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I think Best Offers are a joke as the counter offers they come back with is a waste of time. Instead, I contact the sellers who do not do Best Offers and bargain with them. Looking at the ones I've done this with over the past 90 days it works out be around 40% for the one's who decided to work with me. Also I'll do comparative shopping at Amazon Warehouse Deals. I have things in transit that beats the ebay prices. An example would be a 6 pack of iPhone wires for $3 (free shipping with prime). I just got in the mail today New Balance MW813's from Amazon. They retail for around $80 and I paid $22. Looking at them they are BNIB.
Well for one thing, even if I see an item is listed for $5, and it is worth $5 to me, I would offer $4, just because the seller has already told me that they are willing to accept less, by putting the Best Offer tag on it. If I really wanted the item bad, maybe I would offer $4.50. Because, I'm just not going to pay more then I need to.
In my case though, the Buy It Now price of the item was $12.99, so I offered $10 even. After doing some more research, I have come to the conclusion that the seller is just an idiot. My offer was reasonable, and not even the lowest reasonable offer I could have made. That item is not likely to sell for more than $10.
Anyway, I'm just trying to get a feel for what most people consider to be a reasonable offer. That's the purpose of the poll. I have been becoming more confident in my offers, and steadily lowering my best Offer prices, but I don't want to be known as a Low Baller either.
About free shipping, better then that is to search for Price + Shipping Lowest First. Then you get the lowest combined price. That moves the S&H price gougers to the bottom of the list. Thinking about that, it would be fun, when you see an item for $19.99 plus $15 shipping to make a Best Offer of exactly $19.99, aka Free Shipping. LOL. Unfortunately, most price gougers don't generally put a Best Offer option on their item.
I thought I'd update this thread. I kept watching that $12.99 item that my $10 offer was rejected for. I see that about a month ago it was finally sold to someone else for a Best Offer price of $10.50. LOL. So the seller waited almost six months to get an extra $0.50. I will give it to him though, he did get more than I offered. I didn't think anyone was going to pay more than I offered.
What got me thinking about this again, is that I just got another Best Offer rejected. I offered $4 for a $4.99 item. The item had an inflated shipping charge, so I knew the seller could afford to give me a $1 discount. He came back with a counter offer of $4.99, which is the same as the Buy It Now price. What kind of counter offer is that? He did write me a very polite message and explained that his price was already the lowest on eBay, and that he only put the Best Offer on it, for people buying 10 or more items. Which I found to be very interesting. Because the listing states: "Only 3 items left in stock". So I don't see how anybody could order 10. Even though his message was very polite, I still consider it to be dishonest. Because of the claim the Best Offer price is for orders of 10 or more, which it is clearly not. So I decided to just ignore his counter offer of paying the full price. Instead I paid $1.50 extra to order the same item from another seller. So this seller just lost a sale by listing a Best Offer, that he had no intention of accepting.
It's still baffles me why sellers put Best Offer on listings of they are not willing to accept a reasonable best offer.
I had a seller overprice a Lilly Pullitzer dress. I offered her what it cost in the store and she turned me down. I walked over to my closest Lilly store and bought it there.
I had a seller overprice a Lilly Pullitzer dress. I offered her what it cost in the store and she turned me down. I walked over to my closest Lilly store and bought it there.
Yeah, I see a lot of scammers like that. Trying to sell an item for ridiculously high price when it is easily available elsewhere for a fraction of the cost. I guess they just keep listing it in hopes that some clueless person will come along and buy it at their inflated price.
