making offers

[sandbagger_one]

The one thing that pees me right off about 'make an offer' listings is when the offer expires...usually because the seller can't be a**** accepting. Or sometimes you do make an offer for something which is, say, £20, there are three to choose from (£18 £19 £20) so you take the first one...only for the seller to reject that one. So why give £18 as an offer, why? (I'm using this as an example). Sellers who put three offers on the table to choose from should just take the first one because, at the end of the day, it's still money in the bank.

[roger_roger_over_and_nowt · Accepted solution]

"Sellers who put three offers on the table to choose from"

Ebay does that ,not the seller.It's an,erm,cough cough,"suggestion".

Also,some sellers are not even aware that an offer has been made.There are other posts from sellers saying they only saw an offer had been made after it had expired.

[sandbagger_one]

Okay, so it's eBay who put the offers on the table but, if a buyer chooses the first one, then the seller should accept. On some listings with the 'best offer' option, you make what you think is a good offer...only for the seller to reject and you could find yourself railroaded in paying the Buy It Now price. Say if I saw a copy of Classic Bus magazine for £10, I may not want to pay that so I'd make a cheeky offer of £6 (which I think is a fair price). That gets rejected so I go for £8 but the seller's being a greedy so in the end I'm having to pay well over the odds for a magazine that doesn't cost that much from the publishers as a back issue.

At the moment, I've had to up my offer on a Britains Kubelwagen...something that only cost a few quid back in 1982. By using a price difference calculator site, most sellers could research the price of say a Dinky Toy Routemaster from 1977, type in the retail price from then, calculate it and the result will give them what it's worth today, which would a good guide price. Most sellers behave like those who went on Four Rooms, got an idea in their head of how much they want but decide to go way over that, infuriating the dealers.

No, if I see something I like for say £50 then it's got to be worth it otherwise it's the biggest put-off ever.

[lucy_farmer]

'Okay, so it's eBay who put the offers on the table but, if a buyer chooses the first one, then the seller should accept'

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The seller doesn't have to accept any of ebays 'suggestions'.

(Ebay spent many years 'suggesting' that acutions should start at 99p. And 50% of the time, that is what the item would have sold at, had they accepted the 'suggestion' )

The seller can ask what they want for *their* item. If it doesn't sell at that price, well so be it.

It's not for ebay to tell the seller how much they're going to sell it for....

[crafty_cat_lover]

But what you think an item is worth is not necessarily what everyone else thinks. Personally I know what I want for my items and I also know what dealers are willing to pay which is usually way less and then they add 200% to the price they've paid. I am happy to wait for a buyer who is willing to pay my reasonable price and the greedy dealers can go do one.