Ebay Make an Offer also known as Best Offer, is a feature that allows potential buyers to offer sellers a price they’re willing to pay for an item.
Sellers decide whether to accept, reject, or counter the offer.
This price negotiation tool in the Ebay app is very powerful. It allows the buyer to purchase an item at a lower price, and the seller to make more sales.
How to make a Best Offer
You can take advantage of Ebay Make an Offer tool only on items where you see Make Offer below the Buy It Now price.
Because prices on some items are not negotiable, you need to:
1- Find Best Offer listings:
- Go to Advanced search and enter the item you’re looking for.
- Under Show results, tick the Best Offer box
- Search.
2- Make an Offer
- Choose Make Offer below the Buy It Now price.
- Enter your offer. you can also add a message to the seller.
- Review your information and select Submit offer.
Ebay Make an Offer-What Happens Next?
After you make an offer on an item you’re willing to purchase, the seller has 3 options:
- Accept your offer: in this case you need to make the payment to complete the transaction.
- Reject your offer: in this situation you can make an other offer to the seller if you choose to.
- Counter your offer: a sign the the seller is willing to make a sale at a price lower that the original one. You can either accept, reject or counter to negotiate a better price for your item.
Tips
As a seller, i give potential buyers the opportunity to use the Ebay Make an Offer tool on all my items, i consider it a good way to build a long term relationship with my new customers. (My Ebay Store)
To make an offer that a seller can’t refuse:
- Be reasonable: a $5 offer on a $40 item is not a serious offer in my opinion
- Listing date: Check out the item listing date, most sellers will accept a lower offer on items sitting in their storage for a long time
- Message: When you make an offer, try to send a friendly note to the seller through Add message to seller. A friendly message from a buyer make a seller think twice before countering or rejecting an offer.
Things to look for before making an offer:
- Shipping: Keep in mind that you’re making an offer on the item price only, it’s important to check if the seller is offering free shipping or not, to be able to calculate the total amount of the transaction.
- Location: It’s very important to know when the item will be delivered to you, you can negotiate a good price with a seller in an other continent, but it will take a long time for that item to get to you. In my opinion, waiting a month for an item to come from China is not a good deal if you’re only saving few dollars.
- Feedback: Checking a seller feedback is important to make sure that other customers were satisfied in previous transactions, To avoid the headache of communicating with the seller after you receive your item, trying to return it, calling Ebay…with that said, remember that Ebay and Paypal protect their buyers, so you can shop with confidence.
