At RI Consignment, we sell many products on eBay every day. We enjoy what we do and we love our customers. One of the most exciting parts of our business is negotiating with customers. In most of our listings, we will include a “Best Offer” option which lets our customers know that we are willing to haggle with them over the price. It’s fun to haggle and if you play your cards right, you just might get an item your eyeing for a really good price. On eBay, if someone lists an item with a “Best Offer” option, then that is your cue that they are willing to negotiate with you on the price of the item.
Items that are for sale at auction, are non-negotiable, but fixed price items with the best offer option are negotiable. When negotiating, you can expect that the seller may accept a price of about 5-10% below the asking price. On eBay, there’s a lot of competition for sales and sellers typically do their homework when pricing items in their store to be competitive. So it is unlikely that a seller would accept an offer of say 50% off an item, especially if the item is generally selling for a much higher price everywhere else. It may be common practice in retail for discounts of 50% off, but on eBay or other online stores, it is probably less common because most items on eBay are already discounted substantially.
If you shop around the Internet, you will see that most eBay sellers have the best prices around and while they may be willing to negotiate, set realistic expectations and you may be pleasantly surprised at the outcome. Happy shopping.
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