The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

A new thing that eBay does now is when you list a "Buy it Now" item, then after a few days, they add the "Make an Offer" option even though I did not specify such. I find this very disrespectful activity by eBay. I figured one way to avoid this was to list it as an auction item. Now I discovered that when a potential buyer contacts the seller, there is an option to "Make an Offer" anyway.

I have been very loyal to eBay and appreciate their large member base, but this kind of relentlessness on their part, to undermine my listings's setup parameters, is really making me MAD!

Victrola-Monkey wrote:A new thing that eBay does now is when you list a "Buy it Now" item, then after a few days, they add the "Make an Offer" option even though I did not specify such. I find this very disrespectful activity by eBay. I figured one way to avoid this was to list it as an auction item. Now I discovered that when a potential buyer contacts the seller, there is an option to "Make an Offer" anyway.

I have been very loyal to eBay and appreciate their large member base, but this kind of relentlessness on their part, to undermine my listings's setup parameters, is really making me MAD!

Yes, this is quite annoying. What I do is let them add the "Make an offer" option, but I set the offer threshold to 1 cent below my opening price so that anyone trying to make a lowball offer is automatically rejected without my intervention. I also include a statement on the listing that says that offers below the opening amount will be rejected. So far, so good.

I have not experienced this at all with my fixed-price listings. I wonder why.

Raphael

I did not experience it either, but Ebay took every opportunity and many emails trying to get me to put the Make an Offer option on my ad for my Amberola 1A. I have $3400 in my Amberola 1A and Ebay suggested that I had a better chance of selling it if I started the auction at $62!

I am only an occasional seller, but all my listings include the statement "I do not respond to offers below the starting price".

Does not make sense if you have an auction style item with a stated starting bid that you would entertain an offer below the opening bid. That is what or best offer is for.
I did not realize that is what Ebay did until I posted 11 items for sale and was flooded with low ball offers...

The purpose of the "Best Offer" on auctions is to allow a buyer to make an offer between the opening bid and "Buy It Now" option. The "Best Offer" disappears once a bid has been made.

People that make offers below the opening bid are, in my opinion, not serious buyers. Nor are people who offer less than 50% of a "Best Offer" on fixed-price listing.

eBay has a "Block Bidder" option whereby you can prevent bids or offers from individuals. I have utilized it for years and have quite an extensive inventory of idiots who have made offers such as $200 on a $10,000 item. One can only wonder what possesses buyers to do that. It's like going into a car dealer and offering $10,000 on a $40,000 car; they will show you the door and ask you not to return.


Raphael

I hate that offer mess by eBay. The don’t care if you can sell it for less , take a loss or even pay the shipping. eBay is out to move items at whatever cost. eBay fees are outrageous and they even charge 10% on shipping. The post office is another story, costs through the roof. Anymore eBay is a loss, by the time you buy the bubble wrap, tape and boxes, pay the shipping and fees there really is nothing left, basically a way to clean out the closets.

marcapra wrote:I did not experience it either, but Ebay took every opportunity and many emails trying to get me to put the Make an Offer option on my ad for my Amberola 1A. I have $3400 in my Amberola 1A and Ebay suggested that I had a better chance of selling it if I started the auction at $62!

Now that’s crazy! $62.00 for an Amberola 1A.

Even after manually turning it off, I've occasionally found that it magically gets turned back on. It is very frustrating how difficult they make it to disable, and then to have it come back on shows poor quality of coding or simple fraud.