eBay offer etiquette

[Jim65]

Originally Posted by profholt82

Interesting discussion. Now that ebay has dropped ebay bucks completely,

When did this happen? I got a 5% EBucks offer yesterday.

[jchcollins]

Originally Posted by Jim65

When did this happen? I got a 5% EBucks offer yesterday.

They haven't dropped them completely. What they dropped was a certain miniscule percentage on every single thing you buy - which is how collectors like me usually wound up with an extra $20-30 to spend every quarter as kind of a little bonus. But if there are specific promotions that pay bucks, my understanding is that those are still in place. You just have to wait for them and participate in them.

[profholt82]

Yes, that's what I meant. A few years back, I think it was 3% ebay bucks for each purchase. And then they often had 10% promos that would last a few days. For the last couple years it has been only 1% for each purchase with the occasional 5% promotion. As of April 1 they have dropped the 1%. Apparently they still have occasional 5% promotions though, so that's good to know. I haven't seen one yet, but I haven't checked.

[ASF123]

They've also closed the door on anyone new signing up for bucks for at least the past several months. They're pretty clearly phasing out the entire thing. Because "Hey, less for you, more for us!!"

[Exhibitman]

With the frenzied activity of the last 12 months it is apparent that they don't need general incentive programs to drive sales. What they are trying to do instead is to devolve the cost of incentives to the sellers by conditioning certain ratings that carry discounts on eBay fees with offering customers things like free shipping or free returns that will boost customer purchasing similar to a rebate.

[ASF123]

By the way, thanks to all for the interesting and informative discussion here. I'm not sure I'm any closer to a definitive answer , but I'm glad to hear other's perspectives, including sellers.

[Empty77]

Originally Posted by ASF123

By the way, thanks to all for the interesting and informative discussion here. I'm not sure I'm any closer to a definitive answer , but I'm glad to hear other's perspectives, including sellers.

I am only ever a buyer in this situations. When I deal with these, it isn't by considering a percentage of the ask price as described in the opening post, but rather determining what the recent comps are and then depending on the scarcity of the item, adding a premium to that which I am guessing should make it interesting to the seller. If it is a certified card that I can tell what that exact item last sold for, then it helps even more to guess what sort of multiple the seller is trying to get (presuming they made that purchase on record).

Depending on how absurd the BIN is, this can mean I am offering less than 50% of the ask, but still 100-200% more than a comparable item has ever sold for or that any sensible person would agree it ever could in the relative future. It rarely works. These are the exorbitantly over-priced items that someone mentioned stay listed literally for years. I guess as someone else explained, these are often items that are there for show that the "seller" has no intention of actually selling.

However, it sometimes does work, and it also can work when explaining the rationale for the offer. Got one of my most prized items off eBay against a very high BIN through a reasoned back-and-forth with the seller.

As others have said, I also have tired of ebay in this way since the odds of a favorable outcome are so low, but remembering my occasional successes will usually get convince me to take a stab at something every now and then. I am thinking more and more that it comes down to whether the seller is truly interested in selling, or otherwise just showing off or pretending to sell on those ridiculously high BIN listings.