eBay Best Offer settings?

[Cryoguns]

Has anyone else run into this?

I listed several items on eBay about a week ago with Buy It Now at a fair price (I always aim for the lowest BIN pricing). I am aware eBay has changed their listing form to where "Best Offer" is on by default and you have to manually switch it off on every listing. I don't care to use this feature because I typically get a ton of requests for lowball offers and it just ends up wasting my time. So once everything was set with the listings, I went back through and switched off all the options for Best Offer.

This morning, I get an offer on one of the items. OK, strange...but maybe I missed one. I decline the offer and move on. A couple of hours later, I notice I've gotten the following email from eBay:

Subject: We’ve allowed buyers to make offers to help you sell

We’ve allowed buyers to make offers on 1 of your items

Hi xxxxxxx
Your item has been listed for more than a week, but views are low compared to other similar listings. The price may be too high. Letting buyers make offers will increase your chance of selling.


What the heck? Are they arbitrarily switching on Best Offer even after the seller deliberately turns it off on each individual auction?

 

[The Ween]

Seems that way. Trying posting in the EBay community boards and see if someone has the answer.

I know if you relist an item, you can't just hit relist, you have to edit that back out again.

 

[Chakor]

I haven't had this problem myself as I don't sell much on eBay, but I think your theory is 100% correct.

Like any corporate business, eBay is only in it for what gets them the most money. It only makes sense that they would alter a seller's settings for a listing if it means more pennies in their pockets. It's shady business, but that's modern eBay for you.

 

[ReplicantSavior]

Has anyone else run into this?

I listed several items on eBay about a week ago with Buy It Now at a fair price (I always aim for the lowest BIN pricing). I am aware eBay has changed their listing form to where "Best Offer" is on by default and you have to manually switch it off on every listing. I don't care to use this feature because I typically get a ton of requests for lowball offers and it just ends up wasting my time. So once everything was set with the listings, I went back through and switched off all the options for Best Offer.

This morning, I get an offer on one of the items. OK, strange...but maybe I missed one. I decline the offer and move on. A couple of hours later, I notice I've gotten the following email from eBay:

Subject: We’ve allowed buyers to make offers to help you sell

We’ve allowed buyers to make offers on 1 of your items

Hi xxxxxxx
Your item has been listed for more than a week, but views are low compared to other similar listings. The price may be too high. Letting buyers make offers will increase your chance of selling.


What the heck? Are they arbitrarily switching on Best Offer even after the seller deliberately turns it off on each individual auction?

I started an eBay warning topic here:

https://www.sideshowcollectors.com/...ions/176202-warning-collectors-sell-ebay.html

Their business practices are extremely poor for the seller these days. I'm not surprised at that email. I stopped selling there some time ago. But I did notice that you had to uncheck the best offer option. And I too received those extremely low offers on high priced items. People trying to get something for nothing...And of course eBay's "recommendations" when something didn't sell to price it lower. I'm talking items in the hundreds of dollars and eBay recommending to start the auctions at $100 or lower. They don't care, they just want the money to keep coming in but don't understand that without sellers there is no more eBay. The only way to get them to understand is for people to stop selling there. Also if you see an item you want and the seller has a store. Buy it at the seller's actual store as the item will most likely be cheaper without eBay and Paypal fees.

 

[Shawpaw]

My wife sells on eBay and she mentioned eBay changed all of her listings to best offer. eBay just sucks.

I no longer sell on eBay. I sell on Mercari now. sold 12 things in one week. I know I sound like an informercial but it’s been so much better than eBay. eBay doesn’t protect sellers. Mercari charges 10% fees and is much easier to use. Don’t need to use PayPal either (so extra 3%+ fee). Buyers only have 3 days to make a claim if any issue. After that, the sale is final.

 

[Cryoguns]

Yup, they're definitely doing it. They flipped over 10 more auctions this morning. I'm going to set auto decline high on all of these and explain it in my auction descriptions. Pretty crappy move on eBay's part. I'm in no hurry to sell my stuff and would rather wait until the right buyer comes along.

 

[Cryoguns]

I found a thread on eBay's community pages. It looks like something eBay is currently applying to low volume sellers on fixed price items.

The only acceptable thing out of their mess is that it does give the sellers the ability to set minimum acceptable offers as well as auto-accept offers. So I just went through and updated all of my auctions that had been changed with those. At least it minimizes my wasted time in ignoring lowball offers, but it's also bound to upset buyers that think the seller is interested in accepting offers and keep getting auto-rejected.

 

[Shawpaw]

eBay is no longer for small scale owners.

 

[DeltaForceChung]

I don't depend on eBay for sales. I do list some items, but I don't have an immediate or urgent need or want to sell them. If they sell, fine. If they don't, fine.

All of my items are fixed price and I don't accept offers from potential buyers. I do receive notices on items that have not sold where eBay "recommends" lowered prices, etc. I just ignore the e-mail and/or go into the item specified and make no changes and save it again as is.

eBay is primarily for buyers nowadays, but the diversity/selection of 1:6 goods is not what it used to be due to problematic buyers and sellers as well as greed and indifference from eBay.

 

[user 1190]

Who cares if they turn that on. Really they assume people want to sell an item. If it’s been for sale for a a while that means the price is likely high. So they are trying to help you sell(and make them money). Ignore the offers. No harm no foul.

 

[Shawpaw]

I think the point is that they do this without your permission. Also, I've listed things cheap...and still get lower offers. Someone offered my $30 for a HT once. No it wasn't Tonto.

 

[Cryoguns]

Who cares if they turn that on. Really they assume people want to sell an item. If it’s been for sale for a a while that means the price is likely high. So they are trying to help you sell(and make them money). Ignore the offers. No harm no foul.

Shawpaw was spot on in his reply. I've specifically opted out of Best Offer options and eBay is turning it back on anyway. That's annoying, along with having to go back and update all of my auctions that haven't sold after their time period of a week is a nuisance. It creates extra work for an option I don't want and have chosen not to use.