay completed listings to price my stuff. If something is selling for 20 bucks, im gonna ask 20 bucks! just today i got some offer like $5 for a game that is worth 50... that is the crap im talking about. some people are just idiots. then again a good number of people dont like me on some forums so probably they are the ones lowballing me trying to piss me off heh. in the end i dont care, doing well on ebay.... When you get this you should counter offer them $49 or something. ya sometimes I do that, or sometimes I just reject the offer completely. Some people are just clueless. Or they know what they are doing and are just punks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carmel_andrews Posted February 9, 2011 Share Posted February 9, 2011 There's nothing like a good haggle....get used to it....we live in more challenging times where there isn't the money going round, so people have to haggle to get a good deal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigO Posted February 10, 2011 Author Share Posted February 10, 2011 Hmm...it's relisted @$16 BIN or best offer. What the heck do I offer? I guess I have 3 chances to work my way up to his minimum acceptable offer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockin' Kat Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 Hmm...it's relisted @$16 BIN or best offer. What the heck do I offer? I guess I have 3 chances to work my way up to his minimum acceptable offer. Give it a go... It's $16. $16/4 is $4, so try, $4, $8, and $12... assuming it's worth it to you to go that high. Or whatever you want to try. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caver Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 Hmm...it's relisted @$16 BIN or best offer. What the heck do I offer? I guess I have 3 chances to work my way up to his minimum acceptable offer. Give it a go... It's $16. $16/4 is $4, so try, $4, $8, and $12... assuming it's worth it to you to go that high. Or whatever you want to try. I think he'd be better off starting higher since 10 was his high point last time.... at the very least 8 is probably the lowest worthwhile offer seeing how it went last time 10 wouldn't do it.... Assuming the seller has any sense at all he probably isn't going to sell it for much less then 10 since now he knows you would have bought it at 10 earlier.... Really it's about what is your high offer.... Start less then that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Havok69 Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 I'm always amazed to hear when sellers get pissed at lowball offers. You're running a business, right? Be professional and treat it like a business. Counter offer and move on. As a buyer should I get pissed that you're trying to make too much money? This whole idea of worth is subjective, and can change in an instant. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigO Posted February 10, 2011 Author Share Posted February 10, 2011 (edited) $15.99 BIN obo $10 offer: Automatically & immediately rejected $12.50: Automatically & immediately rejected $14.00: Automatically & immediately rejected I guess he's not really open to offers. Maybe if I'd offered 90% of the BIN price it would have been accepted. If it were me, I don't think I'd bother with setting up the "best offer" thing. Edited February 10, 2011 by BigO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockin' Kat Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 $15.99 BIN obo $10 offer: Automatically & immediately rejected $12.50: Automatically & immediately rejected $14.00: Automatically & immediately rejected I guess he's not really open to offers. Maybe if I'd offered 90% of the BIN price it would have been accepted. If it were me, I don't think I'd bother with setting up the "best offer" thing. Yeah, that's pretty cheesy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raskar42 Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 (edited) i dont' know how you can reject offers - that's not what best offer means. it means at the end of the BIN time the seller should look at all the offers and sell to whoever made the highest or 'BEST OFFER' at least IMO Edited February 10, 2011 by raskar42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rockin' Kat Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 i dont' know how you can reject offers - that's not what best offer means. it means at the end of the BIN time the seller should look at all the offers and sell to whoever made the highest or 'BEST OFFER' at least IMO Except that on eBay, Best Offers expire after two days if they are neither rejected nor accepted... which really kind of prevents using it that way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goochman Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 just today i got some offer like $5 for a game that is worth 50... that is the crap im talking about. some people are just idiots. then again a good number of people dont like me on some forums so probably they are the ones lowballing me trying to piss me off heh. in the end i dont care, doing well on ebay.... When you get this you should counter offer them $49 or something. The appropriate response is to offer them $51 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dstone Posted February 10, 2011 Share Posted February 10, 2011 I'm always amazed to hear when sellers get pissed at lowball offers. You're running a business, right? Be professional and treat it like a business. Counter offer and move on. [snip] That always pisses me off; I make what I believe to be a fair offer on an item, expecting the seller to do a counter offer so we can reach some sort of an agreement. The seller declines the offer (not an instant decline, they actually reviewed it). I sent them a question asking something along the lines of "Was my offer that insulting? If you're going to have a best offer, at least make a counter offer so we can work something out." They respond back with "Your offer was too low, don't take it personally." Asking for $5 off an item listed at $40 isn't worth a counter offer? I bought the item elsewhere. If the seller isn't going to entertain ANY offer, then there shouldn't be a best offer option on that item. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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