And really, I mean this more as a tip than any kind of rant. It might be best to think a little before submitting your Best Offer on items on eBay. I’ve said before there’s a certain threshold where I likely won’t even respond with a counter-offer (under 50% for me), but if you want a reasonable counteroffer it pays to make a strong first offer.
Take a $20 item with Best Offer.
If you offer me $10, I’m likely going to respond with a counteroffer of $16, possibly even $18, depending on factors mentioned below.
By the same token, if you offer me $15, I may very well accept without further negotiation.
I respond to all Best Offers manually. I do this because I have a good markup on all of my items, so while I do have standards for what I’ll take, they are subject to fluctuations depending on several factors:
- I’ll do a better price for you on 5 items than I would 1
- Maybe I’m having a bad sales week and open to lower offers or vice-versa, having a good one and less open to any offers
- If I was just offering an item at auction, I may be more willing to take a lower price if it’s in line with what my previous minimum bid had been
- By the same token, I want more for a somewhat fresh item in stock but am very willing to listen on items which have been sitting in my Store for a long time
- Also, if you have 0-10 feedback, I’m less likely to accept a low offer.
Those are just some of the factors I take into account on every offer I receive.
But one thing’s for sure, the lower it is A) the more likely you are to be outright rejected; B) the more likely my counter-offer is as high as reasonably possible because I have to anticipate a further counteroffer by you.
Great post! And you are right on about the factors. For me I pay such a low price I usually accept most all offers! Love your blog btw!!! Please send me links to your posts on twitter now and then so I can retweet
Good post. I am going to re-think some of my future best offers instead of going as low as reasonably possible right off the bat.
I once received an offer of $250.00 on an item that I had up for $2,750.00. C’mon get real.
Thanks, Danna, I always tweet them out in general, though my posting volume isn’t too high over here. Most of my blogging is elsewhere and related directly to the collectibles I sell, but I wanted to keep a place where I could “speak my piece” about e-commerce too, since that’s basically what I’m doing day in, day out.
I’ve also recently begun contributing to John Lawson’s colderICE blog, which is where any of my “bigger” concepts will likely appear. Going to keep the quicker hitting ideas like this over here though.
Thanks again, Cliff
Hi John Paul,
Thanks for reading and commenting.
There’s a feel that goes along with best offer–I don’t know if you sell vintage like I do, but way back pre-eBay
I did baseball card shows and attended antiques shows. There’s a definite give and take involved with offers, a feature I love being brought to the table with online sales.
The only difference is no one is going to dare offer you $250 to on that item in a face to face situation. Anonymity rules online, so you’ve got to do your best not to get upset at the lowball offers–they are inevitable.
But yes, even in the higher price range, let’s say your looking for $2,000 on that item, $1,800 absolute bottom. Well, first I’d outright reject the $250 offer myself, but let’s say you got a more reasonable initial offer of $1,500. Okay, it’s lowball, but this person is likely a real buyer. I’m probably coming back at him with $2,200 first go around–I might even qualify it with a text message of some sort saying how you’d love to work with him, but you can only go this low.
If they want the item they’re likely going to come up, and they might come right into your range of acceptability on the second offer–if they do, you can try to max it out with yet another counter offer, but if they’re not biting, you might have them hooked at a passable price already.
In other words, item marked $2,750, you want $2,000, you’ll take $1,800
Buyer offers $1,500
You counter $2,200
Buyer splits difference, $1,850
You counter $2,000
Sold!
Remember, you want the sale, but anytime there’s any movement to a second offer from a buyer, they likely want the item just as much as you want the sale.
Thanks again, Cliff