Last week I saw one listing that was kind of the opposite of that. This listing for an item was for a ridiculously low price. He was asking $13 for the item. Every other seller on eBay was asking about $45 for the exact same brand new item. The first red flag I saw was that his eBay account was 15 years old and he had lots of feedback as a buyer, but no feedback as a seller whatsoever. He had no other items for sale. Just five of this one item for a ridiculously low price. I knew that it was too good to be true, but it was also too good to pass up. So I decided to try and buy it. When I tried to pay for it, I kept getting an error, and an message to contact PayPal customer service. The next day I tried to buy it again. Now it was showing 4 available 1 sold. Then I really wanted it, because it looked like somebody else was able to buy one. No luck, I still got the same PayPal error. I came back the next day to try again and the item was gone. The seller had no items for sale, and no indication that he had sold anything.
I know it was a scam, but what I would like to know is, how does it work? What was he trying to accomplish listing an item for a ridiculously low price, that can't be bought at that price? If somebody knows what he was doing, please tell me.
Again - bottom line: if they don't accept your offer - it's done!! Move on. Reading comprehension isn't on the top of the list for some people (as seen on many message boards - maybe they'll learn, maybe they won't but it honestly isn't worth stressing over.
Again - bottom line: if they don't accept your offer - it's done!! Move on. Reading comprehension isn't on the top of the list for some people (as seen on many message boards - maybe they'll learn, maybe they won't but it honestly isn't worth stressing over.
Who is not moving on? When a seller rejects my BOP, I'm finished with that seller. I don't even make a counter offer, or pay full price at that point. I'm finished with them. I'm not going to buy from that seller at any price. That is moving on.
I'm just trying to understand the mentality of sellers who put BOP in their listing, and then refuse to accept any price below full price. I'm coming to the conclusion that some of the sellers are just stupid. For the record I didn't even start this thread to rant about it. I started it to figure out if I as a buyer was doing something wrong with my best offers, and if I needed to improve.
Best Offer can mean both higher and lower over what is listed. A lot depends on what your buying and the selling venue. A classic car at a swap meet could be $X obo which probably means the highest of the lower haggled price from what was listed; while at a classic car sales event its more along the highest offer over the $X posted price gets it.
Best Offer can mean both higher and lower over what is listed. A lot depends on what your buying and the selling venue. A classic car at a swap meet could be $X obo which probably means the highest of the lower haggled price from what was listed; while at a classic car sales event its more along the highest offer over the $X posted price gets it.
Thanks, that's an interesting point. I never thought about a BOP being above the listing price. But why would anyone make a best offer above the listing price? Wouldn't they just use the Buy It Now option or go through the regular bidding process?
As for my case, why would a seller put BOP on an item, if they are not willing to accept any lower price?
What was he trying to accomplish listing an item for a ridiculously low price, that can't be bought at that price? If somebody knows what he was doing, please tell me.
I had something like that happen once but the sale never got completed until the point came where the seller cancelled it.
What I think happened is that the experienced buyer but first time seller goofed badly on her listings and didn't realize it until somebody made a purchase.
She had 4 items up and they all disappeared within a few days.
All looked like they should have had a zero added like $10 should have been $100
I never did go back to see if sometime later they were relisted
I had something like that happen once but the sale never got completed until the point came where the seller cancelled it.
What I think happened is that the experienced buyer but first time seller goofed badly on her listings and didn't realize it until somebody made a purchase.
She had 4 items up and they all disappeared within a few days.
All looked like they should have had a zero added like $10 should have been $100
I never did go back to see if sometime later they were relisted
That's a good point. My first thought was that this guy just goofed, but then he didn't remove the listing for severals days, and PayPal wouldn't let me make the payment. So I figured that he didn't have his payment method set correctly. I was using an eBay Gift Card, which I knew I had enough balance on, so I knew the problem wasn't on my end. At that point I just had a funny feeling, that it must be some type of scam. But you are probably right. He is just an inexperienced seller, and he didn't know what he was doing.
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What kind of counter offer is that? He did write me a very polite message and explained that his price was already the lowest on eBay, and that he only put the Best Offer on it, for people buying 10 or more items. Which I found to be very interesting. Because the listing states: "Only 3 items left in stock". 
- maybe they'll learn, maybe they won't but it honestly isn't worth stressing over.
