Sending Offers, Good or bad?

[threeeight-3d]

We Currently make a habit of sending potential customers offers when they are available, However scrolling though the community board there seems to be a fair few threads, where customers are annoyed by the barrage of offers they receive.

I have two questions for buyers and sellers

Have any sellers here experimented with sending/not sending offers and what where the results like?

As a Buyer have you been put off of a product by an offer, that you otherwise would have purchased or made an offer upon?

[sheba-knows-best]

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@stecomedia wrote:

Sometimes I will send an offer to perennial watchers and none of them buy. During the (now 4 day!) offer period where the listing is locked, and I can't send offers to later watchers,

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I don't think that's true. You can send as many offers on an item as you have new watchers.  Or that is my understanding...

[pg_kicks]

I agree its how business works both sides have to agree on the price, but I worked in retail and many friends still do, if they were having to reduce around 70% of stock to sell then the buyers wouldnt be in jobs still. I'm glad it works for you but in my eyes I'd rather not reduce that much stock, the joys of business means multiple different routes can work though. 

Please dont be bemused, I get it Im just shocked you have to reduce so much stock thats all, you are clearly succesful and have a good online store our views just differ. 

Like I said I make offers when its available, who wouldnt get something for cheaper even if it is already under priced, my view is though if you price the item correctly it will most likely sell without having to send offers, then when you want to liquidate you can reduce the price but it seems silly having that option straight away. Again if your system is working for you then keep it up. I don't think age has anything to do with it tbh, going off your daughters age I'm probably in the middle of you both, we all just have different ideas on how to be succesful, hopefully we all can be.

I never said they have fewer rights by sending/accepting offers, that was to your statement that eBay are keeping up with what custoemrs want, I'd say they do somewhat but they mainly look after themselves not the customer first.

Hopefully everyone can be succesful in their different routes, nobody is wrong or right as long as they sell for a profit at the end of the year. 

[auctiongabble]

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't contribute towards a sale.  Weekend gone, relisted some items and sent aorund 30 offers out, nothing back not even counter offers.  Offers received lately are laughable, wanting 30% to 50% off

[threeeight-3d]

i hate it when buyers send us offers like that 30-50%, When that happens we tend to refuse all offers from that buyer, even if they make a offer we'd normally accept.

[auctiongabble]

Same here, i dont counter offer as there is no point.  Any people making offers this low are usually the ones that aren't serious and will complete the purchase or they have a tendancy to be trouble

[threeeight-3d]

I have to agree there if you expect to receive a 30-50% Discount your expectations are way too high, and your most likely going to be a problem buyer best avoided.

[vinylscot]

I've had two exceptionally silly offers recently, both requesting a discount of over 50% on items which were already competitively priced. (one offer of £35 for an item priced at £80)

I didn't respond to their offers, just let them time out.

Both "buyers" are now on my blocked bidders list.

[m25jet]

@threeeight-3d wrote:

i hate it when buyers send us offers like that 30%-50%, When that happens we tend to refuse all offers from that buyer, even if they make a offer we'd normally accept.

There's one way to stop timewasters who do that.  If you set up a listing with the Best Offer option included set the listing up to automatically accept offers equal to, or greater than, the minimum price that you want for the item, as well as setting it up to automatically reject offers that are lower than the minimum amount that you are prepared to accept.  That way you don't have to manually review the offers and make a decision as to whether to accept, counteroffer or reject them (unless you've left a middle ground between the highest amount to automatically reject and the lowest amount to automatically accept), as if the buyer sends an offer that is equal to, or greater than, the minimum price that you want for the item then the autoaccept function will kick in and he/she will see the page refresh and a message along the lines of "Your offer has been accepted.  Please pay now" flashing up on the screen, thus prompting him/her to pay for the item.  If, on the other hand, the buyer's offer was too low to be worth considering then the autoreject feature will inform the buyer that the offer has been rejected.  It's something that I used to do before I gave up selling on eBay and it saved me a lot of aggravation having to reject stupid offers from timewasters.

[bravergrace]

As a buyer, my reaction to offers is quite complex.

 If I'm hesitating whether to buy an item, it isn't because of the price.  It's because of suitability.  I put it on my watch list to give me a few days to decide.  An offer won't make me buy it before I've checked the measurements/compatibility.  But it may make me decide to buy elsewhere, if the offer expires before I have decided whether this particular egg-cosy will fit my duck eggs or whatever it may be. 

You see, the offer makes me feel uncomfortable paying the full asking price. 

I daresay most of us feel the same about buying from a touristy antique shop, a furniture store or a double-glazing salesman.  We know that every price is fictitious, designed purely to let the salesman offer a 50% discount.  And we wouldn't consider paying full price, because it marks us out as suckers.  Even if we make an offer and it's accepted, we are left with a lurking feeling that perhaps we're still being ripped off.

Obviously, the considerations are different depending on whether you're buying a one-off oil portrait, a pack of wet wipes or a bathroom suite. 

[sportex-uk]

I never send offers, as the uptake is fairly small and I just set the price accordingly.

But when I'm planning to buy something and it's not urgent, I always add it to the basket first and wait a few days for upcoming offers. Then I buy immediately.

[sheba-knows-best]

Well... I didn't expect my experiment to be quite this conclusive.

I usually send out my offers on a daily basis. Sent 200ish on Saturday morning. Sent ZERO on Sunday despite having 188 watchers by the end of the day. I sent out nearly 200 this morning... There is a rather telling gap, right? I can also confirm that most of today's sales are linked to the offers (although some people bought one on offer and one at full price)

Whilst I do agree that not all tools work for all businesses, I think sometimes it is important to be open to the possibility of change before deciding.

I don't use pay per click because I think buyers use my listings to check measurements etc and then try and source it cheaper elsewhere. So that does not suit my business. However, I don't use multi-buy or next day delivery, not because I don't think both will increase my sales (they would), but because of my mental happiness (I would worry about missing delivery deadlines, I don't like panic-y last minute buyers, I dont like to use anything that will increase my proportion of returns). 

I think a fair few businesses would benefit from inflating prices by 20%. Using coupons or sales would then give visibility without need for PL. We know buyers dont always buy the cheapest. We know people like sales.

I don't care if people use offers or not. But I ran an experiment for my own interest... and I think I learned something. So I'm just sharing.