I have never bought from Ebay before, so I need some tips from you guys!
I have noticed that some sellers on Ebay will allow you to 'make an offer'. I have also noticed that some sellers have their own websites and the prices in websites are much lower than ebay prices, so I presume its the extra ebay fees.
So the question is 'What is the thumb rule for making an offer which will get accepted by the sellers? Anyone knows??
well im not sure what your bidding on but some sellers will accept half of the buy it now price, so start your offer low, if 50% is too low the seller will make you a counteroffer and you can gauge what the seller will accept as an offer from that. hope this helps.
I have tried once with a dealer 50% less. However, in this case, the offer has a 48hours expiry time. Of course, this offer of 50% less expired in 48 hrs without any reponse from seller.
Anyone else knows whats the rule of thumb for offer to get accepted by sellers?
Now this is a touchy one! Buying rough on ebay can go either way but you can get some pretty decent deals if you are careful. As a lister I try and give the best decription that I can on a stone, LxWxH, accurate photos and weghts, and lastly, there's the ratings from customers that you can check out and see how the seller did with previous sales. I know that someday I'm going to get a ding but I'm tryinging hard to set a record for the highest number of sales with a 100% positive rating. You can also see how long the seller has been around on ebay. As for dealing and OBO offers, I don't mess with them. I do things a little different by offering a stone at a decent price to start with and a BIN price of only a few dollars more. If you want to save some money you can wait and see if you can get it for the lower price but if you really want it you won't get soaked by getting it for the BIN price. It also screws up the snipers . As a buyer, if you're looking for something for nothing, don't get your hopes up. The good sellers know what they've got and aren't going to give it away and the lousy ones will send you stuff that's not worth the postage it takes to send it. Shipping charges are another thing to watch out for. I know of dealers that make their profits with high shipping charges.
All told, it's a buyer beware market. There are good deals to be had but also a lot of junk being moved. Know your seller, check the ratings and feedback, read the descriptions and look over the photos of the rough. If you have a question, contact the seller. I check my emails and messages at least once a day and get back to the potential customers asap. After all, they're the ones that are really writing my paycheck.
Pete (AKA Roughysdad)
BTW, Tomorrow's the big day for me and the big fuzz! Think good thoughts for team Ruffy as we work sheep and the ducks from hell in herding at the ASCA summer specacular !
Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:29 am Posts: 4 Location: Brisbane, Australia
I used to list on ebay, on and off, for a number of years. Ebay, through its own marketing practises, and the plethora of cheap (aka crap) items being listed for 0.99c (which Ebay encourages through its seller pricing policies) has slowly pushed out anyone that deals in anything of quality. They've couched the buyers to look for the lowest price and have blurred the meaning of 'bargain'.
You can list a $500 stone for $250 OBO and only get a $5 offer, and at the same time list a 5c stone for 99c and it will sell for $5. Ebay is setup for mass turnover of low price items. Why? beacuse if you sell something for $1, when insertion fees and paypal fees are included, they are taking about 50- 60% of the final sale price. Paypal, as a merchant service, is actually very cheap and easy to use, but when combined with ebay and low sale prices, the percentage cut that they take starts to climb.
Its not that there isn't quality gems on ebay, they are just far and few inbetween the rest of the junk, and getting less and less as time goes by.
As with anywhere else, you generally get what you pay for (excluding the shonky dealers which exsist in almost every market).
Joined: Tue Jun 03, 2008 4:40 pm Posts: 2667 Location: South Dakota
I always use OBO..my ebay teacher taught me it makes the customer feel like they are getting a deal. i used to only put up buy it now but never got any hits so when I put up OBO and would increase the price of the item so when they did offer it was around where I would have had it for BUY IT NOW. Man it works like crazy too. It's no different but folks like the idea they are getting a deal. i only do it for items that would not sell or would bid super low because they are not well known or popular items. Check out I think his name is - seriously gemented..he has purple apatite facet rough..real deal hiddenite(north carolina facet rough, he even has a Jackson crossroads 80ct piece of amethyst rough up for $99...you have to keep an eye out because he post cool things at weird times
_________________ MrAmethystguy ~ Some jokes just fluorite over my head!
That's really not a very good luster grade. The best is " Oh Wow! That is like SO totally AWESOME dude!". That is the best grade on the rad dood luster scale .
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