Ebay exposes sellers minimum offer amount

[smarts-gaming]

Often times people will post an expensive item for say 5k with offers open, going in with the intention of accepting an offer of minimum 4k. Makes complete sense from a sellers perspective. And you would think when doing this, "I'll accept as low as 4k, but hopefully someone offers 4.5k" etc.

So you would set your minimum offer amount to 4k. 

Unfortunately for you though, ebay will tell the buyer your minimum offer amount, which means its very unlikely for anyone to ever offer you 4.5k, when they might have if ebay hadnt told them the minimum offer amount. 

If you want to find out the minimum offer amount someone has set, all you have to do is offer a penny, have it declined, and then wait an hour or so. After that time period you'll receive a notification on your phone saying "Maybe you should offer 4k or above...." HINT HINT. I'm pretty sure it gives you the exact figure. The last one I had said "They would be more likely to accept an offer of 1998.99", for an item the seller had listed for 4.5k. 

This completely exposes your minimum offer amount, meaning for those in the know, it never makes sense to go in with a sensible offer to begin with, but rather to offer a penny to have it declined and find out the minimum they will accept. 

Just another broken feature to throw on the raging bonfire, and hey, it might help some of you out if youre buying! 🙂

[*vyolla*]

That's just an algorithm taking average prices and pitching them to you, not an exact science. 

[smarts-gaming]

Is there any evidence of this? 

It still negatively effects the seller regardless, because why would I offer 3.5k on his 4.5k item, when ebay is telling me I should offer 2k. 

[ed_58611]

As the seller sets the lowest acceptable offer amount themselves, presumably it is the price at which they would be happy to sell?

[roger_roger_over_and_nowt]

"when ebay is telling me I should offer 2k."

Thats just a ruse in the hope that you will make such an offer that gets you a more realistic counter offer or you get drawn into "i must have this item".

Dopomine rules lol.

[papso22]

Do you have any proof that ebay's suggestion is actually the sellers offer acceptance threshold or is it a theory?

[*vyolla*]

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@smarts-gaming wrote:

Is there any evidence of this? 

It still negatively effects the seller regardless, because why would I offer 3.5k on his 4.5k item, when ebay is telling me I should offer 2k. 

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It's how the internet works. You can do some research on how algorithms work if you feel inclined. 

If you offer 2k you may find that it's automatically declined because the seller has set their automatic decline price higher than 2k. 

[smarts-gaming]

Ebays algorithms are not privy to the public, so no matter how much research any of us did we would never actually know. In response to the other guy, I do not have evidence, its just a theory, and I don't fancy sending an offer of 2k just to find out, because I'm quite sure the seller would accept considering the items actual value is more like a tenner. 

So you may be right, but I'm not paying 2k just to find out. 

[jckl1957]

Really, offering a tiny amount for an expensive item is not a great idea.

If I had an item listed for thousands, or even hundreds, and somebody offered a penny, they would very quickly be on my blocked bidders list.

So, even if they genuinely were interested in my item, they wouldn't be able to buy it.

[smarts-gaming]

It would auto decline anyway so you would never know. I'm talking about if you set a minimum offer. 

[*vyolla*]

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@smarts-gaming wrote:

Ebays algorithms are not privy to the public, so no matter how much research any of us did we would never actually know. In response to the other guy, I do not have evidence, its just a theory, and I don't fancy sending an offer of 2k just to find out, because I'm quite sure the seller would accept considering the items actual value is more like a tenner. 

So you may be right, but I'm not paying 2k just to find out. 

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It's not rocket science working out how eBay's programming works, so we do know.

Your listing title is "eBay exposes sellers minimum offer amount" and we're trying to explain that eBay doesn't do that.

Anyway, moving forward, best thing is to make an offer of the price you're willing to pay and see what happens. Then you can't go wrong. 

[smarts-gaming]

Ok so tell me how you worked out ebays "programming" in order to work out that ebays notification system can give you prices BELOW the minimum offer amount (which would still be stupid and broken, by the way). 

[censualite]

I never add offers, waste of time

[*vyolla*]

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@smarts-gaming wrote:

Ok so tell me how you worked out ebays "programming" in order to work out that ebays notification system can give you prices BELOW the minimum offer amount (which would still be stupid and broken, by the way). 

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It works the same way as any other site that works on average prices for similar items.

With respect, if you're not understanding this there is no other way to explain it. Seriously, just offer what you're willing to pay. 

[smarts-gaming]

Well I can already tell you that is incorrect, because the average price of the item I mentioned in my original post is around a tenner, as I already mentioned. The seller has just priced it at 4k hoping somebody falls for it. Thats why I offered a penny in the first place, to annoy a scammer. 

Youre talking complete rubbish, thankyou for the confirmation. 

[*vyolla*]

Okay, I'm sure you know better.

Have a good evening.