When someone wins your auction, you might think that’s the end of it. In fact, you can offer the item to anyone else who bid in the auction but didn’t win.

Why Would I Do That?

There are three reasons you might want to do this:

1. Your top bidder never paid. Unfortunately for sellers, it is all too common for buyers to win an item and then decide they don’t want it after all. Making a second chance offer lets you offer the item to a buyer with a better reputation.

2. You have another one. If you have another item just like the one you just sold then you might as well sell it to another bidder – after all, you know they’re interested and what they’re willing to pay.

3. A buyer emails you directly to ask. If they got ‘sniped’ at the last second, or just weren’t around when the auction ended, then a buyer might email you to ask if you’ll sell them one for however many dollars. You might as well make them an offer – it’s a free sale.

So How Do You Make a Second Chance Offer?

Well, it’s easy really. The easiest place to send a second chance offer from is the My eBay screen – simply go to the Selling page and click ‘Make a Second Chance Offer’. eBay should also provide a link for you to make a second chance offer in the email you will receive after the sale of an item is completed, or you report a non-paying buyer.

What Happens Next?

The buyer can choose to either accept or reject your offer. If they decline, that’s the end of it, and you pay nothing for making the offer. If they accept, then things work exactly the same way they would if they’d won the auction – you pay a final value fee, they pay you, and you can leave feedback for each other as normal.

Making a second chance offer on all your auctions can be a great way to make extra sales. You will probably find that about 50% of the buyers you make offers to will take them up, and you save the effort of relisting the item and paying another insertion fee.

The only disadvantage is the time that it might take you to send so many second chance offers, but the chances are it will be time well spent. If you find that it doesn’t work for your particular kind of items, though, don’t keep pushing it – just re-list the item and let people bid again. It might be that the buyers for your items just aren’t the negotiating type – or perhaps they hope that the next one will sell for less.

By now, you’re probably starting to make a success of your eBay business – I hope you’ve enjoyed it so far! But the chances are you still want a few more strategies to increase your profits. Well, in the next email, we’ll take a look at what you can discover from taking a good look at your competitors’ auctions.