Best Offer

1. What is Best Offer?

   Best Offer is new feature which allows buyers and sellers to negotiate price on Fixed Price and Store Inventory format listings. This feature allows sellers to accept price-based offers from buyers before the listing ends and is opt-in for sellers on a per listing basis.  Best Offer is free to both sellers and buyers.

   As part of the offer, buyers can include a text message of up to 500 characters. The text field can be used by the buyer to tell the seller why she/he should choose that offer and explain why the lower price is fair. Buyers may use the text field to negotiate shipping price in the event that the price has not been specified by the seller.

   Any message included as a part of your Best Offer is not a private form of communication. Messages included in the offer are considered formal terms of a proposed agreement and must not violate eBay trading policies.

2. How do buyers find listings with Best Offers?

   Best Offer can only be found on Fixed Price and Store Inventory format listings where the seller has made this option available. In order to find listings which contain the Best Offer option, Buyers can narrow their search by clicking the "Buy It Now" tab and then viewing the View Item listing page to find items which contain the Best Offer option.

3. Can buyers make Best Offers above the BIN price?

   Yes. Buyers who are seriously interested in an item and are willing to pay more to ensure they are the winner may offer a price that is higher than the stated fixed BIN price. Further, for items where shipping is not specified by the seller Buyers may offer, for example, $10.00 above the BIN price and request that the final price include shipping. To do so, buyers should add "including shipping" in the Best Offer message field.

4. Is there a minimum Best Offer price per item?

   No, the Best Offer system does not automatically reject offers below a certain amount. However, sellers can ignore and/or bulk decline offers that are considered too low. Buyers should only make fair market offers to sellers.

5. Are Best Offers binding?

   Yes, Best Offers are binding just like bids.

6. Is shipping negotiable with Best Offer?

   If the seller has specified shipping costs for the item, shipping is not negotiable. If however, the seller has requested that the buyer contact the seller for shipping costs, the buyer can offer the seller a price for the item + shipping costs in a single offer. The buyer would then simply add, "Including shipping" to the message box.

7. How many offers can a buyer make for a particular item?

   The number of Best Offers allowed per buyer per item can vary by category. Within certain categories and sites (e.g., Motors) offer limits are set in an attempt to mimic the real world buying experience where possible.

   • eBay Motors Vehicles- 10 Best Offers per item
   • All other eBay categories - 5 Best Offers per item

8. Reaching the limit per item

   When placing the final Best Offer allowed per buyer on a particular item, the buyer will be advised to make sure this final offer is the best possible offer they are willing to make. This will help increase the buyer's chance of winning the item.

9. Do expired offers count towards the buyers limit?

   Yes. Expired offers and declined offers count against the offer limit per item for buyers. If the seller does not respond to the buyer it may be an indication that the seller is not willing to accept the offer or complete a transaction with that particular buyer.

10. Do retracted offers count towards to buyer's limit?

    Retracted Offers count against the maximum number of offers from buyers allowed per item. This is because eBay does not consider an extremely low price on the first offer to be a legitimate reason for retracting an offer.

11. Why can I only make 1 offer on this item?(buyer)

    Today, some categories only support a maximum of 1 offer per item per buyer in which case we encourage buyers to make ONLY their very Best Offers for the item of interest. This is to more closely mimic the real world buying experience and to ensure that only serious fair market offers are being generated.

12. Why can this buyer only make 1 offer on this item? (seller) I would like to bring this buyer's price up to what I need to close this sale!

    Today, select categories support a maximum of 1 offer per item in order to encourage buyers to make only their very Best Offers for your item. This is so that the process more closely mimics the real world buying experience and ensures that you only receive serious, fair market offers from prospective buyers.

13. In what cases are Best Offers blocked / what are the restrictions?
    • If the buyer has reached the maximum number of offers allowed per item (based on a category level configuration), s/he will not be allowed to make another offer.
    • If a buyer has an active offer on an item, s/he cannot make another offer on that item until the seller responds or the offer is expired
    • If the Buyer has more than 30 active offers at any given time across all categories, the buyer will not be able to make another offer until an offer is declined/accepted, retracted or expires.
    • If a buyer is on a seller blocked bidder list, s/he will not be able to make offers to that seller.
    • If the buyer does not meet the criteria dictated in the seller's buyer preferences/restrictions, s/he will not be able to make an offer to that seller.
    • If the buyer is making a Best Offer for a quantity greater than 1 and the inventory is not available, the Best Offer will be blocked and the buyer will be informed of the error.

