How long is a buyer's offer good for

[mb300e4m]

How long is a buyer's offer good for before it expires? How many days or hours?

[Stnenopmoc]

My suggestion is that you time limit any Independent offer you make to a potential buyer when you make that offer, say 48 hours. If you do not and you make an offer then the potentail buyer could come back at any time at their leisure and you may have other, better offers on the table.

If it is the buyer making an Independent (outside of the eBid offer system) offer, then put yourself in the potential buyers shoes and respond within 24 hours.


Did some digging and found this in the help section


"59) Can I set up my listings to accept offers from buyers?

Yes you can. Our "Make an Offer" system is very simple. When you add a BuyNow price to your listing just tick the Allow buyers to Make an Offer? box just below the BuyNow box. A new button will appear on your finished listing. When buyers click this they can make you an offer below the BuyNow price. You will be emailed with the details and will have 48hrs to either

Accept Offer
Decline Offer
Make a Counter-offer
.

The buyer will be emailed with your decision. If you accept, then the normal after sale system will kick in. If you make a counter-offer (must be above the original offer and below the BuyNow price), the buyer will then have 48hrs to accept or decline your counter-offer. You will be emailed with their decision.

You can use the My eBid > My Bulk Edit function to update any current listings you have to accept offers. But remember your listings will be changed over to a Fixed Price format, any bidding facilities you had on your listings will be removed.

All the offers you receive can be seen in "My eBid Dashboard > Offers I Received". We allow a maximum of 4 declined offers/counter-offers per listing per buyer. Notes may be added to all offers and counter-offers."

[johnwash1]

I wonder why they decided not to have offers on auctions. Very strange. Elsewhere offers are allowed as long as there are no bids yet.

Of course some plonkers then chance their luck by offering less than the auction start! They get a rather tart reply from me and I check their feedback to decide whether to block them. But some make sensible offers. E.g. I had a £50 offer on an auction with £20 start, which gave me an interesting choice, bird in the hand vs 2 in the bush.

If you like that idea, post it in the website suggestions section. Would get my vote.