Ebay best offers?

[buymycards]

That goes for eBay sellers and COMC sellers. There are sellers on both sites who actually go in and raise the BIN prices if you send them an offer. I don't quite understand that.

A lot of my eBay items are BIN/BO. Generally, if I don't have much room to negotiate, I list it as a straight BIN, but if someone makes me an offer I will consider it. Most of the time I list my Best Offer items a couple of bucks higher than I normally would so I have room to negotiate. I have sold a lot of items at 50-60% of my BIN price. Of course, most of my items are low cost items that I buy in lots to break up and sell individually. For things like tobacco cards, Goudey's, etc., it is tough to find them at a low enough cost to flip them on eBay and make a profit, so those are generally straight BIN's.

So, back to your original question. I have never understood a seller who list's their item as Best Offer, but they aren't will to accept an offer that is close to their asking price. They just end up pissing off potential buyers.

[doug.goodman]

Originally Posted by buymycards

That goes for eBay sellers and COMC sellers. There are sellers on both sites who actually go in and raise the BIN prices if you send them an offer. I don't quite understand that.

There is a group of 30 m114s on ebay right now for $599. in August of 2019 they were listed for $299. I reached out to the seller and offered to buy 5 of the items in the lot for $100 (double the average, and I wasn't asking for the Gehrig or other big names).

His response was to raise the BIN to where it is now.

Oh well. 14 months later it's still there.

Yes, collectibles_1, I'm talking about your listing.

I have since then found one of the 5...

The hunt is the fun part anyway.

[Jim65]

I set my offer limit for the absolute least I will take, if someone offers that amount or above, I accept.

People who offer $5 on a $100 item aren't serious buyers and aren't worth my time.

[Case12]

COMC and Mill Creek Sports frustrate me. Best offer always 10%off. Never more. They rarely ,(or never) come down on price and will sit there for years. I put things from them in my watch list just to remind me to look somewhere else from time to time.
What I really do not like is Best Offer on a Starting bid. eBay added this about a year ago. As a buyer it wastes my time. It's basically a reserve. Anything else above is a crap shoot. It's not bidding. It's rather somewhat random. I end up sending a separate message to seller asking what they are looking for. Might as well put BIN and save us time.

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by Case12

COMC and Mill Creek Sports frustrate me. Best offer always 10%off. Never more. They rarely ,(or never) come down on price and will sit there for years. I put things from them in my watch list just to remind me to look somewhere else from time to time.

COMC is about 5000 different sellers. The majority will consider offers on comc.com , where the pricing is at least 15% cheaper than cross-listed to eBay. So you may be holding a grudge where none belongs.

I know I consider offers of half off my COMC list price. So if I have a card for $100 on COMC, you can submit an offer of $50 or more. The same card would be listed as BIN (no OBO) on eBay for $115 or so. Plus at any given time, 400 COMC sellers are running sales off their COMC pricing which does not make their cards on eBay any cheaper. So I could run a 70% off sale on COMC, and the card will now be available for $30 on COMC and still cost $115 on eBay.

There are some jerks like JoelHitShow who will normally reject your offer and double the price, but once you learn which users those are, you either buy the card at their price or go to the next guy.

[jakebeckleyoldeagleeye]

Originally Posted by Case12

COMC and Mill Creek Sports frustrate me. Best offer always 10%off. Never more. They rarely ,(or never) come down on price and will sit there for years. I put things from them in my watch list just to remind me to look somewhere else from time to time.
What I really do not like is Best Offer on a Starting bid. eBay added this about a year ago. As a buyer it wastes my time. It's basically a reserve. Anything else above is a crap shoot. It's not bidding. It's rather somewhat random. I end up sending a separate message to seller asking what they are looking for. Might as well put BIN and save us time.

Mill Creek will give you a dollar off on best offers then charge you the same dollar for postal costs on multiple buys. After charging me $15 for postal costs on multiple winners (which only cost $5 to send) I won't buy from them again. I bought over 50 signed 1975 Topps from one seller and he charged me only $3.99 for all!

