3 min article

Adding Best Offer to your listing and sending offers to buyers

When you add the best offer option to your eBay listings, you’re inviting buyers to negotiate with you. After a buyer makes an offer, you can choose to accept, decline, or make a counteroffer. If you want to encourage buyers interested in your items to make a purchase, you can also send them offers.

 

Adding best offer to your listing increases your chances of a successful sale. You can set your preferences to automatically accept or decline offers of a certain amount and use the counteroffer feature to negotiate with prospective buyers.

How to add best offer to your listings

You can allow offers on your listing using either the quick listing form or the business tool. Here’s how:

Add best offer to a listing using the quick listing form

  1. List your item in the fixed price format.
  2. Select Change listing preferences at the top of the page and ensure that the box is checked beside Enable more options.
  3. Under Pricing, select More options, and then Allow offers.
  4. Enter the minimum amount you’re willing to accept.
  5. Complete the rest of your listing.

Tip
It’s not possible to allow offers on auction-style listings with a Buy It Now option using the quick listing form; however, you can allow offers on these types of listings using the business tool. Simply select Switch to business tool at the top of the page.

Add best offer to a listing using the business tool

  1. Under Selling details, check the box beside Let buyers make offers.
  2. Check the box beside Automatically accept offers of at least and enter the amount you’re happy to accept automatically.
  3. Check the box beside Automatically decline offers lower than and enter your amount.
  4. Complete the rest of your listing.

If you have an auction-style listing with the best offer option, bear in mind that:

  • If you receive a bid
    • Current offers and counteroffers will be declined automatically, and buyers won’t be able to make any additional offers on your item
    • If you had received an offer that was higher than the current bid, the buyer who made the offer will need to place a bid, as their offer was declined when the first bid was placed
    • If a bidder retracts their bid, the best offer feature will be re-enabled
  • This option isn’t available in the following categories: cell phones, motors, real estate, tablets, and tickets

How to accept a best offer

When a buyer makes you a best offer, we’ll email you to let you know. You can also see any offers you’ve received in My eBay’s Active - opens in new window or tab section and in Seller Hub within Active listings with offers - opens in new window or tab.

After receiving an offer, you have 48 hours to choose how to respond. You can:

  • Accept the best offer and end the listing
  • Respond with a counteroffer
  • Let the offer expire. This will happen automatically after 48 hours or when the listing ends, whichever comes first
  • Decline the offer

When using the best offer option in a listing, it’s important to note that immediate payment does not apply.

How to make a counteroffer

When you make a counteroffer, your response should be lower than the Buy It Now price, but higher than the offer you received.

You can respond directly to the potential buyer from the message we send you letting you know about the buyer’s best offer.

You might receive offers from multiple buyers, and making counteroffers to each is perfectly fine. Each counteroffer expires after 48 hours, and whoever accepts your counteroffer first wins.

Automatic responses to a best offer

If you set up automatic responses in your listing, we can accept or decline a best offer for you, based on the price limits you select. Buyers won’t know your limits, but the upper limit must be below your Buy It Now price.

Here’s how automatic responses work:

  • When you get an offer at, or above, your upper limit, we automatically send an email to you and the buyer saying that you’ve accepted and the buyer should pay.
  • When you get an offer below your lower limit, we automatically send an email to the buyer declining the offer. The buyer can submit a higher bid or you can send a counteroffer. Buyers can make up to three offers per item in most categories.
  • When you get an offer somewhere between your price limits, we’ll send you a message and you’ll have to decide how to respond.

You can’t use automatic responses when:

  • You’ve put an item on sale using the markdown manager feature of Promotions Manager
  • The buyer included additional terms in the offer that you’ll need to review first
  • The option doesn’t appear when you are creating your listing (not all categories allow for automatic responses)

Sending offers to interested buyers

If a buyer watches your item or adds it to their cart, you can send them special offers. Here’s how:

  1. Go to My eBay Selling or Seller Hub Active.
  2. Select Send offer beside the eligible item (or Eligible to send offers, if you’re using Seller Hub).
    • Not all listings are eligible. Eligibility is determined by a number of factors, including age of listing, listing format, and rules that manage the number of offers buyers receive
    • Items must be in the buyer’s cart for at least 5 days to send an offer
  3. Select an offer price.
    • The amount must be at least 5% less than the Buy It Now price
    • Shipping will not be included in this price
  4. In Seller Hub, if you don’t want to let buyers counter your offer, select Don’t allow counteroffers.
  5. Add a message to buyers.
  6. Select Send offer to buyers.

