How about a "Best-Offer" or a "Haggle" option?

[booksforsale]

You all already have the option of "best offer"

Put in your description that you will entertain offers via the ask a question function

You could even mention it in your 'about me' page

For the sellers who, as an afterthought, have considered doing this, it would mean altering their listings - that could be a lot of hard work There is nothing wrong with hard work, but when it is unnecessary that is something else.

For the buyer who would like to make an offer, but sees no official 'Make Offer' button, they might think that to make an offer via ASQ would be seen as auction interference, and might shy away from this for fear of a 'slap' or account suspension.

While the about me page (and even including a 'seller notice' message) are other ways of making a 'make offer' available, I feel very few buyers check out the About Me page. The 'seller notice' message just doesn't stand out anyway.

For me, the way forward for this is to give the seller the option of adding Make Offer to their listings on a per listing basis, with a nice noticeable button. Those that are against the idea needn't use it.

For what its worth I made a few good sales on the dark side by making Best Offer available.

I've had buyers ASQ/message offers over here. I sometimes have to take a little less than I would have liked, but I prefer an empty space on a book shelf and a Sunday roast, rather than a book staring at me while I munch beans on toast after Sunday worship.

[bykimbo]

So is eBid all about you, or sellers just exactly like you?

Is that what YOU are saying?

What did you just say about me to your computer monitor?!

Yeah I guess I am, and THEN SOME!

Woooaaaaahhh!!!

You haven't really got the hang of friendly debate, have you?

[astral276]

Woooaaaaahhh!!!

You haven't really got the hang of friendly debate, have you?

I've never seen the point of people creating polls and then getting stroppy when not everybody picks the option they wanted everyone to pick. Why give people choice if you don't want them to exercise it?

The poll was badly thought out anyway. 'Yes it would be a good thing' or 'No' (No what?). Too black and white with no middle ground. I voted 'No' not because it was a bad idea that I wouldn't wish to see implemented on any account, but because I didn't see a point to it so couldn't vote it a good idea.

[theweaverboy]

"astral276" The POINT for the OPTION is for the refugees to be able to come over more easily. This would increase membership, selection, and the overall SALES. More here is more revenue for all.

Why are some of you just not getting that concept?
__________________________________________________ ____________

& "bykimbo"

Old habits die hard as they say;-)

And come he left himself wide open.

I flipped a coin to see if I should post it. Heads yes, tales no, and it was heads. It was fate, and how in cyberspace could I resist?

[bykimbo]

Okay, if you have no interest in building a rational debate, and prefer to decide whether or not to insult your fellow ebidders on the toss of a coin, I think I'll just withdraw from the thread and leave you to your own devices. But you've made a bad choice, I'm afraid.

[lofty100e]

I decided the same before reading your post Bykimbo.....weaverboy now on ignore!

[TiasTreasures]

I'm afraid I have to agree. Instead of debating the pros and cons like rational adults, it sounds as though some people take comments as personal insults. Unfortunate.

[astral276]

"astral276" The POINT for the OPTION is for the refugees to be able to come over more easily. This would increase membership, selection, and the overall SALES. More here is more revenue for all.

Why are some of you just not getting that concept?

Your 'shouting' certain words does not put your point over any the stronger. The fact I didn't see the point to the feature was not down to a lack of intelligence or understanding on my part. I understood perfectly what you were after achieving - I just didn't agree that there was a need for it.

That some do not fall into line behind what you want does not make them cretins - as you would seem to be suggesting - they simply do not agree with you. That you cannot accept that fact is more a problem with you than with them.

I've voted in the poll and am now voting with my virtual feet. I'm out of here. Good luck. Methinks you'll need it based on your performance to date.

[marschenegger]

eBid is growing, and with growth comes change. Some here resist being like eb@y just for the sake of "resisting being like eb@y". We need to take what works from the other side and use it to our advantage here. There seems to be a lot of new members from the US, people looking for a new home, and eBid needs to cater to this change also. We need categories to suit the US members needs, and our lifestyle. Some things are just different here, and to get people to stay when stopping by to check us out, we need to conform. We also need to remember to be tactful in our requests.

I hope I am not being implicitly tarred with the label as someone who wants to be different from eBay for no other reason than to be different. I expressed my opinion and said I voted "no" from my biased viewpoint as a seller in a category where this feature would not be of much benefit. If 99% of other voters would say "yes", they want the haggling feature, then bring it on. I expect my sales and revenues would decrease, but that's TS for me. I can always stop selling on eBid if I feel the site is not providing me with the right venue, but I doubt that will happen any time soon. My concern is that there are members, like the one I quoted above, who feel the need to accomodate outsiders. I think that's what got eBay into trouble... they started ignoring the majority of their members just to appeal to non-members in the belief that you grow a company with potential assets instead of the assets you have. Again, I doubt that will happen here, but I am of the belief that we should not cater to the bad habits of people who are not members. Just like you should not accomodate the whims of a fussy child or a disobedient animal, we should seek to choose what is best over what makes people happy. As I insinuated in my last post, some people haggle no matter how low the price is, and I don't think we should give in to such people and institutionalize a tool that will just encourage more of the same bad behaviour.

The poll should apply to the interests of members only. If some members vote according to what they think other people want, that's their perogative. Unfortunately, all votes are worth the same whether or not the voter is influenced by something else.

Cheers,
Mark

[marschenegger]

...
I am all for the OPTION of being able to offer Best Offer to customers, this OPTION would have no adverse affects on those who don't want to offer it.

No, I think you're totally wrong here. I think offering a haggling option encourages haggling and warps buyer perception of what they should pay. Taking a theorectical scenario to extremes where buyers decide what they want to pay, wouldn't they want everything for free? Many couldn't give a toss about your overhead costs or the predilections of your children to eat food on a daily basis; they just want your items for as little money as possible.

...

Are those who don't want the Best Offer facility worried that offering Best Offer drives down the value of items? Are you worried perhaps that a competitor will be able to offer a better price than you, thus depriving you of a sale.

I think that is how business is supposed to work.

Totally wrong again. It drives up the asking prices of sellers who anticipate the haggling option being used to extract "bargains" from them. I have attended many coin and paper money shows in Canada where it is the norm for sellers to inflate their up-front asking prices to force buyers to haggle or risk being ripped off. As an example, let's suppose a seller wants $200 for a note in his display case. It's much simpler to price it at $300 and have someone haggle him down to $200 then to price it at $200 and try to get that price for it when all the other sellers are allowing buyers to haggle. It is overlysimplistic to expect all buyers to behave a certain way (i.e. to expect that all buyers shop around or know implicitly exactly what they think they should pay, and thus act accordingly when they spot an up-front bargain). So based on my experiences, your assumptions of how "business is supposed to work" are not realistic. I don't want to start an argument and make statements that sellers who want a haggling option are scammers like another poster stated earlier. I am merely predicting what will happen based on my real-life experience. How business is supposed to work and how it really works are apples and oranges.

One more point... eBid is still an auction site, and auctions are supposed to pit bidders against each other. I recommed reading Ken Steiglitz's "Snipers, Shills & Sharks; eBay and Human Behavior" as this book is a very concise but thorough examination of all kinds of auctions through the ages, not just about eBay. The fact that some people want to change eBid into something other than an auction site has me worried, but I digress. Like another poster said, we're supposed to encourage buyers to compete with each other and raise our revenue, not to force sellers to compete and drag prices down. Maybe the Internet auction is already a dinosaur and we should be seeking to change? Who knows??

Mark