Sometimes when customers ask me for a quote (usually in the context of plant accessories or spare/replacement parts), they ask me for “[my] best offer” or “[my] best price”. I cannot really fathom the meaning of this usage - they’ll get a quote, which is obviously my best price and my worst one.
It may be an antiquated usage as it’s usually speakers of English as a foreign language that use it at me.
Is there a specific meaning of “best offer” as opposed to “offer”?
Whenever I have come across “best offer”, it means that the customer is not expecting to haggle and will not make a counter-offer - he will accept that price or reject the proposal outright.
I think it means, “I want to do business with you, and so therefore please don’t be a jerk and give me an inflated price. I will accept a reasonable quote if I feel I’m not being taken advantage of.”
Similar to what amarone said.
You see, tschild is working under the presumption that the situation is one where there are set prices. But the person asking for the “best offer” is not; he figures that the vendor is willing to haggle, prepared to haggle, and possibly even expecting to haggle. So he wants to cut through all that by saying, “Just give me your best price, and we’ll save each other a lot of time.”
It’s not so much a foreign language, but a foreign culture.
As a variation on Leaffan’s reply, I will say that if I were asked for that (were I in the sort of business that worked that way), I would assume that the person wanted to see a discount in the offer, whether it were real or not.
“Here’s my best price. Notice the line where I’m giving you a 10% discount of the original price [which I inflated by 12% but am not telling you].”
In my business, where we deal with more large companies that expect to have some back and forth over multi-million dollar deals, occasionally we get a request for BAFO. Best And Final Offer. Essentially it means that it’s time to cut the haggling, maybe they’ve got a couple of suppliers lined up, the requirements are set, and it’s Go Time. Pick your price win or lose, we aren’t coming back to get another 2% off offering X or tell you that a competitor Y is a bit lower but you can still win.
This matches where I see it used. If I heard “Make me your best off” I’m not expecting to get a second look at anything. The customer is going to make his decision based one what you (and the competition) tell him the first time around.
Note: This does NOT mean that the customer is always getting the best possible cost. I’ll make and offer at a profit level that I am comfortable with. If a customer comes back after that and says “Hey ToC, we really prefer to do business with you, but Company B is 2% lower”, I may decide to lower my profit, depending on how badly I want that piece of business.
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You see, as a customer, I would never do that. I have seen it go the other way, though. I ask for their best offer, decide it’s too much or someone else’s best offer is lower, and when I express regret that I can’t buy from them, they come back and say “How about for 2% less?” Then I know I can’t trust them or they just don’t understand what I said to start with. Either way, they do not get my business.
I’ve even seen this occur on government contracts, especially with the Air Force. We’ve given them pricing and they have come back when two bids are very close and asked for a BAFO. I agree that this seems strange and we have always kept the same price as a matter of principle, though we have lost the two times that’s occured.
Best and final offer is not really a literal phrase. It’s more like a legal phrase with a meaning beyond the words actually used. Used properly*, it is basically a shortcut for this: “We will be reviewing several bids. Price is one of the considerations we will use in selecting a bid. We will base our decision on the price you provide in the bid. If you are not chosen, we will not reconsider our selection if you come back with a price reduction.”
That phrasing obviously doesn’t prevent the customer from contacting the bidders to request some additional reduction in price - it only prevents the bidders from changing their price after they find out whether they get the contract. This is especially important for government agencies that are required to use a low bidder and in cases where reviewing and selecting a bid might take weeks or months.
Should have left it.
Two posts for the price of one is a fantastic bargain! 
Setting a price is not a matter of integrity. (Well, say, below the 50% profit margin. If it’s 200% then yeah, a squid. . .) The person you are dealing with owes their allegiance to the company signing their paycheck. This is business, not family, and you are expected to do the best you can to represent the company signing your paycheck. It’s this adversarial process which results in a reasonable price being established. Kinda like the justice system . . . [snort] 
A request for Best Offer and especially Best and Final Offer, usually means that a competition is occuring. In a fair competition, if I give you a chance to lower your price, I have to give the same opportunity to everybody. I can only do the round robin so many times, so at the point when I feel I am close to the best value proposition, I will do a BAFO request to everyone at once.
A saavy salesman will respond in two ways. First they will lower the price slightly more if possible, and second, they will remind me of the extras I’m getting with them that their competitors may not offer. (i.e. “I can discount another .3%, but don’t forget that our price includes our outstanding technical back-up for two years”)
It’s interesting that you mention ESL folks as doing this. I have noted as well that people who have spent their whole lives in the US are unaccustomed to negotiating, and even find the process tawdry. It’s really common practice outside the realm of retail, and at every level of the distribution chain outside the US.
I negotiate for a living, and I fully expect that everything is negotiable. Even within the bounds of a retail shopping mall, I ask for a manager any time I’m spending more than around $100.00. I even called Amazon once to get free shipping on an order that fell just below their $100 line - they gave it to me.
I can think of a few reason, some involve sales techniques. For instance, I worked in a hotel as a revenue manager (he handles reservations), and we HAD to follow a script, Start high and sell down. Once you sell a room, try to upsell.
At first I hated following a script (I didn’t sell but my agents did), and felt it was bad service. But I found (on three seperate trials) by following the script and NOT deviating from it at all, no matter how much the customer wanted to, our room sales increase a MINIMUM of 55%. Which is huge. When we went back to free form selling, it always crashed.
I tell you this because the only time we would be allowed to deviate from the script was if the customer said "OK, just give me your best offer (or best deal or such) for this room on such a date.) THEN and only THEN were we allowed to stop the script and give them that offer. Many offers are available over the Internet that aren’t on the phone.
So if the agent was asked this he’d say “OK the best offer we can do is…XXX” Or “You might be able to get a lower rate on the Internet, you might want to check there.” We didn’t allow Res agents to book Internet rates(though they could) because the idea was to get people into the habit of using the Internet thus saving us cost on personnel
It’s basically a “cut to the chase” kind of thing.
Also some business have bid requirements. I worked for one company were if the product was between $10 - $100 we had to get three bids on it. Over $100 we had to get FIVE bids (under $10.00 no bid)
This was ridiculous in my opinion so I’d call up people and say “What you’re best price,” Just because I had to get a quote. I didn’t like to waste your time or mine, so I wanted to write something down on the purchase order and be done with it
When I say it, this is what I mean. And if I do turn it down and an new offer comes in, I will reject it outright - even if it is better than the one I had decided to go with, because in my mind, you had your chance.