I stll think this is a great idea. I would use it on most of my items. Although we don't have an offer facility yet, I have had ebid buyers message me asking if I would accept, £X rather than the £Z of the Buy Now price.
A little bit of a natter later and we have agreed on £Y - sale done!
I think we can take the concept of Best Offer a step further.
Rather than have Buy Now with Best Offer, we have
- An auction start price.
- Best Offer facility
- Buy Now
within the same listing
The auction start price - suits customers who are prepared to wait and pay the lowest price possible within the realms of the auction scenario
Best offer facility - suits customers who don't want to wait till auction end, but don't want to pay the full Buy Now price
Buy Now - suits customers who don't want to wait and are prepared to pay the full price
This would be set up in such a way that the customer can't make any silly offers purely by the fact that you have set your bottom limit, i.e. the auction start price.
This is a very flexible structure. For the doubters who say adding Best Offer is trying to have this site like ebay, as far as I am aware ebay don't do it this way. For the doubters who say offering such a flexible package reeks of desperation - HELLO -we are hardly brimming with customers in here compared with the 'benchmark'