[Closed] A quick question for regular EBAY sellers.

I find the opposite - every auction I get several people asking for a BIN.

buy it now with best offer works a treat, saves everyone time

The BIN item I listed other other day sold within a couple of hours. Think it may have been too cheap 😐

Same here, I nearly always get people wanting a BIN price. I refuse as in over 200 sales the final price has always been higher than what they offered.

but when I'm offering stuff for sale that's brand new and less than half rrp and cheaper than anywhere online, then I'm not being delusional.

Most things are less than RRP these days. The question is, how much cheaper is your price than elsewhere on line?
If you're after half the "online" price you shouldn't have a problem.

Does listing with BIN not cost you more to start with though?

I find the opposite - every auction I get several people asking for a BIN.

^^ This ^^

Plus a 1 week auction listing tends to get several low offers early, sit for a few days then some more bids perhaps in the last 24hrs, and then people go stupid during the last 3 minutes as "Bid Fever" takes over...

You'll put people off with a BIN price that [i]seems high[/i] to them on day one (They are after a bargain after all), even if it's actually about market value. But give them a week to stew, and watch some other bidders edge the price up and up and somehow all reason goes out the window and you get two or three numb skulls in the closing seconds; bidding to win rather than to get a bargain...

It's no accident that ebay added countdown timers right next to the bid button on their auctions a few years ago...

If you want something more like a bargain, go on Gumtree (also owned by ebay 😉 )

I agree with a lot of above, been asked for BIN quite a lot recently. I tend to give one if I think what the buyer is prepared to pay is in line with what the item normally sells for on ebay and/or the listing is a few days old with no or few watchers. Occasionally I've been offered silly money way beyond what the item is 'worth'.

Can't say I've noticed, stuff still seems to sell on BIN listings.

Ebay is becoming more of a last resort for me these days though. Their fees now often seem to outweigh the benfits of using them.

I had someone hit the BIN button accidentally on a bike I was selling recently. I agreed cancel the sale but instead of refunding the final sale fees, they gave me a credit on my account - so effectively keeping the money until I spend it with them.

Stuff like that just encourages me to avoid them as much as I can.

I think everyone prefers a 'Buy It Now'. Much better than waiting. Trouble is; most people put a silly price on so it just sits there until somebody [i]really[/i] wants it. 'Best Offer' solves this problem perfectly. Years ago I decided I had to sell a beloved old HiFi turntable. I didn't [i]really[/i] want to sell it so I put a BIN on at something like £36,000 (it was worth about £400) in order to sabotage myself. Upshot was that it got loads of attention 🙂

Alright, looks like it's maybe just been my last few items. I'll stick with it as BIN + offer for the inevitable haggling is my preferred way too.

i start everything at 99p unless its stuff that ll go fo less tha 50 quid then i start at the price i expect to sell it for.. always include a mobile number always advertise as advertised elsewhere. always sell off line before auction ends these days..as i said when buying a car the other day with a buy it now .. i can go home now press buy it now and you ll end up with less than if you accept my cash offer.. she didnt.. but she did ring when the auction ended and it was unsold and i got it for another 100 quid off..

Legoman - Member
Can't say I've noticed, stuff still seems to sell on BIN listings.

Ebay is becoming more of a last resort for me these days though. Their fees now often seem to outweigh the benfits of using them.

I had someone hit the BIN button accidentally on a bike I was selling recently. I agreed cancel the sale but instead of refunding the final sale fees, they gave me a credit on my account - so effectively keeping the money until I spend it with them.

Stuff like that just encourages me to avoid them as much as I can.

This ^ just had exactly the same incident, some woman apologised saying her three year old hit the buy button on a bike we were selling and we now have a credit but no sale which means they hit us for the fees regardless.
Their charges are horrendous given the stuff we sell there is already rock bottom with no margin, so you then have the vat at 20% and their 10% so a further 30% off... makes no sense to use them but we still do 😕

Always start things at 99p, sometimes I put a B-I-N on as well (which of course annoyingly disappears when people start bidding). The B-I-N is usually top end of what I would expect to get for stuff.

Sometimes people in a hurry pick stuff up with it, tend to find people buy quite quickly with a buy-it-now.

I do get lots of people sniffing round once bidding is starting asking for B-I-N - they tend to go quiet when I say there was one and it was £xxx - I think most of them are jjst sniffing for bargains.

Did laugh at one woman. She bought something on auction at a mentally high price, way over the original buy-it-now price, then demanded I sell it to her at the lower price! She got a terse reply, and paid up the full amount.

Don't think I'd like to run a business selling on eBay, but for my ad hoc sales even including the fees most stuff goes way higher than any other sales avenue. Even had a few where the red bidding frenzy mist has settled on people whi've bought it for more than I paid for it new!