14. Are there any restrictions on when sellers can opt into the Best Offer feature?

    No. Sellers can opt into the feature at any point while the listing being created in in SYI or at any time when the listing is active.

15. What if sellers want to turn off the feature for their listing?

    Any content changes to the listing are subject to current revision rules. However, Sellers may revise their listing to turn off the Best Offer option in certain cases:

    • They have 0 Best Offers
    • The pending Best Offer count = 0

    If a seller has Best Offers pending and wants to turn off the feature, s/he must respond to all offers in the cue before the seller can revise the listing and remove the Best Offer option.

16. How do sellers respond and manage offers?

    Sellers receive an email each time they receive an offer on an item. This email will lead them to ebay.com. Once signed into my eBay sellers will access the Offer Management page where all offers on an item level basis can be reviewed, accepted or rejected.

    When declining a single offer, the seller can send a customized message to the buyer (500 character limit). The seller should use this text space in the following cases:

    1. If the buyer is able to make a subsequent offer, the seller should give the buyer some insight on what price range could make that buyer the winner.
    2. If the buyer cannot make another offer on that particular item, the seller should use the message box to merchandise the seller's other items or lead the buyer to a similar item.
    3. If the seller has multiple quantities of the same item that have not been listed yet, the seller should list another item and send the buyer to that item ID.

    Sellers can also bulk decline multiple offers for increased efficiency. Sellers can select the offers per page and then click the bulk decline button. All offers from that page in Offer Management will be notified. A message box is available for bulk decline as well. This message (500 character limit) will be sent to all the buyers.

17. How long does a seller have to respond to an offer?

    Best Offers automatically expire after 48 hours. As offers expire, an email is sent to the buyer to inform them of the offer expiration. 

18. When an item sells with Best Offer, are the remaining buyers who made offers notified?
    • Single quantity: When a Best Offer is accepted, all remaining buyers are automatically declined by the Best Offer system.
    • Multi quantity: When a Best Offer is accepted and the inventory count is reduced to 0, the remaining buyers with outstanding Best Offers will be declined. However, if the inventory count is above 0, the best offers will not be auto declined as the seller may very well accept another Best Offer.

19. How does a buyer know if an item sold using Best Offer?

    For single quantity items, the Best Offer price the item sold for will appear on View item. For multiple quantity items, items that were sold either through BIN or Best offer will appear in the purchases link on View item.

20. Are Best Offers and the accompanying messages public?
    • For Active items: No. Buyers/visitors will be able to tell through the offer history link on View item that Best Offers were made on an item and the status of the offer (expired, declined, retracted) but they will not be able to see the offer amount.
    • For Closed Items: For Motors: After an item closes, buyers will be able to see all other offer price. For All Other Categories: Only the winning buyer price and message will be visible.

21. How does Best Offer work with multiple quantity listings?
    • When making a single offer for a quantity greater than 1: Buyers can make a single offer for more than 1 item in a multi quantity listing. For example: the stated BIN price is $25.00 each. A buyer makes a Best Offer for 4 items for $80.00.
    • Making an offer for a quantity that is no longer available: When Buyers make a Best Offer the system checks to make sure the quantity is still available. However, since offers are good for 48 hours, a buyer's offer might exceed the quantity remaining and the seller will be forced to decline the offer for lack of inventory.

22. Can an offer be removed by anyone other than eBay?

    Yes. Customer service reps can remove and (end) Best offers if they are considered to be inappropriate.

23. Will Best Offer users be notified when a listing has been ended by a Customer Service Representative or when a user or listing has been suspended?

    Yes. Users who submit Best Offers will be notified along with Bidders that a Best Offer has been suspended for a particular listing by Customer Service.

24. Why as a Motors Vehicles seller am I automatically opted in to Best Offer?

    In the real world car buying experience buyers and sellers negotiate the final price and specific terms before closing the sale. By opting all sellers into Best Offer for Motors Vehicles, the eBay process more closely mimics the real world process and allows both parties to get the right price on the right vehicle.