No this isn't a post about smelly people. I could go on and on about smelly people who don't bother to wash their clothes before trying to sell them at a yard sale. But this post is actually about eBay Best Offer.
I had been really resistant to using BO (best offer) on my listings. 99.9% of my listings are BIN so I knew the option was there. But I kept thinking it would be too much work. Did I really want to be reviewing my offers at random hours when they came in? And what about the low ball offers that are a total waste of time? I had so many excuses I had formed in my head. But about a month ago I decided it to give it a try. And am I glad I did.
eBay gives you the option to automatically accept or decline an offer above or below an amount you set. I have my listings set to automatically accept anything above a certain amount. Most items I sell I only pay about a dollar or two for so I'm going to make a profit no matter what. I set my original price at what I would love to get. Then I set the "accept anything above" the price I would be happy to get. I decided not to automatically decline anything at this point for a few reasons. One reason is that it might only be a dollar or two below my happy price so depending on how long it's been listed or my mood I might decide to accept. I also like having the option to decline and counter offer. I have had a handful of lowball offers (less then half my original listing price). If I get too many of these I do more research to see if maybe I've overprice my item. More often then I expected a buyer will just pay my price and not bother to make an offer at all.
I feel like I'm selling so much more this way. Last week was one of my better weeks. I sold $400 (my average for the month is usually $700) and half of those sales were from BO. Now I just wonder why I waited so long. Was I the only one now aware of how easy and effective it was?
Be careful with auto accept. Sometimes buyers will add stipulations like free shipping into the comments and it will get auto accepted. It happened to me once.
ReplyDeleteI still have never used OBO . . . maybe I should add it to some of my older listings, just as a test run.
ReplyDeletei dont auto accept i do auto decline though (case in point i had a playstation 2 listed at 169.99 OBO. someone offered me 30.00 waste of time). i only auto decline anything rediculously low (like half of asking price). i almost always add BO unless i have it below comparables anyway i have had people BO me like a dollar less (i assume just so they feel they can get a better deal). i have noticed shopping that most people dont do BO so i think that puts us a little step ahead of the competition. i have been doing BO on most BIN style listings for around 8 months its really good selling factor (and sorry this comment is so long :D )
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