Ebay "special offer" from seller
 

So, a seller I have never purchased from before and one I have never sent a message to ... just sent me a Ebay "special offer" because "I showed interest in this item."


I know how to send a special offer to someone who sends me a message about an item - but I didn't know there was a way to send an offer to someone who was just watching my item.

Is this new? How do you do this?

Cheers,
Patrick

Yes this is a new trial I guess for Ebay. I've seen it come up as a seller, but not offered as a buyer!

It is new - I just used it as a seller. Ebay offers you this option to send an offer directly to a watcher. I am not sure what determines when eBay decides to provide this option as I only got it for a few of my listings even though others also have watchers. The lots where you have this option are listed on the Selling--Overview tab.

Similarly, sometimes when you are exchanging messages a "make an offer" box will appear - I think I have seen this as both a buyer and a seller.

Interesting. Thanks!
Patrick

Can you provide a link to the specific Selling page where this is shown? It may be that I am not one of the ones that this offer was made available to, but I do not see it anywhere under my Selling->Overview tab. Ebay has a fun way of hiding things from various users, but typically if it is actually available, a direct link to the specific page will work.

Click on the activity tab. In the menu on the left side, the first option under "Selling" is "Overview". Click that. When this option has been available for me, the option to send buyers an offer is the first thing displayed on that page, right under the # active, # sold, # unsold and just above "Relist It". Right now mine shows nothing there even though I have items with watchers and I just used the offer option to sell three lots. I suspect it is some combination of how long a particular person has been a watcher (maybe it even requires someone watching a lot before and after it was relisted), the watcher's buying patterns, etc.

As I expected, there is not a way for me to navigate to what you are describing using links within the website. It appears to have something to do with me having opted in to Seller Hub or some similar setting at some point (which means that I was forcibly opted in, as I have never willingly opted in to anything eBay has changed over the years, as no improvement has ever worked as good as what was in place previously).

After some searching other sites and forums though, I was able to come up with the direct link below that worked for me:
https://www.ebay.com/mys/overview?My...me=STRK%3AME%3

On that page, after the list of any items that have been paid for that I have not yet shipped, is a list of up to 5 items under a header of "Send offer to buyers." The list does not always show up, but after refreshing the page a couple of times, it usually shows. It appears to consist of items that have watchers and are ending in the next few hours. There are some tweaks that I would make for this feature to be more user-friendly, but considering a short time ago I did not even know it existed, I will reserve judgement for now. I do wish it would give some idea though if these are unique watchers, or if as I suspect the very similar items in the list are being watched by the same user. I just don't like the idea of bombarding the same potential buyer with multiple unsolicited offers if possible.

For me, eBay will send me a message saying if I drop my price 5% they will send a message to the people watching that item(s).

I have used it about 20 times, not one sale yet. I continue to try though. I'm guessing the watchers are competitors.