Tip
You can find more information on sending offers to buyers on our Seller Center page. 

Sending offers in bulk

You can also send an offer for multiple listings at once using Seller Hub. Here’s how:

  1. Go to Seller Hub Active
  2. Select Send Offers - Eligible to see your eligible listings.
  3. Select the listings you want to send an offer on and select Send Offers.
  4. From the dropdown menu, select Offer amount and then choose whether you want to offer an Amount off (e.g $10) or a Percent off (e.g 10%). This discount will apply to all the listings you selected.
  5. Add a message.
  6. Select Send offers.

Offers will be sent to the 10 most recent interested buyers (people watching your items or who have added your items to their cart). Each offer is valid for 48 hours or until the listing is sold, whichever comes first. With a single item listing, the first buyer to accept the offer gets the item. With a multiple quantity listing, buyers can continue to use the offer until all items in the listing are sold or the offer expires.

Responding to counteroffers from buyers

Buyers can respond to your offer with a counteroffer. If a buyer sends you a counteroffer, you’ll receive an email and a message in My eBay. (You’ll also receive a notification on your phone, if you’ve installed the eBay app and enabled notifications.) Select Respond now in this message to view the counteroffer. You can then choose to Accept offer, Decline offer, or Make counteroffer. You and the seller can send a maximum of 5 counteroffers each.

You can monitor offers and counteroffers in Seller Hub Active or My eBay active.

Sending a custom offer using the “Reply with offer” button

If a buyer sends you a question about an item you have listed in a fixed-priced format, you’ll have the option to reply with an offer. If you’ve already replied to the buyer but wish to make them an offer, you can find the Reply with offer button in your first message to them. 

The offer you send can be for more or less than the Buy It Now price, and you can send a buyer up to 3 offers. Each offer is valid for 48 hours or until the listing is sold, whichever comes first.

The option to reply with an offer is available to all sellers, whether you use the best offer option in your listing or not. However, this feature is unavailable on auction or multi-variation listings, and in the motor vehicle category.

If you’re accepting best offers on a listing, you can send custom offers on that same listing to buyers who ask questions, unless the buyer has already sent a best offer. If a buyer sends a best offer, the Reply with offer button won’t be available, but you can send them a counteroffer.

How to send a custom offer

  1. In My eBay: Messages - opens in new window or tab, find the message from the buyer and select Reply with offer.
  2. Change the offer price to the amount you and the buyer have discussed. The offer can be higher or lower than the price of the item.
  3. Clearly summarize the details of your offer in the Message to buyer section, including any additional shipping costs. As long as the offer details are visible within messaging, or the Message to buyer field, the transaction is covered by the eBay Seller protection policy.
  4. Review the offer and select Send.

If you’d like to see the offers you’ve sent and accepted for a particular item, you’ll need to use the following link and add your item number after the equals sign(=).

https://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ManageBestOffers&itemid=

What happens when a buyer accepts a custom offer

When a buyer accepts your offer, the sale will proceed as usual and you will not be able to change the title, handling time, or the custom label of the order.

You won’t receive an email when your offer is accepted, but once the buyer pays, you’ll find it in the Awaiting shipment section - opens in new window or tab of My eBay.

Offers and multi-quantity listings

If you’re selling 2 or more identical items in a single listing, you can send an offer for all, some, or only one of the items in the listing.

For example, if you are selling 4 of an item and the Buy It Now price is $25 each, you can send an offer for all 4 items at a price of $80. As soon as all of the items for a listing have been sold, either through Buy It Now, a best offer, or by sending offers, the listing is immediately closed and any further offers are automatically canceled.

Tip
You can’t include contact information such as an email address, phone number, or URL when sending an offer. You also shouldn’t respond to a buyer who asks to purchase an item outside of eBay. Doing so violates our offers to buy or sell outside of eBay policy.

After receiving an offer, you have 48 hours to respond to the buyer.

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