General Forum

So I have a guy on eBay that wanted $5.85 for a Scott Hartnell Black Diamond Jersey Relic card (2 swatches) I Made An Offer (MAO) of $2.75 and he counters with $4.00. When I counter with $3.50 it auto declines, I try $3.75 just for giggles it auto-declines. I told him in advance that I was watching several BIN cards ($35 in value) and he still and makes his MAO pointless. I sent him an email saying too bad you just lost $35 bucks over a couple bucks. Was I right or wrong to do what I did??

Right.  I hate the auto decline, especially when it is apparently set close to the asking price.  I tried buying an Olgilthorpe t-shirt.  The seller was asking $24 with Make An Offer.  It kept auto-declining up to $21, when I stopped making offers.  I sent a not-so-nice email.

I'd have done the same! After the auto-decline for the $3.50 offer, I would have emailed and then removed everything of his/hers from my watchlist.

If I'm reading this right, the seller had a price of $5.85 with the option to make on offer.  I assume he had the auto-decline set at anything less than $4, which is what he countered with.  So basically, $4 is the minimum he would take.  I'm not sure I see anything the seller did wrong?

i always send an email when the auto decline is a few dollars below the asking price.. thats crazy.. set the offer price for a Buy it Now then.. i do however use the auto decline function when i sell large dollar items only because i don't want the slugs out there or robo bidders to send ridiculously low offers.. IE if i have a $100 item up, ill set the auto decline for like $20 or $30 so the $5 offers will get canned, but wouldn't set it for $95.. <bang my head on the desktop>

i have noticed that ebay now has been auto changing the item on sale if it hasn't sold.. if you have a Buy It Now item and hasn't sold in a period of time, they will add the Best Offer feature on it and unless you check your email or item - its there. and that is where those sellers go back and change it after you submit an offer 

Thanks for the words, gives me a good start to the day. =)

I don't see anything wrong with the sellers actions at all. Your initial offer of $2.75 is only 47% of his asking price. That seems unrealistic to me and as a seller I would assume you're not a serious bidder. His counteroffer of $4 is a 32% reduction of his asking price. Seems to me like he was giving you the lowest price he'd accept to avoid any wasted time. His counteroffer was more than reasonable and you should have expected anything you offered less than that to be auto rejected. Telling him you were watching $35 in BIN auctions is also meaningless. Why should he believe you had any intentions of buying the BIN cards you were watching if you wouldn't buy the card he just offered you at a 32% discount? The truth is you lost out on the opportunity to own that card over 25 cents. What is that card actually worth? What have others sold for in the past? Is $2.75 realistic? Is $4.00 more realistic? You were neither right nor wrong to do what you did. You can offer whatever you want. Remember the flipside is also true. He can ask whatever he wants and reject anything less than that. But I don't see any of the sellers actions as wrong or unexpected either. I'm 100% positive you're not an eBay seller, just a buyer. Put yourself in his shoes and rethink the whole series of events. He'll still sell his $35 worth of BIN cards, it just won't be to you. Thinking of it that way, who really loses out here?

ranfordfan wrote:

So I have a guy on eBay that wanted $5.85 for a Scott Hartnell Black Diamond Jersey Relic card (2 swatches) I Made An Offer (MAO) of $2.75 and he counters with $4.00. When I counter with $3.50 it auto declines, I try $3.75 just for giggles it auto-declines. I told him in advance that I was watching several BIN cards ($35 in value) and he still and makes his MAO pointless. I sent him an email saying too bad you just lost $35 bucks over a couple bucks. Was I right or wrong to do what I did??

And your reply is that of a seller, I understand, no I do not sell on eBay but I just figure auto declining is dirty plain and simple. Or Best Offer is not How Low Will You Go. The card is a not a SN card so lots out there and this seller has OVER 8000 items listed, not a small time seller. My shop does 7 day auctions on here starting bid 99 cents regardless of value. Best bid wins. And they have no where near 8000 items on eBay. IMO he is a seller who does not care about volume sold and stuck on the card's value. It is only worth what someone will pay for it. So HE/SHE loses out on $38 dollars over 25 cents, that is worth alot more than me losing out on one Scott Hartnell card any day.

I'm sorry, but I have no idea why auto declining is "dirty plain and simple". The seller set a price that he would like to get. It was $5.85 and that's the price he listed his auction for. Seems he was ultimately willing to sell the item for $4.00, and no less, so added the make an offer feature to his auction. If he needs/wants to get at least $4.00 for that card, why should he entertain any offer for less than that? Just because the card isn't a SN card and he has many listings doesn't mean he should ignore the cards value. And you still haven't answered that question. How much have others sold for in the past? Have they all sold for less than $4.00? If the majority of the cards have been sold for $4.00 or more why would you expect him to sell it to you for less? If it can be found easily for less than $4.00 than you should be looking at other sellers.

It sounds like your shop is willing to take the chance with the auction format. Many times that works out for the seller, sometimes it doesn't. Is that a chance you'd take? Would you put up $100 cards with opening bids of 99 cents and hope you get the value out of it? Since this seller didn't list the card in an auction format he isn't willing to take that chance. Both ways are legitimate ways to sell on eBay. What works for one seller, might not for another. That's why the different formats exist.

I'm sure he does care more about the card's value than volume sold. That seems logical to me. Would it make sense to you to sell Gretzky rookies at $50 just for the "volume sold" and not being "stuck on the cards value"? They're not SN either and there are lots out there. At some point the value of a card does matter. If not, I'm willing to trade all my 90-91 Score hockey cards for just 1 Gretzky rookie. As far as them losing out on $38, that was never what was at stake here to the seller. All you were bargaining for was a $4 card and using your interest in the other cards as some kind of leverage. If you were truly interested in all those cards, what you should have done was offered a package deal of $38.75 for the BIN cards and the Hartnell Jersey card. I'm 100% sure the seller would take you up on that. Why don't you try that right now? Tell me how it works out.

I think the problem here is that the seller put an OBO on something that they should have just set the price on in the first place. If they wanted $4.00 or even $5.85, set it at that and don't budge. Something that low-priced shouldn't have had an OBO attached in the first place. Set the price and leave it there until it sells. Don't make people think they could get it cheaper and then refuse everything below a certain price. We are not talking about a $100 card that someone is trying to buy for $3-5! We are talking about a card offered for $5.85 and the seller refuses less than $4.00. What's the point of an OBO on a card that cheap? It they didn't want offers of less than $4.00, put it in an auction starting at $4 and see where it goes. If they really didn't want less than the $5.85 listing, it shouldn't have an OBO in it.

As for tonym's reply about ebay auto-changing things, I haven't seen it so far. I have about a dozen cards that have been on my watch list for years and they NEVER change.The cards are from several different sellers and they always re-list for the same price or a limited-time "discount" of a few percent.

Final thought on this topic: If the seller puts OBO as an option, they should be willing to sell it for anywhere above 50% of their listing price. Most sellers that do BIN and OBO are already overpricing the card in the first place. That's the main point of BIN to sellers who also add OBO as an option. A straight-up BIN with no OBO is going to either get bought fast or it's going to sit there for a LONG time!