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eBay Best Offer: How Sellers Actually Price It (And How to Win)
eBay Best Offer: How Sellers
Actually Price It (And How to Win)
Most buyers treat Best Offer like a lottery. Most sellers have a very specific system. Understanding that system from the inside — which we can, because we’re sellers — changes how you negotiate entirely.
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eBay Guide
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March 2026
7 min read
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maibo.uk
below this they walk
most sellers set one
before eBay locks you out
eBay’s Best Offer feature looks simple from the buyer’s side: you see a listing, you click “Make Offer,” you type a number, and you wait. What happens on the seller’s side is considerably more structured than most buyers realise — and understanding that structure is what separates buyers who consistently win Best Offers from those who get declined or countered into submission.
We use Best Offer on our listings. We’ve watched buyers make every possible mistake with it — offers so low they insult the product, offers so close to the listed price they weren’t worth the admin, offers with no context that get auto-declined before a human even sees them. We’ve also watched buyers use it correctly and walk away with genuine savings on genuine products.
Here’s how the system actually works from our side of the screen.
Why Sellers Enable Best Offer in the First Place
Best Offer is not charity. Sellers enable it for specific commercial reasons, and knowing those reasons tells you a lot about how much flexibility actually exists.
The most common reason is stock age. A product that has been sitting in a listing for 30, 60, or 90 days ties up storage space and working capital. A seller willing to accept 10% less today is making a rational decision about velocity versus margin. Best Offer on an aged listing signals genuine flexibility — the seller has already mentally accepted that the listed price isn’t clearing the stock at the rate they wanted.
The second reason is competitive positioning. In categories with many near-identical listings, Best Offer lets a seller list at a slightly higher price than competitors while still being discoverable by price-sensitive buyers who filter for Best Offer availability. The listed price is a ceiling, not a target.
The third reason, less common but worth knowing: some sellers use Best Offer to test market appetite. They list above what they expect to achieve, wait to see what offers come in, and use that data to calibrate the listing price. Your offer, even if declined, is feeding their pricing intelligence.
Best Offer on an aged listing is not a negotiating position. It’s a seller admitting the listed price isn’t working. That’s a very different conversation.
How Sellers Actually Set Their Floor Price
Every seller who uses Best Offer has a floor — the minimum price they’ll accept. Most sellers set this in one of three ways.
The seller knows their landed cost — product price, shipping in, eBay fees, PayPal/Stripe fees, packaging, a portion of overheads — and sets a floor that preserves a minimum margin. For a product with a £40 all-in cost, a seller needing 20% margin won’t go below £48 regardless of how long the listing has been live. Offers below this get auto-declined or manually declined instantly. The seller isn’t being difficult — the arithmetic doesn’t work.
The seller has checked the completed listings for the same product and knows what it actually sells for. Their floor is typically the lower end of that range — they’ll match the cheapest recent sold price but won’t go below it. If the same item has been selling at £55–£70 completed, their floor is probably around £52–£55. Offering £40 isn’t a negotiation — it’s telling them you haven’t done your research.
The simplest approach: the seller will accept anything above X% of the listed price, set via eBay’s auto-accept threshold. This is common on volume sellers with large catalogues who don’t have time to negotiate individually. Offers above the threshold get automatically accepted — no human review. Offers below get auto-declined or countered. The typical auto-accept threshold sits at 85–92% of listed price, though this varies significantly by category and seller.
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maibo.uk
Seven Rules for Winning Best Offer
On eBay, filter search results to “Sold Items” and find recent completed sales of the same product. This tells you what the market actually pays — not what sellers are asking. Your opening offer should be at or slightly below the lower end of recent sold prices. An offer grounded in real market data gets taken seriously. An offer plucked from thin air gets declined.
eBay shows the listing date. A product listed 90 days ago has not sold at its listed price for 90 days — that’s information. The seller is more motivated than a seller who listed yesterday. An aged listing warrants a more aggressive offer than a fresh one. A product that just went live with Best Offer enabled is testing the market. Start conservatively on new listings; be bolder on old ones.
You have three offer attempts before eBay locks you out of a listing. Your opening offer should leave room to move. If you’re willing to pay £65, don’t open at £65. Open at £58 or £60, let the seller counter, and meet somewhere in the middle. A seller who counters rather than declining outright is signalling they want to deal — the counter itself is valuable information about where their floor is.
eBay’s Best Offer lets you add a message with your offer. Most buyers leave it blank. A short, specific message changes the dynamic — it tells the seller a human is on the other end who has done their homework. Something like “Checked recent sold listings, happy to pay quickly — would £62 work?” is dramatically more effective than a naked number. Don’t write an essay. Two sentences, specific, not apologetic.
On a listing that went live in the last two weeks, an offer below 75–78% of the listed price will almost always be auto-declined or manually dismissed. The seller hasn’t exhausted their options at the listed price yet. Insulting offers on fresh listings also create a psychological resistance — if you come back later with a reasonable offer, the seller may remember you and be less cooperative. Save aggressive offers for aged stock.
When a seller counters your offer, the counter tells you the approximate floor. If you offer £55 and they counter at £68 on a £75 item, their floor is probably £65–£68. Their counter is not an opening position — it’s close to their minimum. Meeting them at £66 or £67 will almost certainly close the deal. Going back with £58 after a counter at £68 signals you’re not serious and wastes your remaining offers.
If your offer was declined and the listing is still active 30 days later, the seller has become more motivated. The listing hasn’t sold at its price. Your offer — the same figure or slightly higher — now carries more weight because circumstances have changed. Many Best Offer deals happen on second contact, not first. eBay’s “Watch” function lets you track a listing without making an offer, so you can time your return correctly.
Check sold listings → identify the lower end of recent prices → subtract 5–8% → open with that figure → add a two-sentence message referencing sold comps and quick payment. This approach gets countered or accepted far more often than declined. It works because it tells the seller you’ve done your research, you’re a real buyer, and you’re not wasting their time.
What Sellers See on Their End
When you send a Best Offer, the seller sees: your offer amount, your feedback score, your message if you included one, and your account history. That’s it. They don’t see your maximum budget, your browsing history, or any indication of how serious you are beyond what you’ve explicitly communicated.
Your feedback score matters more than most buyers realise. A buyer with 200 positive feedbacks and zero negatives who sends a reasonable offer is low-risk — they’ve completed hundreds of transactions cleanly. A buyer with 3 feedbacks sending the same offer is slightly higher risk, not because they’re dishonest but because there’s less history to draw on. Sellers with volume operations use auto-accept thresholds precisely to avoid having to make this judgement manually — above the threshold, the offer accepts automatically regardless of buyer history.
The message field is the one place where a buyer with limited feedback can signal credibility. A specific, informed message — mentioning sold comps, acknowledging the product’s condition, confirming you can pay immediately — differentiates you from the ambient noise of lowball offers that sellers wade through every day. Use it.
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maibo.uk
Best Offer is not a lottery. It’s a structured negotiation with a seller who has a specific floor, a specific motivation for flexibility, and a limited amount of patience for time-wasters. Buyers who understand the seller’s position close deals. Buyers who treat it as a random discount button get declined. Now you know the difference.
Genuine UK stock. Transparent pricing. If we have Best Offer on, we mean it — and now you know how to use it properly.
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