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

[marschenegger]

It does. I can't force you to believe me, of course.



Just because people have deadlines to meet, doesn't mean they have infinite supplies of money to throw at the problem. If I can supply a suitable service, and a suitable item, in a timely manner for a price they can afford, I can't quite think of any reason why I shouldn't. Or why I should try to screw extra money out of them if there's no need for it.

Your story (snipped for space) is about an arrogant man with no consideration for others, and whilst amusing is not really relevant. Decent people do have genuine deadlines!

Excuses excuses excuses. Hey, if you're that desperate for sales, I'll give you a penny for each of your items, and I want free shipping so they all get here tomorrow. Do we have a deal?

[booksforsale]

Excuses excuses excuses. Hey, if you're that desperate for sales, I'll give you a penny for each of your items, and I want free shipping so they all get here tomorrow. Do we have a deal?

Is that your best offer


Seriously now, the beauty of Best Offer is that when the seller gets an idiotic offer like that he can....

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(wait for it....)

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say no!

[booksforsale]

A great example, explained perfectly. It is obvious that some sellers are more interested in enabling bad buyer habits and thus requesting the kinds of tools like haggling that are supposed to land those kinds of buyers who wait until the last minute and then want a bargain too. I have heard how unreasonable some of those last-minute buyers can be. They want rush service but don't want to pay for it. Buyers like that have been enabled by that stupid eBid-alternative auction site where all the rules are slanted in favour of buyers. I don't want to see that kind of nonsense running amok here, if possible.

I think JaBek1 explains the situation perfectly. If you want buyers to haggle, use a format like fixed-price listings. Auctions are a format for competitive bidding going higher than the start price, not lower. Fixed-price listings can have countdown timers just like auctions. In other words, you don't HAVE to make all your fixed-price listings RUN UNTIL SOLD.

Sellers who want to stop auctions early to sell to overly-eager buyers who want the lowest price without waiting can do so at their peril (it is against eBid's rules). The alternative is to enforce eBid's rules and simply say "no" to the buyer. Having an option like haggling is just not necessary.

You make it sound as if these particular sellers want to encourage bad buyer habits (not sure if you mean bad-buyer's habits or bad buyer-habits). Either way I can't see any seller wanting to encourage either. Perhaps your idea of good habits amongst buyers would be to give you the price you dictate, yes dictate, and how dare they question that. Whilst I understand the seller wants to get as much as possible for an item, the good seller will try to see things from the buyers point of view (any reasonably good negotiator is well aware of empathy).

You are quite insulting and offensive about buyers - remember your potential customers may be reading this.
I will gladly accept the last minute buyer who wants a bargain - I will quite happily take any off your hands.
I don't believe there are "bad buyer habits". If someone is buying (and paying up) that is good, however they choose to do it. I am not going to be so arrogant as to dictate how someone should go about buying.

In fact. I would be more apt to use the term "lazy sellers" meaning sellers who can't be bothered to work with potential customers towards a deal. I learned this the hard way - no-one was more inflexible than I was when I first started out. Then gradually I learned to LISTEN to my potential customers and sold more frequently

You see, the trick with the last minute buyer who wants a bargain is to.... [find out this bit for yourself. I had to.] ...which results in both buyer and seller walking away happy.


Things to ponder:

This is ebid.net, not Sothebys, Christies and the like.

Many people here are selling items which some might look down on as mere worthless baubles or trinkets - items that don't have a catalog or price guide dedicated to them - the best 'price guide' in the case of Best Offer is what the buyer and seller agree. This can only really be acheived with Best Offer, where both parties can be in agreement.

Perhaps it is best not to think of sellers, who want buy it now, as people who will let buyers get away with naming any old price, thus driving perceived values down.

Take this example: I have a book with Buy Now at £20.

A buyer offers me £18.

Do I say:

a) "No thank you. An expert told me it was worth £20, and to accept less would mess up the way things are priced/valued, there fore I only want £20." Beans on toast for Sunday lunch.

or

b) "Yes please. That will be £18 thank you very much" and I stroll down to a really nice pub for Sunday Roast and a pint or two.

Had a buyer offered me something stupid, I have the option to say no.


The point being; most sellers won't accept silly offers Nor do I think most sellers will inflate their prices to offset the perceived loss made through accepting an offer. Some will, and I suspect they will find it difficult to get offers never mind sell. The plus point there for the sensible seller is that they won't have to worry about being undercut, by those that inflate the price.

