eBay is expanding a feature called “Offer to Buyers” designed to improve conversion. It will become available in Seller Hub next month, according to eBay’s Early 2019 Seller Update announcement published on Tuesday, February 26, 2019.
The Offer to Buyers feature allows sellers to send offers to buyers to encourage them to purchase an item in which they might be interested. As we wrote in August when we reported on some of the early testing eBay was doing with these features, “as auctions decline, haggling is encouraged.”
According to eBay’s explanation, “Buyers who receive the offer will be notified that other buyers can still buy the item and that they should take advantage while they can. Offers will expire after 48 hours.”
Additional key things to know about Offer to Buyers:
- Go to your Active Listings page in Seller Hub, click “Offer to buyers,” and click “Eligible for offers” to view your eligible listings.
- Your listing does not need to include Best Offer to be eligible to send offers to buyers.
- eBay is rolling out the feature to Seller Hub sellers in phases and expects “Offer to buyers” to be available to most sellers by end of March 2019.
- Buyers can opt out of receiving offers by changing their communication preferences.
The feature is selective – according to an eBay FAQ: “When I click “Offer to buyers” to view my eligible listings in Seller Hub, why are so few of my listings eligible,” eBay provided the following answer:
“Eligibility is determined by a number of factors, including age of listing, listing format, and rules that manage the number of offers buyers receive. We may expand eligibility criteria over time.”
Sellers are discussing the new feature on this thread on the eBay boards.
eBay published more information about the Offer to Buyers feature on the Early Seller Update 2019 landing page.
I don’t have time to haggle with buyers. I already spend too much time on eBay. Hopefully all these new changes don’t kill the marketplace, on which, so far, I’m doing pretty well.