Make an Offer with Buy Out Offer No Range

[earthmother1948]

I think it would be more productive to do away with the range of prices on the make an offer and let the seller deal back and forth with the buyer on the final price. It will still accomplish the same end but does away with one more thing to check and fiddle with in the listing form.The Buy Out Offer( I call it BOO) feature is a great way to increase business and should be emphasized, because then the buyer really feels like he or she got an even better deal, kinda like haggling with a vendor at a flea market or swap meet.

Thanks, Chris Mortimer
Earthmother's Attic:)

[katandron1]

To not have to type in a price range would take less time if you are gonna do a make an offer.
Just having the box checked so that it shows in the auction I think would be enough.
If starting price and buy out is different, then the buyer already knows the least you will accept for the widget.
But they may offer a price less than the buy out.
So yes I can see where that would make listing easier if you were to be a regular make an offer seller. Makes sense to me. Let's see what Admin says. :)

[earthmother1948]

Yes it would and it would be like most things that you can haggle on, the seller starts a little higher with an ending price in mind and then the buyer comes back with a price and you say xxx for it and we have a deal and everyone is happy !! This stratagy worked well for me on the other site once I saw the benefit of using it. My sales picked up considerably. BOO is an excellent option but needs a little fine tuning then educate sellers on it's benefit and there you go , sales pick up.

[admin]

em,

Are you saying just an open ended offer, where the seller does not have to designate a price? It sounds like what you are describing is basically what we have in place. I guess I am not fully understanding the difference you are suggesting.

[earthmother1948]

The seller sets a Buy Out Offer (BOO) and then has make an offer checked. Setting a range is redundant because the BOO is the highest price they set but would be willing to haggle as it were and agree on a lower price.It has been my experience that more visitors come to shop when they can play "let's make a deal "and go away happy that they got a good deal. It would be easier and faster just to check make an offer and go on and finish the auction.I have had repeat business because I used make an an offer, where before that is was slower. Hope this makes sense.

Chris

[katandron1]

I haven't used the make an offer feature yet.
Will it not let you move on with finishing the auction unless you actually put a price range in??
If it won't then Admin it is redundant to have to type in the range. ($X.00-$X.00)
Just clicking a box and having that logo show on the auction invites the buyer to email an offer to the seller.
I think the question here is removing the 2 boxes next to the make an offer box that we have to actually type in a price range.

[admin]

OK, I think I understand more what you are saying.

Say you had a BOO (I like that) of say $20.00... Not having range of say $13.00 - $19.99, you would potentially open yourself up to goofy offers of say $1.00, or $0.50. Which are actually going to take up more of your time, because you are logging in to reply to the goofy offer that was presented. Your are still able to haggle over the price, but ridiculously low offers would not be accepted.

If I remember correctly, we had it set up to allow all offers previously. But I think we changed because of complaints from sellers regarding such ridiculous offers.

[earthmother1948]

Yes, now your on the right track. By checking the make an offer function and not having a range you have freedom to haggle a little. You have a valid point about stupid offers , so I suppose in prefernces when a seller is originally setting up their account either individual or store, a function could be put in to automatically refuse an offer below a certain amount. I never had a problem with stupid offers but I can see it happening.At the other site, dabay, when setting up the auction the seller could indicate accept all offers for consideration or preset the program to decline offers below a certain amount.Or the seller had the freedom to dictate which to decline and which to accept, whcih is what I chose.

Chris:)

[earthmother1948]

Kathy, meant to answer your response, that's correct, you can't move on to complete the auction.


Chris

[earthmother1948]

The other thing ,it was an automatic decline or accept. The need to email was not there. The program did it for you and if it was accepted, then you sent an invoice to seal the deal.Again though there was a function to allow the seller to email back and forth with the potentail buyer.

Chris

[admin]

What about something that allowed the seller to set up preferences for the "make offer" function. Like a default percentage entered on the preferences page of say 50%, would mean that the buyer would not be allowed to enter an offer less than 50% of the buy out price. If the seller did not set up a percentage, then all would be allowed.

[earthmother1948]

That would work....good idea.


Chris
Earthmother's Attic

[admin]

I will have to look into this further to see if this is something we could modify for our current platform, or if we will have to wait for our updated platform which is currently being developed.

[earthmother1948]

I'll look forward to seeing what develops. Thanks