Be careful when listing on ebay

[disneysteve]

I have been selling on ebay since 1997 so I am definitely not new to the process. I listed a few items last night and when I went in this morning to check on them, I realized that in addition to the price I set, they also had the Best Offer option active. I am 100% positive that I didn't check that box when creating the listings which means it was on by default.

Make sure you review and preview your info before you submit the listing to make sure everything is set the way you want it to be. I had to go in and revise the listings to turn off that feature. Fortunately I had only listed 4 things because it really would have been a pain if I had done more.

[Outdoorsygal]

Just a heads up but when you relist the item (if it doesn't sell) the check mark will be in the Best Offer box again.
Now we have to revise every item which is re-listed
I phoned ebay to try to stop that feature completely and was told that was impossible.

[creditcardfree]

This happened to me not to long ago. Thanks for the reminder though!

[safari]

Even if you didn't want that feature, there is no harm in leaving it. You can just decline the offers that you don't like. Personally I don't see an issue here.

[disneysteve]

Even if you didn't want that feature, there is no harm in leaving it. You can just decline the offers that you don't like. Personally I don't see an issue here.

The issue is they shouldn't have that set as the default. If I was willing to take less, I'd set the price lower. I set a price based on the lowest amount I want to get for the item. "Best offer" doesn't make any sense in that scenario.

[DaveInPgh]

The issue is they shouldn't have that set as the default. If I was willing to take less, I'd set the price lower. I set a price based on the lowest amount I want to get for the item. "Best offer" doesn't make any sense in that scenario.

I get your frustration, but eBay really doesn't care what sellers want. They are always going to push members to use options that improve the chances of a sale, which results in them earning a fee. I gave up that site years ago.

[greenskeeper]

I list my items 10-25% higher as "buy-it-now" with the option of best offer. Sometimes the best offer is in line with what I would sell it for anyways. After a week or so goes by and my items have a lot of views I go back and revise the price down to my original figure. Ebay then automatically sends them an email that says "you looked at this item and it's now 15% off". You'd be surprised how well this works.....and retail has been doing it for decades.

[disneysteve]

I list my items 10-25% higher as "buy-it-now" with the option of best offer. Sometimes the best offer is in line with what I would sell it for anyways. After a week or so goes by and my items have a lot of views I go back and revise the price down to my original figure. Ebay then automatically sends them an email that says "you looked at this item and it's now 15% off". You'd be surprised how well this works.....and retail has been doing it for decades.

That's a really neat idea. Thanks.

[StormRichards]

I did a search on eBay to find a place to express my frustration, and the funny thing is I am having the exact opposite problem than what you described. I listed a fixed priced item and checked the Best Offer box and it doesn't show up on the actual listing. I have gone into revise it several times. I click revise, see the box unchecked, I check it and click save. I get the message saying my item was revised, but still no Best Offer option.

And this is after eBay detected words in my listings and determined my listing was a policy violation. I had to change my description several times before I could get it to go through.

Without the best offer, I am not sure my item will sell. But I don't want to lower the price too much either.

The most frustrating part about the situation is that when I discovered that I had something I could list and sell quickly and repeatedly, I GOT EXCITED ABOUT LISTING for the first time in many many years. eBay sure took that away.

[disneysteve]

I did a search on eBay to find a place to express my frustration, and the funny thing is I am having the exact opposite problem than what you described. I listed a fixed priced item and checked the Best Offer box and it doesn't show up on the actual listing. I have gone into revise it several times. I click revise, see the box unchecked, I check it and click save. I get the message saying my item was revised, but still no Best Offer option.

And this is after eBay detected words in my listings and determined my listing was a policy violation. I had to change my description several times before I could get it to go through.

Without the best offer, I am not sure my item will sell. But I don't want to lower the price too much either.

The most frustrating part about the situation is that when I discovered that I had something I could list and sell quickly and repeatedly, I GOT EXCITED ABOUT LISTING for the first time in many many years. eBay sure took that away.

I've been selling on ebay since shortly after it started - 1997. It used to be a goldmine for sellers and a treasure trove for buyers. Over the years, it has definitely gotten worse all around. Higher fees, more complicated processes, ridiculous changes to the feedback system (sellers can't give buyers negative feedback), etc. Still, I have yet to find anything that has the reach that ebay does. And despite issues folks have with Paypal, I love that they integrated that. I used to have to wait days or a week or more to get payments and then wait for checks to clear. Now, an auction ends and I get paid, usually immediately, and I ship the item the next day. Can't beat that. And with Buy It Now, sometimes items sell within hours of me listing them.

[StormRichards]

I've been selling on ebay since shortly after it started - 1997. It used to be a goldmine for sellers and a treasure trove for buyers. Over the years, it has definitely gotten worse all around. Higher fees, more complicated processes, ridiculous changes to the feedback system (sellers can't give buyers negative feedback), etc. Still, I have yet to find anything that has the reach that ebay does. And despite issues folks have with Paypal, I love that they integrated that. I used to have to wait days or a week or more to get payments and then wait for checks to clear. Now, an auction ends and I get paid, usually immediately, and I ship the item the next day. Can't beat that. And with Buy It Now, sometimes items sell within hours of me listing them.

I agree that it is still the best option available and also like the prompt payments. Just really frustrating to have my excitement extinguished less than 12 hours from when it started. The listing form that they give me doesn't even show payment options. It shows Best Offer but it doesn't survive the final click.

What started with one item with multiple quantities last night had me excited to list items I have been procrastinating about for months. Now I have no motivation to take pictures and write a description because I have no confidence that the listing form will meet my needs and whether or not I will get some bizarre error message when I click list.

I am not a newbie and my DH has active listings most weeks, so it isn't like I don't have plenty of eBay experience. If the listing form doesn't have all of the proper options, not sure what I could be doing differently.

[HundredK]

I don't know if this helps your particular situation, but I have noticed when I'm selling something - if I choose to "sell something like this" at the beginning of the auction setup, it seems to often override my default shipping settings with I guess whatever the similar auction had. Now I always always preview the listing and check it all thoroughly to make sure there isn't anything I need to fix.

[StormRichards]

I don't know if this helps your particular situation, but I have noticed when I'm selling something - if I choose to "sell something like this" at the beginning of the auction setup, it seems to often override my default shipping settings with I guess whatever the similar auction had. Now I always always preview the listing and check it all thoroughly to make sure there isn't anything I need to fix.

That is how I initiated my first listing and it did occur to me that might be the problem. However, I did another one from scratch and still had the same problem. I am completely missing the option to say how I want paid. Will eventually contact eBay about it.

[msomnipotent]

I had that problem. Sometimes it takes 5-10 minutes for the changes to show. It drove me nuts. I really should put some things on ebay, but it is such a big pain for me.

[msomnipotent]

I had that problem. Sometimes it takes 5-10 minutes for the changes to show. It drove me nuts. I really should put some things on ebay, but it is such a big pain for me.

Lol. I am so tired that my posts don't make sense. I have had problems where the "buy it now" magically appears even though I don't want it, and it doesn't show up when I want it to. It takes a while to show the updates once saved. I have also had problems adjusting the shipping options on many listings. Even if I don't click "sell similar", I still get stuck with the same shipping fees as the other recent ones and it doesn't look like I can change it. Some people either offer free shipping or really overcharge, and I just want to charge what I have to pay. I don't want to make money off of shipping.

As stated before, I really should have put some things on ebay while I still had the free listing promo. I just couldn't get to it. I have things like the TJ Bearytales and some "collector" Little People that can either go for eyepopping amounts for be sold for a pittance. I just have to be lucky when I list.