[oldeboo]

Originally Posted by jakebeckleyoldeagleeye

Mill Creek will give you a dollar off on best offers then charge you the same dollar for postal costs on multiple buys. After charging me $15 for postal costs on multiple winners (which only cost $5 to send) I won't buy from them again. I bought over 50 signed 1975 Topps from one seller and he charged me only $3.99 for all!

I've learned my lesson on that before. One time I won 5 rather low dollar cards and the seller refused to combine shipping. I think he wanted $25 for the shipping of 5 raw cards. I chalked it up as a lesson learned and insisted that he send each card in it's own padded mailer if that was his choosing. I won't bid on anything anymore without combined shipping being specifically mentioned in the listing. If you want to upcharge shipping by a buck or two, fine, I get that there are material costs, gas costs to go to the post office, handling time, etc. I'm perfectly fine with that. Charging $25 for $4 worth of shipping, no thanks that's borderline theft. Again, lesson learned.

[Kidnapped18]

The vast majority of the eBay BIN amounts for cards are way overpriced. I buy very few cards on eBay so it really does not affect me. I also appreciate the sellers who are willing to negotiate and come down to a reasonable price.

It amazes me that a card will be auctioned or bought for $500 on eBay then within a week or two that same card is being sold again on eBay for $1,500 plus. If you collect a certain type of card then you know the going price and know when one is for sale so if you weren't willing to go more than $500 in the original auction why would you pay 3 times plus a week later for the same card?

There is a reason that a lot of the cards on eBay have remained there months and months on end. If the cards were priced reasonably then the cards would have already sold.

I believe some sellers just use eBay to show off their collections as no person who has any knowledge of the cards value will pay some of those prices.

[Ronnie73]

Almost always, when I list a card for sale on eBay, I uncheck the best offer option. After a week or ten days, if it hasn't sold, eBay decides on their own to add the best offer option, even though I unchecked it and didn't want any of their price decreases over time or anything else. Depending on what I list, certain cards I just automatically price at my rock bottom price. So technically there is no room for a best offer. When eBay does this, I try to catch it in time and have to go into each auction, one at a time and remove the checkmark again and then verify that it saved the change. Nearly half of them don't save the change, so I have to go in a third time. I hate it. It's even worse trying to explain that your not accepting offers on an item that says Best Offer. Other cards where I have room to make a profit on, when eBay adds the Best Offer option, I leave it there. I try not to do too much back and forth offers. If I made money and it free's up some cash for my T206's, I usually accept. Yesterday I got offered I think $10.20 on a card I listed for $15. I priced it at $15 because that's what the same card had sold for recently or I price it a couple dollars lower than the other cards in the same grade are listed for. I don't bother with a price guide. So I checked my records and saw that I paid $3.97 for the card. So I accepted the $10.20 offer. Many people would have countered at $12. But I've been on the other end of the Best Offer and when the seller is trying to get an extra dollar and change out of me, If I really don't need the card and it's basically something I'm gonna end up selling a year later because it doesn't fit anywhere in my collection, I just let the offer expire. But the only time I'd be cheap on a Best Offer from a buyer is if I never had the intension of a Best Offer option being added. When it happens, I'm completely honest and if there's a few dollars I can drop it at, I will. Or I just ask the magic question, Are you a Net54 or Tobacco Row member? If they say yes, A deal is done out of eBay and they pay even less than they offered, and I make more than I was even asking. It's great when that happens.

[hcv123]

I almost always list my items with "best offer". I am always curious to see what type offers people send. Sometimes they are reasonable, sometimes they are ridiculous. As far as what I will accept, it depends on a few factors including - How much $ do I own it for, What if determinable is current market price, How long have I had it listed, How much do I want to sell it. Certain items that I feel like I have priced right, I negotiate very little maybe 5%-8%, other items I have accepted offers at 60%-70% of my ask. 2 interesting scenarios just recently happened - I listed a card about 2 months ago at what was then the market price. I got an offer at about a 20% discount to my BIN - I looked back at current sales and the price on the last couple of sales had fallen - so I took the offer. I had another card that I have listed for a while (7months+) - I received a couple of offers at 20% off my ask. It is a REALLY rare card with no recent price history - I declined the offer and raised the price - realizing that I really wouldn't want to sell the card at even 5% lower than my original ask.
I do believe people often feel the need to haggle or will pass even on a good deal.
As a buyer - the rare times I offer less than 80% of ask,I try to support my offer with recent sales or some other relevant information.

