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Just a quick note: ebay is running a test. If you have Make Offer on your listings, you are used to seeing offers that are good for 48 hours. A select group of buyers are being given the ability—as a test—to select other time frames: 12 hours, 24 hours and the usual 48 hours.
So if you get an offer and its only for 12 hours, you’ll know why.
I generally respond pretty quickly to offers once I’ve seen them, so this is fine by me. But I know some sellers have a strategy of delaying their responses. So, I thought I’d post this…
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I thought that someone on the forum had this happen to them a while ago, maybe a few months. They were watching a movie or something, and, when they came out and checked their phone, the offer had already expired. So, the setting was for only an hour or two.
Maybe it was a very small test group, and now they are testing it with a larger group?
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Interesting. One of the things we do is after our store hours, we close at 6 pm so to speak, we don’t engage a lot in back and forth until the next morning. The reason is we have our strore set up to ship same day OR Next Day. We discovered some time back that if we accept an offer or have countered on a late offer and that offer gets paid before Mid-night, Ebay counts taht as the first day and then we have to pull and pack from 6AM until about 10 or 11 am when our postal carrier comes.
Even if an offer is accepted and then paid at 11:45 pm at night, that remaining 15 Ebay considers your “Same Day” slot and then after mid-night that becomes your “next day” shipping slot.
So if we get an offer after our “mental closing time of 6pm, we don’t accept it until when we wake up the following morning. That way we have all of that day [any time after midnight] to satisfy the ship same day criteria and if we don’t, then the following day still satisfies the “next day” criteria.
So if we accept anything after 6pm then we will have to pull, pack and ship within 4 hours the next morning or we are seen as late shipping.
Ebay’s definition of same day is any time, even if just a few minutes before mid-night is considered same day. I wonder how those with only the same day shipping handles this? So we have our store set for same day / next day and make sure that any offers accpeted or counter offers , IF they come in after 6pm are not repsonded to until after midnight and very seldom are we up after midnight, so they roll until the next morning.
Now if we are available and willing, we can accept an offer and do at times, after 6pm in the evening, but we make sure it is something small and easily packed and we can either do it after dinner at night or early the next morning. But if we have a lot to pull and pack, it is a larg bulky item, nope we accept only after mid-night so we can have those 2 days for buffer.
We are still a Top Rated Seller Plus and a Power Seller and no dings, so guess Ebay is OK with it.
But may be a different story if offers start coming in with a short response time and it comes in late at night, then we will just have to accept and get up early and get it done.
Also to make the short times an issue is if the offer comes in at 11:45pm PST and it is 3 o’clock in the morning here.
So just an observation as to why we wait to accept on late coming offers.
Mike at MDC Galleries and Fine Art
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Forgot to mention as to what Jay says. On the other side of the coin, yep, I would like for us Sellers to have a shorter reply time option so that the buyer, who is low balling, trying for a deep discount or trying to get enough off to cover their shipping costs have to respond quickly. Makes me feel better that if you are going to deep low ball and get a good price and I accept, you at least have to respond and take the offer quicker than an automatic 48 hours.
I also wish that if the buyer is deep diving us on getting a low ball figure then Ebay would still make them pay fast. We have instant payment on. If they accept the as listed price, it is instantly paid. But as soon as it is an offer and we counter offer, they have 48 hours to accept, and on top of that [insult to injury], they then have 48 more hours to pay.
I would prefer if the buyer is getting a “great low priced deal”, then at least Ebay should automatically hit their PayPal account and give us the money in return or as a consolation for taking a lower price and giving in to the customer.
mike at MDCGFA
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Yes, I think they had run a similar test before. My hope with this one is that maybe they have FINALLY realized that we really, really want them to ANNOUNCE these things—-so I’m hoping this is a good omen for future tests. Of course, I’m probably just a cockeyed optimist when it comes to that.
I have no problem with the 12 hour window. I usually respond pretty quickly when an offer comes in. Like Mike, the one time I hesitate is when fast acceptance would mean I will need to package something labor intensive on a day when I feel I’ll be pressed for time. If I can delay acceptance to push out the handling time, I will, but if it’s a really good offer, I’ll probably accept and adjust my schedule.
I don’t understand all the logistics involved, but I do wonder if ebay might go to immediate payments on offers once they are fully in charge of managed payments?
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Just a brief follow-up. I checked, and for purposes of this test, it is only buyer duration that is being tested, so sellers counter offer time frame would be standard 48 hours. Sounds like there’s at least a possibility that they will test in the future with shorter seller durations as well.
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With this test…and right now it’s only a limited test, the buyer can make an offer good for 12, 24 or 48 hours. The seller can decline or accept, or can counter offer. If the seller counter offers, the buyer has the normal 48 hours to respond. But my guess is, if a buyer chose 12 hours in the first place, he isn’t going to tarry, he’ll respond promptly if he’s interested.
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Jay,
Right, it’s a test. Normally, any offer a buyer makes is good for 48 hours. In the test, the BUYER can choose to make the offer good for 12 hours, 24 hours or 48 hours. Apparently buyers have indicated that there are times when a quicker response (12 or 24 hours) is really important. Frankly, I also suspect this is because too many sellers have been taking a long time to respond. I’m pretty sure ebay can see when a seller gets an offer and opens it. So ebay knows there are sellers who , rather than decline, let the offer expire after 48 hours. eBay knows other sellers play a waiting game….responding at the end of 48 hours because they are convinced that someone else might buy at full price before they accept, if they just wait long enough. ebay knows this is seller behavior, and I suspect ebay would like sellers to respond sooner. Which, frankly, we all should do. Like I said, I try to answer pretty quickly , although there are times when, as Mike described, I wait because an acceptance (and payment) will complicate my shipping schedule. But that’s the only time I don’t respond quickly.
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