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
Add Best Offer to a listing using the quick listing form
- List your item in the fixed price format.
- Select Change listing preferences at the top of the page and ensure that the box is checked beside Enable more options.
- Under Pricing, select More options, and then Allow offers.
- Enter the minimum amount you're willing to accept.
- Complete the rest of your listing.
- Go to the Pricing section.
- Set Allow offers to on.
- Add a Minimum offer amount and/or an Auto accept amount (optional).
Offers will not be available if your listing is an Auction with a Buy It Now price.
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 24 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 24 hours or when the listing ends, whichever comes first
- Decline the offer
When using the Best Offer option in a listing, immediate payment isn't required for most buyers. However, some buyers may be asked to confirm their payment and shipping details when they're making an offer.
If you're happy to accept offers from all buyers, without immediate payment, go to your Buyer Management settings and uncheck the box next to Buyer Payment Requirements.
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 Seller Hub promotions
- 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:
- Go to My eBay Selling or Seller Hub Active.
- 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 2 days to send an offer
- Select an offer price.
- The amount must be at least 5% less than the Buy It Now price for items under $200, 3% for items between $200 and $1,000, and 2% for items over $1,000
- Shipping will not be included in this price
- In Seller Hub, if you don't want to let buyers counter your offer, select Don't allow counteroffers.
- Add a message to buyers.
- Select Send offer to buyers.
Sending offers in bulk
You can also send an offer for multiple listings at once using Seller Hub. Here's how:
- Go to Seller Hub Active.
- Select Send Offers - Eligible to see your eligible listings.
- Select the listings you want to send an offer on and select Send Offers.
- Select a Percent off discount (e.g 10%). This discount will apply to all the listings you selected.
- With tiered offer discounts, the discount percentage must be at least 5% less than the Buy It Now price for items under $200, 3% for items between $200 and $1,000, and 2% for items over $1,000
- The highest minimum discount percentage based on the Buy It Now price within the listings you've selected will apply
- Add a message.
- Select Send offers.
Offers will be sent to the 30 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.
Sending coupons to interested buyers
Store sellers also have the option to send a coupon to buyers once their offer to them has been accepted or has expired. Coupons cannot be sent if a buyer declines the offer. The coupon can be used on any item that the seller has added to their coupon promotion:
- The 'interested buyers' section will show you how many eligible buyers will receive the coupon
- Buyers can use coupons on any item that the seller has added to their coupon promotion
- The coupon will be sent to the buyer's eBay messages
- This feature is available in single and bulk flows
Automatically send offers
You can save time by enabling offers to be sent automatically to interested buyers. After you send an offer, you can change the settings for your automatic offers by going to Offer Settings within Active Listings. Here you'll be able to:
- Enable or disable offers from being sent automatically
- Adjust the automatic offer amount
- Turn on or off counteroffers
- Change your message
Frequently asked questions about automatic offers
What happens if I adjust my item's price?
If you change your item's Buy It Now price, we will update your automatic offer amount. The discount that was set at the time of first sending the offer will be applied to the new Buy It Now price. If you adjust your Buy It Now price so that it's lower than your current automatic offer amount, we'll stop sending offers automatically.
What settings are carried over to the offers that are sent automatically?
The offer price, message, duration, and offer settings such as allowing counteroffers.
How many interested buyers receive automatically sent offers?
If you have more than 30 interested buyers for your item, we start by sending 30 offers. We continue to send up to 30 offers every 48 hours until all interested buyers receive the offer.
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 buyer 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
- In My eBay: Messages - opens in new window or tab, find the message from the buyer and select Reply with offer.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.ph/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.
