Low ball offers

[5639joe]

Im a new seller here about 5 months. I keep getting really low offers, like 60% less than listed. I tried negotiating with these fun folks only to get ignored. Now I just decline these offers because they never come up, or respond to my counter offers. Im considering ending any offer on my items since I offer free with a competitive price, that I always lower by two dollars so there's no doubt im giving a great price. Is this going to slow me down or hurt sales? 

[corvettestainless]

My opinions and I have a store, sold many different ways for 20+ years.

I would get rid of Best Offer- just list your Buy It Now's at the price you are willing to sell for, it really entices the 'craigslist/garage sale' mentality. 2nd- I would keep New items at the XX.99 price, but do 'used' at XX.00. 3rd, either charge shipping or use 'free' shipping, but not both (this way, if someone buys more than 1, there's not an issue). Finally, I would advise 'free shipping' as that is what the world expects, the competition is doing everywhere, and searches can be filtered for 'free shipping', which would keep your items unseen. 

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@5639joe wrote: ...  I just decline these offers because they never come up, or respond to my counter offers....

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Why not just set up auto-decline?

[divwido]

This is totally unrelated to your question, but if you are going to sell clothing, you need to buy a dummy.  Clothes will never look as good as they do on a person or dummy and it will help  your prices and sales.

[gwzcomps]

Setting auto declines are your friend. Auto accept not so much.

[dubiousgain]

Doing the OBO thing can set a seller up for a world of heartache.  I have the same issue with being ignored if I respond to an offer with a counter offer. The way I look at it is those people are simply raising the flag to see if anyone will salute it.  They know that if they don't ask they're not going to get... And they just want to get it for their lowball offer.  If the seller doesn't give them that, then they're off to try their methodology on a different seller. Also keep in mind that many buyers on eBay are brokers... That is to say they plan on reselling the item at a profit. They want to be able to purchase that item at a price that will insure them being able to make money on it.

[soh.maryl]

When a seller receives an offer, he has four choices for a response:

Accept.

Decline.

Counter.

Ignore and it expires in 48 hours.

Have you considered #4?

[emerald1830]

I have to agree...especially since those are some really nice looking items...def. worth the investment...

[iart]

Here's what we do with low offers. First, we have a cushion in there on the price. Asking a little more than what we'd take. When we get a low offer we send a counter with the note: "Firm price. Thank you for the offer!"

If they counter that, we counter our firm price again and write this: "I'm sorry. We already sent you our firm price. No need to counter."

If they continue to waste our time with another counter we put them on our Block List.

We do pretty well with this. Probably about 60% accept our counter.

[5639joe]

Thank you for input. You confirmed exactly what my plan has evolved into in a shirt time. Free shipping is what they want, with a competitive price slightly lower than the other guy. Make offer just doesn't fit in my sales plan.  I want to have free shipping with a great price that turns over inventory instead of sitting on it for extra buck. Turn it at a good price and restock. 

[city*satins]

I just set the BIN at about 30% higher than I hope to get, that way even a relatively lowball offer gives me more room to negotiate.   I don't blame any buyer for trying to lowball me once, but I won't do more than 2 rounds of counter-offers and even then, only if the buyer has moved some distance up.

[city*satins]

I think you might want to reconsider your free shipping and offer it only on items that are high profit.

For instance, you have a pair of camo pants that I'm guessing weigh at least 1 pound for shipping.  You only are asking $12.99 and inviting offers.  If that sells for $12.99, you will get

$12.99 minus

$1.30 final fee

$7.50 or thereabouts for postage if you use a flat rate bubble mailer, more if you don't

$0.69 paypal fee

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$12.99 minus $9.49 = $3.50  net

Not much even if you got the pants for free.

Free shipping is not good for your income on inexpensive things.  

[7606dennis]

Frankly, receiving an offer is, in my opinion, to the advantage of the seller, by allowing the seller to view the buyer's feedback left and retraction record to determine if you are willing to do business with them.  More than one retraction showing gets the blocked as does having their feedback set to PRIVATE.

I'm not fond of auto-decline or auto-accept since I want to consider the offers personally.  If the offer is extremely low, but I'm willing to do business with them if we can reach a mutually agreed upon price, I send them a counter offer.  If I don't want to do business with them, I put them on my BBL and let the offer expire.

I don't mind haggling but it's not my favorite pass time.

By the way, as mentioned above, I check their feedback left for others.  While negatives left isn't automatically a deal breaker, too many and those showing what I deem to be unreasonable or unrealistic expectations can be.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

As a powerbuyer I do not want “free“ shipping.its a ripoff when buying multiples

[city*satins]

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@the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth wrote:

As a powerbuyer I do not want “free“ shipping.its a ripoff when buying multiples

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Unless you're buying from a seller like the OP who hasn't yet figured out how not to lose money by offering free shipping on cheap but heavy items.