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Thursday, May 05, 2011
One Good Reason to Use the "Best Offer" Feature on Ebay Store Items
Yes, it is inevitable that you will get ridiculous lowball offers for $2.50 on a $200 book.
Yes, the majority of offers you get will be for around 50% of your online retail price.
On the other hand, I have found that using Ebay's "Best Offer" function has resulted in a quite a few sales at reasonable prices (around 10-15% off, or around the equivalent of Free Shipping).
The most obvious benefit of using "Best Offer" is the ability to re-evaluate the pricing of listings that have been on your shelf for over a year. For example, just a minute ago I received an offer of $24 for an item that I had listed at $49.95 (see Linda Stark's slim art catalogue above, entitled Runaway Love). At first glance, this would appear to result in my automatic declining of the offer, or at least a substantially higher counteroffer, but a quick search via Bookfinder and Amazon revealed that there were a multitude of other copies available in similar condition for around $25. So would I be happy to sell my copy at $24 today- a book that I listed in January of 2008 with a sales ranking of 6 Million? You betcha.
This is actually the same reason that I don't enable Automatic Declining or Acceptance of offers, which is an option.
Does anyone else use "Best Offer"? Is there a bit of haggle in you? Or are you categorically opposed to the cheapening of your inventory?
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3 comments:
I found that the Best Offer Option worked quite well when I had my book store. It also worked pretty good with the vintage post cards I was selling. Sometimes people wouldn't even send me an offer they would just buy the post card for the listed price :).
Good advice, I always use "best offer" when listing. True you have to wade through a few ridiculous offers but since with many books I am listing on research and a hunch using best offer allows the buyer to somewhat adjust the market.
One statement that I have found useful in submitting a counter offer is the following:
Thanks for the offer. This book is sold with free shipping/handling so $xx.xx is a bit too low. However I'll gladly accept $xx.xx today and still include free shipping
I find it useful on lower value books $20 – 35 to get the extra $3 – 4 that make the offer acceptable.
I am surprised when I get a full price sale (about 50%). I am waiting for the day when all buyers learn that the book can always be had at a discount.
An additional comment, I do not artificially raise my listed price since I have best offer. I accept the offer based on my cost, my opinion of how likely the book is to sell (time-frame) and emotionally have I made a sale(s) today.
Richard, the Blind-Horse
Thanks for the comments Piggybank and Richard. I appreciate you sharing your boilerplate copy and paste statement. Factoring free shipping into the counteroffer is a good idea.
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