I recently thought I could purchase some items over ebay for my Oldsmobile Omega project. Sellers are mostly US located.


as used to how it normally works for me with European sellers I start with 10% discount reduced offer. And than I somehow was irritated because almost all answering offers from the seller were 1% off or even less!


I don’t get the idea behind? Why even offer this possibility with a product about $ 1,200 and then offer $ 1,195!


how are your experience with ebay make offer? Are my expectations wrong?

 

Unfortunately a typical practice largely amongst higher-volume sellers, but even for many individual sellers. To me the whole concept of 'best offer' is laughable because almost nobody I've ever encountered ever takes it unless in really close range of what they wanted in the first place.

I think the intention is to draw you in with the possibility of a discount being offered (without really wanting to offer one) but ultimately to simply reel you in as close to their original price as possible. I've challenged a few sellers on that practice in the past in electing not to buy at their 'best' price (which was in some cases literally within 1-2% of listing price), albeit with no worthwhile responses.

Unless something you want is practically unobtainable, you can keep asking for a better price until the item either sells out from under you, seller outright refuses any further price drop, or the listing itself bars you from further negotiations (listings have an an automatic limit on how many times you can counter).

 

I'm with you guys - What's the point? I completely ignore such listings.

 

I have been on both sides of the “make an offer” and don’t remember any rejections. I could be @ 60% of the BIN price if I feel it’s way overvalued, especially if it has been listed for a long time. Sometimes it just effectively creates a free shipping transaction. I’m careful never to bottom fish, I make reduced offers in an earnest, reasonable, respectful range and have success buying, while having sold items with reasonable offers made to me.

​​​​​​….

 

same here - I've sold things before on 'best offer' if I felt they were legitimate enough for my purposes. Most legitimate bidders are smart enough not to expect a significantly lower offer will be contemplated, but the more aggressive ones will attempt it anyway fearing nothing to lose but the item itself... After the first couple times having listed a 'make offer' option in my ads, I stopped doing it though - too many dreamers essentially looking for something to flip in their own ads.

 

Sometimes it works, sometimes not. It depends on the seller.... have gotten 5 dollar discounts on a 30 dollar item, 10 dollar discounts on 50 dollar items. Sellers that state make offer often send you a discounted offer after you put the item in your watch list. Recently, in eBay motors a guy was selling something I needed for 300 dollars or make offer. I offered 250 with I thought was too much but was desperate for the parts.... he came back with a 275 offer which I accepted. I guess its all about how bad you need the item and your wallet.

 

As mentioned above, I ignore them, now. In the past I have submitted offers of what I thought were acceptable prices for the items. On all of them, my offers were rejected, and I usually received a responsive offer that was insulting to me - say the 1% or up to 3% mentioned above. Almost everyone of these offers that I was looking at was overpriced to begin with, and the seller wanted shipping on top of that. After being insulted, I would go over to Amazon, or a direct distributor, etc. buy the item for nearer the price I wanted to pay, usually with no shipping. A couple of times I cut/pasted those transactions into emails to the sellers on eBay just to make a point.

 

I've had generally good experiences with "Make an offer".
Last week I asked a guy to knock off $20 on a $140 set of 65 poverty caps.
He turned it into free shipping equaling the 20 bucks.
I've gotten 10% or 15% off buy asking.

But 1% is asinine.

-peter

 

I have bought many items with buy-it-now prices where a reasonable offer was accepted. Some people now list auction items with a best offer option which seems a bit strange, they will only accept offers higher than their opening bid. On my sale items I do not have a best offer option.

 

Ebay sucks compared to what it originally was.

My rule is I will offer down to 25% less. I think anything more is rude. If something is grossly overpriced, I try to politely imply I would have no idea where to start, or I wait for reality to cause them to lower the price after no one buys.

 

The problem is that in todays day and age, everyone feels they have to win something in order to buy. Even when the part is posted at a reasonable price, they have to dicker because they aren't happy unless they can get it cheaper.

 

you did read my opening post?

if a seller is offering the option „make offer“ it shows that he/she wants to negotiate.

and when then the responding offer is less 1% of the sales price, all said about the seller!!!

 

^^^THIS^^^ Back before it chose to emulate the Amazon business model, I viewed it as a bunch of folks coming together in an online version of a Garage/Estate/Yard Sale, with some NOS stuff thrown in for Grins. Kind of a nationwide Craigslist, before there was such a thing.