Interesting article on eBay offer negotiations

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by Eric72

Define "several hours." If you send an offer at 10 p.m. and the seller doesn't respond until the morning, are they off the island?

Use common sense. I'm not going to submit an offer at 10 p.m.

[Eric72]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Use common sense. I'm not going to submit an offer at 10 p.m.

Don’t be a jerk. I did use common sense. People frequently send offers late at night.

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Use common sense. I'm not going to submit an offer at 10 p.m.

You have common sense, and I have common sense. The rest of the eBay population...Well, George Carlin said it best: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that"

[BillyCoxDodgers3B]

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

You have common sense, and I have common sense. The rest of the eBay population...Well, George Carlin said it best: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that"

If there was ever a more timely point in history where the world needed Carlin...

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Use common sense. I'm not going to submit an offer at 10 p.m.

I'm not sure what common sense has to do with what time you submit an offer. The seller usually has 48 hours to respond to so (aside from what this research is trying to show), I'm not sure why it makes any difference what time the offer is sent.

[jingram058]

Originally Posted by jayshum

I'm not sure what common sense has to do with what time you submit an offer. The seller usually has 48 hours to respond to so (aside from what this research is trying to show), I'm not sure why it makes any difference what time the offer is sent.

Rest assured, after letting me go for 48 hours before responding, or more likely no response at all, I will never again buy anything from that seller.

[jayshum]

Originally Posted by jingram058

Rest assured, after letting me go for 48 hours before responding, or more likely no response at all, I will never again buy anything from that seller.

Sure, if they never respond then I can see not buying from a seller, but I don't have a problem submitting an offer late at night and not getting a response for a day or so. A lot of people selling on eBay are also working full time jobs and may not be able to respond right away.

[raulus]

Some interesting takes on here, particularly for people who have been willing to express an opinion regarding ratios and percentages. I'll share a sale from just 2 days ago on eBay, and the negotiation that occurred.

I had a nice little PSA-graded Mays exhibit for sale, not real common for the grade, with a couple of recent sales on eBay at that grade. One recent sale at $360, and another at $357. Knowing that everyone loves to play the game and feel like they got a deal by talking me down, I priced it slightly above this level at $390, and included the possibility to make offers. Can't remember where I set the automatic rejection level, but it was probably around $330 or $340. I figure anything below that, it's not worth even trying to counter.

Couple of days ago, I received an offer at $350. It looks like his first few offers were autorejected, as he had just 2 offers left. For those of you doing the math at home, this is a 10.25% discount off of the asking price. So for some who expect a bigger discount when making offers, I suppose this would have been aggravating.

Knowing that he and I probably weren't far apart, but wanting to get right up to where the last few sales had occurred, I countered within about 30 mins at $360.

He accepted, and I shipped it off to him yesterday. If he had countered at $355, would I have accepted? Probably? I guess we'll never know, since he didn't try. I suspect he decided that $5 wasn't enough to bother arguing about, although other buyers have certainly haggled with me back and forth with offers over such small pricing differences in the past.

In many ways, the whole thing seemed a lot less exciting than most of the comments on this thread. But maybe it's because my asking price wasn't much more than comps, and I was happy to come down to comps, whereas the buyer was happy to come up to comps after probing me at a little below comps, and in spite of a couple of autorejections.

In the end, no one got banned, and I was happy with the sale. With any luck, the buyer will be happy with his purchase, at least once it gets there after going through the authentication process.

[Vintagedeputy]

This post and article are timely for me. I am a reseller on eBay and was just today laughing about a best offer that I received.

I have an unusual item with no comps listed for $49.95. The item has been listed for less than 24 hours and I’ve had five views. Today someone offered me $25. That’s a 50% offer. I countered with $35 and a nice message saying thank you for your offer, I’ll be happy to meet you in the middle at $35. Now that’s really not in the middle and it’s giving more for the buyer and less for me but I was willing to take $35.

They countered my offer of $35 and went up three bucks to $28. I have a hard time believing they think that three dollar bump is really going to win the item for them when their initial offer was at 50% of my asking price. Lowballers really seem to not want to win the item sometimes.

ETA - 5 minutes after I posted this someone offered me $45 for the item and I took it.

[vintagerookies51]

I must be getting offers from different people than y’all. I routinely get offers that are just ridiculous, like sub-$3000 for a decent 1933 Goudey Ruth. When I see that notification on my phone, I don’t even bother going into the app to reject it. I always list mine at quite a bit more than I’m willing to take for it since I know people will haggle no matter how fair the starting price is, so I usually have a pretty sizable percentage I’m willing to go down. But when I get goofy offers like that, I don’t bother acknowledging them. I suppose I could set up automatic rejections, but sometimes it’s entertaining seeing what people will offer.

[nwobhm]

Originally Posted by vintagerookies51

I must be getting offers from different people than y’all. I routinely get offers that are just ridiculous, like sub-$3000 for a decent 1933 Goudey Ruth. When I see that notification on my phone, I don’t even bother going into the app to reject it. I always list mine at quite a bit more than I’m willing to take for it since I know people will haggle no matter how fair the starting price is, so I usually have a pretty sizable percentage I’m willing to go down. But when I get goofy offers like that, I don’t bother acknowledging them. I suppose I could set up automatic rejections, but sometimes it’s entertaining seeing what people will offer.

Or counter back with a # you will accept…. You admit you over priced it yet there is an issue with a low offer. It cuts both ways.

[raulus]

Originally Posted by vintagerookies51

I must be getting offers from different people than y’all. I routinely get offers that are just ridiculous, like sub-$3000 for a decent 1933 Goudey Ruth. When I see that notification on my phone, I don’t even bother going into the app to reject it. I always list mine at quite a bit more than I’m willing to take for it since I know people will haggle no matter how fair the starting price is, so I usually have a pretty sizable percentage I’m willing to go down. But when I get goofy offers like that, I don’t bother acknowledging them. I suppose I could set up automatic rejections, but sometimes it’s entertaining seeing what people will offer.

I’d definitely go with autorejections. Either that or be okay with getting notifications for every silly offer.

I also don’t have any Ruth playing days cards for sale. The last Ruth I sold went for $25 a few months ago.