Adding Best Offer to your listing and sending offers to buyers

If you have an auction-style listing with the Best Offer option, bear in mind that:

• If you receive a bid
  • Current offers and counteroffers will be declined automatically, and buyers won't be able to make any additional offers on your item
  • If you had received an offer that was higher than the current bid, the buyer who made the offer will need to place a bid, as their offer was declined when the first bid was placed
  • If a bidder retracts their bid, the Best Offer feature will be re-enabled
• This option isn't available in the following categories: cell phones, motors, real estate, tablets, and tickets

How to accept a Best Offer

When a buyer makes you a Best Offer, we'll email you to let you know. You can also see any offers you've received in My eBay's Active - opens in new window or tab section and in Seller Hub within Active listings with offers - opens in new window or tab.

After receiving an offer, you have 24 hours to choose how to respond. You can:

• Accept the Best Offer and end the listing
• Respond with a counteroffer
• Let the offer expire. This will happen automatically after 24 hours or when the listing ends, whichever comes first
• Decline the offer

In most cases, when using the Best Offer option in a listing, buyers are required to make immediate payment. However, some buyers may be asked to confirm their payment and shipping details when they're making an offer.

If you're happy to accept offers from all buyers, without immediate payment, go to your Buyer Management settings and uncheck the box next to Buyer Payment Requirements.

How to make a counteroffer

When you make a counteroffer, your response should be lower than the Buy It Now price, but higher than the offer you received.

You can respond directly to the potential buyer from the message we send you letting you know about the buyer's Best Offer.

You might receive offers from multiple buyers, and making counteroffers to each is perfectly fine. Each counteroffer expires after 24 hours, and whoever accepts your counteroffer first wins.

Automatic responses to a Best Offer

If you set up automatic responses in your listing, we can accept or decline a Best Offer for you, based on the price limits you select. Buyers won't know your limits, but the upper limit must be below your Buy It Now price.

Here's how automatic responses work:

• When you get an offer at, or above, your upper limit, we automatically send an email to you and the buyer saying that you've accepted and the buyer should pay
• When you get an offer below your lower limit, we automatically send an email to the buyer declining the offer. The buyer can submit a higher bid or you can send a counteroffer. Buyers can make up to three offers per item in most categories
• When you get an offer somewhere between your price limits, we'll send you a message and you'll have to decide how to respond

You can't use automatic responses when:

• You've put an item on sale using the Sale event feature of Discounts Manager
• The buyer included additional terms in the offer that you'll need to review first
• The option doesn't appear when you are creating your listing (not all categories allow for automatic responses)

Accepting a Best Offer when the buyer clicked on one of your Promoted Listings Standard ads

If you accept a Best Offer from a buyer who clicked on one of your Promoted Listings Standard ads within the last 30 days, you'll be charged an ad fee based on the final total sale amount (including item price, shipping, taxes, and any other applicable fees).

If the ad rate displayed for the Best Offer is not your current ad rate, the buyer may have clicked on your ad within the last 30 days prior to you making ad rate edits.

Example: Within the last 30 days, a buyer clicked on an ad that you created with a 15% ad rate. After this click, you updated the ad rate to 8%. When you receive a Best Offer from that buyer, you see a 15% ad rate displayed instead of your current ad rate of 8%. This is due to your ad rate being 15% at the time the buyer clicked on your ad.

The ad rate you're charged may be different than the ad rate displayed for a Best Offer if:

• The buyer clicked on your ad again before purchasing or placed a different offer for the same item. In this case, the ad rate selected closest to the time of sale will be applied
• Your ad was clicked before any ad rate changes were made 
• The item being purchased is a Halo Item where the ad rate is based on the settings at the time of the sale 
• The buyer purchases a different promoted item of yours

Learn more about Promoted Listings Standard.

Sending offers to interested buyers

If a buyer shows interest in your item (watching your item or adding it to their cart, for example), you can send them special offers individually or in bulk. If the buyer accepts, the item will continue to be available for purchase until the buyer successfully completes payment.

Here's how:

1. Go to Seller Hub Active Listings.
2. Use the Send offers - eligible filter to see eligible items.
   • Not all listings are eligible. Eligibility depends on a number of factors, including the age and format of the listing, as well as limits on the number of offers buyers can receive
   • Items must be in the buyer's cart for at least 2 days to send an offer
3. Select your listings:
   • To send an individual offer, select a single listing and select Send Offer.
   • To send bulk offers, select multiple listings and select Send Offers from Actions.
4. Set your offer price by entering a percentage off, dollar amount off, or a custom offer amount.
   • The amount must be at least 5% less than the Buy It Now price
   • Shipping will not be included in the offer price
5. Add a message to buyers (optional but recommended).
6. Enable automatic offers (optional).
   • Toggle on Send automated offer if you want eBay to send the same offer to future interested buyers. 
   • Set your desired start and end dates.
   • You can turn this feature off at any time.
7. Enable counteroffers (optional): if you don’t want to allow buyers to make counteroffers, check the box for Don’t allow counteroffers.
8. Select Update to send your offer.

When you send offers, your selected preferences are saved. This means that if you’ve enabled automation and counteroffers, eBay will automatically send offers to future interested buyers and allow counteroffers—saving you time and effort. Remember, you can change these settings at any time.

Offers will be sent to the 30 most recent interested buyers (for example, people watching your items or who have added your items to their cart). Each offer is valid for 96 hours or until the listing is sold, whichever comes first. With a single item listing, the first buyer to accept and successfully complete payment gets the deal. With a multiple quantity listing, buyers can continue to use the offer until all items in the listing are sold or the offer expires.

Sending offers in bulk

You can also send an offer for multiple listings at once using Seller Hub. Here's how:

1. Go to Seller Hub Active.
2. Select Send Offers - Eligible to see your eligible listings.
3. Select the listings you want to send an offer on and select Send Offers.
4. Select a Percent off discount (e.g 10%). This discount will apply to all the listings you selected.
   • With tiered offer discounts, the discount percentage must be at least 5% less than the Buy It Now price
   • The highest minimum discount percentage based on the Buy It Now price within the listings you've selected will apply
5. Add a message.
6. Select Send offers.

Offers will be sent to the 30 most recent interested buyers (people watching your items or who have added your items to their cart). Each offer is valid for 96 hours or until the listing is sold, whichever comes first. With a single item listing, the first buyer to accept and successfully complete payment gets the deal. With a multiple quantity listing, buyers can continue to use the offer until all items in the listing are sold or the offer expires.