eBay Best Offer Strategy

Obviously when you offer half the asking price, some sellers are offended. That's always gonna be the case.

It sounds like some people actually accept your offer. Great. You get crap cheap, cause they're tired of dealing with it.

This is why I stopped wasting my time trying to sell on Craigslist locally. I'd put up a list price of $X and people would offer me 25% of that and not want to come up even one bit from that.

A quick search of their email address (if not done via CL anonymous emails) found many, MANY resellers who I guess found quite a few idiots willing to sell their stuff for peanuts.

Best one I think had to be offering up a $700-800 gift card for Gamestop when somebody offered me like $50-100 for it. Told them I'd rather melt the card into ashes n snort the effing thing than take that.

Amazon (which was awesome for a while) no longer allows individuals to sell without approvals, hoops and fees.

I sell a lot of my stuff via CL--i.e. camera gear, bluray collections, old baby gear. I'll get ridiculous offers, but I just respond quickly and say it's too low. I only communicate via email.

I had one of the grandfathered in accounts where you could disburse the money anytime you wanted. After not selling anything on there for a while they graciously closed my seller account. That means if I went back there I'd have to register for a new one and be stuck on a two week (or possibly longer) cycle like a regular job.

I haven't tried selling anything on there in quite a while. Maybe it's just my area but it seems like people refuse to budge from their initial low ball offer or IF they do they come up by such a tiny percentage that you have to wonder if they're just messing with you.

I think sometimes when you get a super low, ridiculous offer, it could be a troll (who wants your email address) or someone just trying to give it a shot to get something for very, very cheap. For the trolls who are maybe trying to get your email address, they'll often send an email with a very short message, like "still available?", "is $X ok?", etc. Serious buyers will usually write more than one sentence. I also always use a secondary email address that I use specifically for CL.

When I've sold Canon camera gear, it goes FAST. Even my old baby stuff (like strollers, booster chairs, baby carriers) will sell relatively fast in my area. CHP and other baby expert sites often will recommend NOT buying used baby boosters/carriers in case it's old and/or been in an accident. Ppl will email me and inquire about that. Since my baby gear are all in working order, clean, and no accidents, ppl will buy them.

For the last few cars that I've sold, I listed them on CL and they sold pretty quickly. My G35 sedan which was 3 yrs old with only 15k miles on it sold the same day I listed it. The guy contacted me within 1 hr of my post! I got such a good deal on the original price of the car because the sales manager just happened to my a college classmate of mine and I ended up selling the car for the same price I purchased it for! In the 3 yrs I had it, my out-of-pocket costs were just gas, insurance, and the sales tax on the new car purchase (which were all tax write-offs!).

Prior to this car, I sold my 3 yr old G35 sports coupe on CL. It sold within a week of my listing. Again, I got a great deal on this new car and sold it for $2k less than my purchase price! Thus, my 3+ yrs of ownership only cost me that $2k plus the sales tax on the new car purchase! I only sold the coupe because we were having our first baby and a sedan would be better for us.

The seller listed it for only $15 or best offer. I offered $13, expecting for him to counter with $14, which I was willing to pay. Surprisingly, the seller accepted $13.

If you buy and sell high end luxury cars every 3 years, why do you care about saving $2?

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