eBay is encouraging sellers to offer free shipping and best offers. I can see their point in both of these idea. eBay doesn’t make a dime off shipping, so why should the sellers? Forget the fact that we all pay money to ship everything, even a post card, much less anything of weight or value; eBay makes money off people selling, why not encourage sellers to take a hit on their bottom line if it puts eBay more into the green. The post office is raising their fees constantly and everyone seems to have a reason to ask for a free upgrade to express shipping and insurance in a sturdy, tidy box. All of this free shipping forces many sellers to cut corners, using paper envelopes for shipping and paper towels for cushioning. Things get bent, broken, and lost that way and no one wants that.

As far as the best offer feature…I’m all for it. In theory. It makes it fun for buyers and makes it easier for both parties to come together on a price. This is especially true if a buyer has picked out a number of items and wants to work out a deal with with seller. The problem is the buyers who makes ridiculously low offers, then becomes angry and rude if it’s not accepted. Clearly, if a seller has an item with a scrap value of $2,000 and a listed price of $3,900, an offer of $100 is just ridiculous. Then, if you don’t accept the offer, they might go ahead and raise it to $101. I’m curious to hear what other sellers do when this happens (since I get at least five low-ball offers a day, I’m sure others must be getting them too). I usually think it’s best to just ignore these low ball offers and move on to the serious buyer who is asking questions. The fun of eBay is looking for a special buy and hunt for a special treasure; I can’t understand tainting it with insulting offers and aggressive, almost hateful messages.

As a side note, my son, Michael, is participating in a walk on Sunday to raise money for the Susan G. Komen charity. If anyone is interested in participating with or donating money to this very worthy cause, more information can be found here

And a Tiffany related side note, did anyone notice Tiffany’s Fifth Ave on CSI: New York? Loved seeing those big blue bags =)