Whether you’re an e-commerce expert or a new seller on the block, you’ve definitely heard of eBay. The re-commerce giant is the largest reselling marketplace in the US. Almost two-thirds of US consumers have bought used items on eBay, making it a worthwhile addition to your resale business.
If you’re a complete newbie or still getting to grips with eBay, you might not be familiar with eBay offers. But don’t skip over this feature – it may seem complex at first but it can have real benefits for sellers. Below, we’ll break down everything you need to know about eBay offers and explain how to use them to maximize your profits.
What is an eBay offer?
On eBay, you can list your items as an auction or add a ‘buy it now’ option. Buyers who find your listing can make a bid or choose to purchase for the ‘buy it now’ price.
The other option they have is to send you an offer. They can decide how much they’d be willing to pay for your item and send that price over for you to consider. eBay calls this feature ‘Best Offer’ – and it’s an invaluable tool for sellers.
How to activate eBay offers
To take advantage of eBay offers, you first need to activate it for your listings. Head to ‘change listing preferences’ and check ‘enable more options’. Select ‘more options’ and then choose ‘allow offers’. You can then input the smallest amount of money you’d be happy with for that item.
Congrats, you’ve got an offer! Now what?
Time to celebrate – an eBay offer is in your inbox! But is the price the buyer is offering worth it? Or does it undervalue your item? Now you can decide if you’d like to sell to the buyer for the amount they’re offering. You’ve got three options:
- You can accept the offer. Simply hit accept then follow your usual process after you’ve sold an item.
- You can decline the offer. Maybe the price the buyer has offered is just not worth selling for. Simply hit decline or let the offer expire, which will happen in 48 hours (or sooner, if you sell the item within that time).
- You can send a counter offer. Yep, sellers can also be in control of sending eBay offers! Imagine the price you’ve been offered is just a couple of bucks off what you’d accept. But it’s still going to eat into your desired profit margin if you let those few dollars slide. This is where counter offers come in. To make a counter offer, choose a price that’s between what the item is listed for and the offer the buyer made. Then send this as an offer and wait to see if it’s accepted. Your counter offers will be live for 24 hours and then, if they aren’t accepted by the buyer, they’ll expire.
Changed your mind? Here’s how to retract your offer on eBay
Made an offer in the heat of the moment but now regretting it? Don’t worry, that happens to the best of us. If you’ve realized your offer just cuts too far into your profit margins, no stress – it’s possible to retract an offer on eBay.
First up, navigate to your item. Then click on ‘manage offers’. From there, find the offer you’ve made that you’re not happy with and click ‘retract’. Make sure to act fast though – if the buyer liked the sound of your offer they may have already accepted it and paid for your item. In this case, you’ll no longer be able to retract your offer.
Why use eBay offers?
You might be thinking, okay, these offers sound like they have some pros, but they also sound like a hassle! Can’t I just start an auction and be done with it?
In an ideal world, your items would fly off the digital shelves with no intervention from you. But the best resellers know that interacting with potential buyers is a crucial way to turn interest into sales.
eBay offers give sellers a huge opportunity and if you skip out on using this feature, you’re missing out on a whole lot of potential sales. Here’s why:
- It’s a tricky business gauging a price point as a reseller. Maybe this time, you missed the mark. eBay offers help your customers meet you in the middle by offering a price you’ll accept.
- Similarly, keeping up with market rates and monitoring how other resellers are pricing is time-consuming. eBay offers take away the need to do that by allowing your customers to tell you what they expect to pay.
- The concept of negotiation has been ingrained in eBay since it first became known as an auction website. Shoppers who search there are looking for bargains, steals, and deals. Allowing these customers to negotiate with you taps into the mindset of the majority of eBay shoppers.
- Again, look at eBay from a buyer’s perspective. eBay has a feature where buyers can filter their search to only show listings where they can make offers to sellers. So if you opt out of accepting offers, you’ll exclude yourself from a whole lot of engagement – and potential sales.
- Think about your overflowing closet or pile of stock. Wouldn’t it be ideal to get rid of it all, and fast? eBay offers are a great way to get buyers interested in your items and ultimately lead to sales. Even if you lose a few dollars by accepting an offer rather than holding out for a full-price sale, you’ll still have a faster turnover of items or clear out your closet more quickly.
Make the most of eBay offers with automation
Sometimes, it’s easier to let tools do the heavy lifting for you. On eBay, this is where automation comes in.
eBay has a function that automatically accepts or declines your offers for you. Maybe there’s a price that’s a little lower than your asking price, but you actually would accept it. And those lowball offers you don’t want to waste your time on? eBay can also decline those for you via automation.
To use this feature, turn on automatic responses when you list your item. You can then set your price margins for what you want to accept and decline. And helpfully, eBay keeps these numbers hidden from potential buyers, so they will just see your listed price and the option to send an offer, rather than figuring out what’s the lowest you’d accept.
As well as responding to eBay offers automatically, you can also use the automated function to send offers in bulk to potential buyers. To set this up, add an automatic offer when creating your listing. You can personalize the message that’ll get sent with your offer, as well as choose the amount you’ll offer and decide whether or not to accept counter offers.
These offers will then be sent by eBay to 30 interested buyers every 48 hours. This entices buyers who already have their eye on your listing – all without you having to manually contact each and every one of them.
Did you know you can crosslist your inventory to eBay and 10 other marketplaces in bulk with Vendoo?
FAQs: Everything else to know about eBay offers
Where are my eBay seller offers?
You’ll find your eBay seller offers by navigating to your seller hub and clicking on ‘active listings with offers’. Make sure to check your emails too, as eBay will notify you there when you’ve got an offer.
What do I do if more than one person sends me an offer?
Firstly, congrats! Your listing has ticked a lot of boxes, so take note of what might have inspired these multiple offers (like accurate, well-lit photos or a detailed item description) and make sure to keep that up. And there’s no problem with receiving several offers on the same item. You can make counter offers to each buyer. When someone accepts one of your counter offers, they will have bought the item and the other offers will expire.
Why aren’t automatic offers working for my item?
You might find that the automatic offer feature isn’t functioning for some of your listings. Firstly, automatic offers won’t work for items that are up for auction but also have a ‘buy it now’ option. Or, it may be because your item is already on sale using eBay’s sale event tool, in which case, a discount is already applied without adding offers into the mix. Buyers can also send you offers with particular terms which eBay won’t reply to with an automatic offer, instead prompting you to review this offer individually.
Does using eBay offers mean buyers can’t click ‘buy it now’?
Simply put, no! eBay offers are an additional feature to encourage engagement and negotiation – and to ultimately help you drive sales. They won’t stop you from cashing in on full-price buyers. If a buyer sees your item and wants to pay the price it’s listed for, they can still click ‘buy it now’.
Do you use eBay offers? Comment your experience below!
