[bounce]

I have to be honest - I LOVE the eBay 15% off coupons.

As a seller and a buyer, this is absolutely the best offer that comes around each month (seems like it's been about once a month lately?).

But I have to tell you, from a sellers perspective, BUYERS STOP BEING SO GREEDY!

Perfect example on the sell side today...

I have had a card listed for almost 6 weeks now, Buy It Now price was $325 accepting offers. I have received no less than 6 OFFERS during that time at $275 for this card. In the past month and change, 11 of the last 13 sales of the card have gone at $300 or MORE, some as high as $365. I have countered every single offer that was over $250 at $300, but no one took me up on it.

Today, I reached out to the last two offers to let them know the card was still available, and that there was a 15% off coupon today that they could use. One of them offered on the card today again probably 10 minutes after I sent that message - at $275 again! I countered at $300. Buyer didn't accept, despite the fact that this very card would only cost $255 today after coupon, $20 less than the original offer!

Please keep in mind - I TOLD THIS BUYER ABOUT THE COUPON - I guarantee that's the only reason the offer came again.

Fortunately, the other buyer sent me a message and said thanks for letting him know about the coupon because he wasn't aware of it, he offered the $300 and picked up the card. HOORAY! I got my $300, he actually only paid $255. How is that not win win for both of us?

Here's the lessons I learned today:
1) There are still so many eBay users that are not being reached by these promotions, and this one was available to literally everyone. eBay is clearly not reaching it's users effectively.
2) So many of the regular eBay users are TERRIBLE AT MATH. If you're willing to pay $275 for a card that is all of a sudden 15% off, you could have literally offered $323.53 and paid only $275. Duh!
3) There are so many eBay buyers that EXPECT sellers to pass on every single discount/coupon that may come up, whether it comes to the seller directly or to the buyer directly - doesn't matter.


From the buying perspective, kudos to those that suggested "parking" items in your cart for days like today. I don't know that I'm going to be able to maximize the savings, but I do have 4 items already teed up and I'm searching for a couple others that will hopefully let me get to the max. And there's one card that's not quite the quality that I want but for 15% off I may still go ahead and pull the trigger.

I would agree with others that have said it's pretty tough to find things at decent buy it now prices, but I tend to define that as within 10-20% of the normal selling price. On days like today, I would certainly expect some sellers to know to be more aggressive in acceptance of offers that were close.