[JaBek1]

Perhaps I need to clarify my previous statements. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I'm not opposed to "negotiating" as a means of determining the selling price of an item. I feel it is inappropriate for items being sold using the auction method to determine the selling price.

With regard to seeing the buyers point of view, I most certainly do. I expect them to want to get the item for the least amount that they can. However, as I mentioned in a previous reply, my job as an auctioneer is to represent the sellers best interest. In fact, every auctioneer is legally bound to do so. I feel that bidders need to be aware of this when they're bidding on anything being sold at auction whether it be at Christie's, your local auction barn or online auction site. If you're in a competitive bidding situation the auctioneer is acting as an agent for the seller not the buyer.

People like to buy at auction because they enjoy the excitement of the competition and they can get some good bargains. That doesn't mean they'll always walk away with a steal. Buying at auction takes a bit of skill and know-how. Bidders need to know what they are bidding on and have an idea of how much it's worth or they run the risk paying more than they should. This isn't the auctioneers fault it's the bidders for not doing their homework.

Negotiating too is a skill that needs to be mastered if you want to be successful at it. While most buyers that like to do it think that they are really good at it, sellers that use that method of selling often have quite a bit more experience at it than the buyer simply because they do it constantly. Although the principle is simple, seller asks high, buyer offers low and they meet somewhere in the middle, it still takes effort to acquire the skills needed.

Regardless of what method you choose, both the buyer and the seller should benefit by the transaction.

Dennis

[bykimbo]

This site supports fixed pricing as a selling option. The suggestion is that "best offer" be added to that option. I don't even like "best offer" much, but am using it elsewhere at the moment, because the current economic climate makes buyers feel more strongly that they need to get a "good deal".

Scenario: last week I put an item on auction elsewhere with a start price of X. No bids. Moved it into my shop this week with a fixed price of X+5. Received and accepted a best offer of X+2. All parties happy.

The only reason the auction price got pulled into the argument is because somebody made the point of people being in a hurry not wanting to wait to buy by auction, and get a lower price that way. Since this shows that a lower price is already acceptable, allowing somebody to buy at a lower fixed price sooner can hardly be considered a poor business move. Effectively anybody arguing against it is saying that taking £5 in ten days is fine but taking £5 now is bad, which is clearly nonsense.

[TimeForYou]

My feeling is that the AUCTION sites have lost there way.
Surely the Key word is auction.
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I list ,people bid, someone wins and gets a bargain on the day.
I feel a 1 day auction page would create more movement on the site
I don't mean the happy hour thingy ...
The run until sold is like the seaside shop windows ,where things have been in the window for years.Listing an auction every day for 1 day only would increae traffic to the site maybe ,maybe not.
We could, here on ebid end up the way of others and only the big will survive.
The thing about listing an auction is that the fear of starting something at 0.01 and putting the correct postage you will end up selling it at perhaps 0.80 when the value price maybe £12.00 or so.
so not many want to do it.I have fell prey to this fear here on ebid,if i had some belief that at least 4 or 5 would bid and I recieved at least half the value I would be happy,I would then know there is movement on the site.

[kengillam]

Common sense would seem to indicate that you list as an auction for the lowest price you are prepared to accept with a BIN at what you really want. The premium is for those who are impatient. It is generally accepted that if you want something in a hurry it is going to cost you more, booking train tickets in advance will get you a cheaper price, turn up and book just before travel and it costs you more as a rule.

However if I received an offer and felt I could adjust the auction price I may do so but I wouldn't also adjust the end time, the buyer would have to take their chance that they might get outbid, if they want to be sure of winning then that is what the BIN is for.

[JudesNiceThings]

I don't like 1-day auctions.

Too easy for sellers to 'hit & run' that's why feebay stopped them.

[TimeForYou]

I don't like 1-day auctions.

Too easy for sellers to 'hit & run' that's why feebay stopped them.

Look what else they have stopped !

[JaBek1]

In a live auction we start asking for what we want for the piece or higher. If no one bids than we go lower in increments until someone opens the bidding and we start back up. Here one has to set a minimum and go up so the starting bid has to be the minimum you are willing to accept. I still can see no advantage to accepting an offer to consider anything below what I've set as a minimum already. Just as in a live auction, I'd pass the item rather than give it away.

I do add a BIN price to my auctions here, but only because it's required for Google exposure. I intentionally set BIN's high, usually at full retail or insurance value. Both of these are higher than you would expect to pay at auction. If one is intent on buying on now instead of bidding, then they most welcome to pay retail. It's just that simple. To each his own.

Dennis