When shopping online, most people check out Amazon to get better deals on the items they want. While you may find most products at a lower retail price, now shoppers can haggle even lower prices with sellers with Amazon's new "Make an Offer" feature.
Expanding its fixed price model by copying its competitor eBay, Amazon announced today that customers can now negotiate to buy items at a lower price. If the seller agrees to the offer, the buyer is able to purchase the product for the bargain price.
The new feature will be added to over 150,000 items in Sports and Entertainment Collectibles and Collectible Coins and Fine Art categories. Amazon says that it plans to further expand the new "Make an Offer" feature to include "hundreds of thousands of item" by next year.
The feature allows consumers to connect with third-party merchants that sell items on Amazon. Sellers can enable the feature to show buyers that they are open for negotiations. The seller is emailed a buyer's offer, which they can accept, reject, or counter. When the seller accepts, the item is placed in the buyer's shopping cart with the agreed upon price.
From the merchant's product page, they have the ability to recommend other products they are selling that may interest the buyer.
"The new 'Make an Offer' experience is a game-changer for Amazon customers looking for great prices on one-of-a-kind items, and for sellers looking to communicate and negotiate directly with customers in an online marketplace environment just like they do normally in their own physical store or gallery," says Amazon Marketplace VP Peter Faricy.
The new feature was launched in response to merchant feedback, while providing transparency regarding prices for buyers.
The 'Make an Offer' feature makes sense as Amazon expands its market for one-off items such as art.
In an attempt to get more consumers from eBay, the new feature is "not an auction format." Buyers are not bidding against others, but rather bargaining their own potential price for the item. That means you will not be able to see the price drop before the deadline.
"All negotiations are 1:1 and private between individual customers and sellers," the company says. "A seller is able to accept a customer's offer at any time. The intention is to lower prices, and a customer negotiating with a seller will never pay more than the listed price."
Items listed in the "Make an Offer" catalog include a football helmet signed by New York Giants' Odell Beckham Jr, the woodcut framed Jacqueline au Bandeau from Pablo Picasso and an 1863 document signed by President Abraham Lincoln.
[Photo Credit: Amazon]