[Jayworld]

I don't and have never understood the buyers that have a BIN or Best Offer, and you offer $2-3 below BIN, and then it is immediately rejected, and then you up it to $1 under BIN, and it is immediately rejected. This happens several times, especially for vintage sports magazines. At one point, the seller wanted $45, so I offered $38 (immediately rejected), then I offered $42 (immediately rejected), then I offered, on a lark, $44 (immediately rejected). As you know, if you get rejected three times, it does not allow you to make an offer anymore, but my point is, why offer a "Best Offer" if you aren't willing to accept $1 less than a BIN. I get it for a $10 item, but not for a $45. The magazine still sits there, and I was a legitimate buyer and would have (and do) pay immediately.

[sbfinley]

Literally 20 minutes ago about I found an item I was looking for at $349.99 BIN BO. Offered $325 - auto rejected. Offered $335 - auto rejected. Didn’t want to waste another 10 seconds of my life and bought it for $349.99. Well played guy.

[Exhibitman]

Maybe the seller doesn't really want to sell but has to list the item for sale for some other reason (e.g., the wife demands he start selling stuff) so he puts in a high price and doesn't budge? Could it be a very rare item? Or he could be into it for too much and doesn't want to take a loss?

Can't forget the nutty market right now with some items, either. There are a growing # of players it just makes no sense to discount.

[TedWill1939]

Originally Posted by Jayworld

I don't and have never understood the buyers that have a BIN or Best Offer, and you offer $2-3 below BIN, and then it is immediately rejected, and then you up it to $1 under BIN, and it is immediately rejected. This happens several times, especially for vintage sports magazines. At one point, the seller wanted $45, so I offered $38 (immediately rejected), then I offered $42 (immediately rejected), then I offered, on a lark, $44 (immediately rejected). As you know, if you get rejected three times, it does not allow you to make an offer anymore, but my point is, why offer a "Best Offer" if you aren't willing to accept $1 less than a BIN. I get it for a $10 item, but not for a $45. The magazine still sits there, and I was a legitimate buyer and would have (and do) pay immediately.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. I have never had this happen outside of card collecting.

The only explanation that makes any sense is what Ronnie73 said about ebay doing a OBO wjithout seller approval

[swarmee]

Originally Posted by Ronnie73

Or I just ask the magic question, Are you a Net54 or Tobacco Row member? If they say yes, A deal is done out of eBay and they pay even less than they offered, and I make more than I was even asking. It's great when that happens.

Until eBay reads your message traffic and cancels your account...

[Jim65]

Originally Posted by swarmee

Until eBay reads your message traffic and cancels your account...

Exactly. If a buyer messages a seller about an item and that item is then taken down, thats an instant red flag for Ebay.

[Eric72]

Yes, eBay adds the best offer option without seller approval.

A message will suddenly appear in my inbox titled, "Your listings can now accept offers to attract more buyers." The body of the email goes on, "Your chances of selling have just gone up...Buyers can now make offers on your listings..."

As Ronnie described, this wasn't requested...eBay just makes it happen. The first time I got an offer this way, I was more than a bit surprised.

So, put yourself in the seller's shoes. You list an item and specifically do not want to deal with offers. However, eBay basically ignores your wishes and offers begin to appear. I can see why some sellers would reject every offer.

[Casey2296]

Originally Posted by Jim65

Exactly. If a buyer messages a seller about an item and that item is then taken down, thats an instant red flag for Ebay.

I recently bought an E121 from an eBay seller, after a couple cryptic emails I ended up calling him and making a deal, we talked for 30 minutes about life in general, his unemployment and his pending double knee operation. I asked him how he handles just that problem. He said he would double the BIN price and in the event the card sold we would split the profit. After a few days the listing disappeared.