Help regarding best offers please

[loveallthingsitalian]

I have only recently started to buy on eBay (I won't be a seller). I started on buy now items only and then got a bit more confident and put in a few bids (won some / lost some)

This week for the first time I made an offer on an item, received an email from EB but never heard a dicky bird from the seller. After a couple of days EB emailed to say the time had expired On the offer.

I'm a bit confused, should the seller have contacted me to accept or decline or was I supposed to do something more?

I wouldn't even give it another thought but I have been searching for ages for the item, however the full price is a bit more than I feel I can pay.

Mr L reckons if it was up to the seller to respond then it doesn't bode well for a smooth transaction.

Can the experienced members advise on the protocol please.

 

[Sooze]

When you submit a best offer one of 4 things can happen.

Seller accepts your offer and you are then committed to purchasing and it moves to your won items.
Seller declines your offer. (You can make up to 3 offers)
Seller issues a counter offer, this will be higher than your offer but hopefully still less than the buy it now price (I have known sellers just counter offer the buy it now price again)
Seller can just not respond in which case your best offer expires after 48 hours.

Hope that makes sense? Sometimes I think a seller will select the best offer option when setting up auction not realising what it does and that may contribute to the ignored best offer requests.

 

[loveallthingsitalian]

Thank you - that was much what I was expecting except for the total ignoring of my offer which no matter which way you look at it is plain bad manners.

BTW it has now gone past its listing date and had not sold so perhaps the seller should have thought a bird in the hand and all that. My offer wasnt a stupid one just a bit off the price to make me feel that I had saved something on, which no matter how it is listed is second hand goods (even if not worn\used).

 

[Sooze]

Just wait and see if the seller re lists the item, they might be more keen to consider your offer then!

I remember making a best offer and kept getting a counter offer of £1 off the buy it now until I exhausted my three offers. The listing ended and was re listed I put in a lower offer than before and it was accepted, I was pleasantly surprised :mysmilie_14: Hope you get similar luck

 

[Akimbo]

As a seller I rarely bother with best offers as mostly they come in at half the asking price or less. As a buyer, if it's very close to the end of the listing, I test the water with a question about the item - sellers seem keener to respond to a query than to an offer particularly if the item has lots of people watching it. On the subject of watchers, they can see when offers are pending the seller's response. This can provoke other watchers to submit an offer, or buy it now at the full price. So if it's a rare or unique item you have to weigh up the risk of the item being lost to another buyer for the sake of a few pounds. If in doubt about the going price for an item it's worth remembering that you can see ended listings by refining the search criteria (down the left hand side of the search results page) by ticking the "completed" or "sold" listings boxes. It gives a better idea of the price that the seller may expect to get and if you spot an unsold item there's nothing to stop you contacting the seller to ask when they might be relisting their item (don't get drawn into a sale outside ebay to save a few quid as you'll have no ebay buyers protection if they run off with your money).

As a seller I get emails from buyers asking me to end an auction early, usually with some unimaginative story about impending hospital visit or holiday. My usual response is to suggest they make it worth my while and that's the last I hear from them and they don't place a bid at all. :mysmilie_13:

 

[donna255]

I have won a number of Best Offers over the years. I take the shipping price off and have always been accepted. If free shipping 10-15% off.