I'm such a miserable human
This is what a buyer just told me after he asked why I wouldn't accept his offer.
His original message was asking for a slightly cheaper price. Obviously I asked what price did he have in mind. My price is set at $19-$23 shipped depending on the variation. Buyer offered $8 shipped and I just said "No thanks. Sorry for wasting your time."
After asking me why I told him his offer is asking for over 50% off. That's when he got snippy, called me a miserable human and lectured on how to run my business and the importance of how to treat customers. That's weird, I don't feel miserable.
Yes I know I 99.999% don't price negotiate but from time to time I feel I should at least pick a random buyer offer message to reply to just to re-gauge the landscape of price negotiators. It appears my original stigma about it still holds strong among a significant amount of those buyers.
spendingcents26150
·4 months agoI have had some crazy ones.
I had a piece of ephemera that the person told me they had one just like it, I was selling it for too much $2 shipped was appropriate. I was thinking, if you have one just like it, why are you bothering buying mine?
Once I had some quite popular and really expensive items in multiples (Running around $300+ per item), selling briskly at the asking price, and I didn't have offers enabled. A lady, who really thought she was doing the right thing, kept sending me "Would you take?"messages with screenshots of a few of them, trying to get about 4 of them at $100 then $150. It took a long time to convince that person that it was unreasonable (yes, I am patient.. or stupid.. lol). She eventually bought several at the asking price.
roccotacodad54
·4 months agoMiserable. Yea I found out I'm toxic because I hold doors, pull out chairs and generally try to be helpful and pleasant to those aroud me.
I considered the source shrugged and went on being toxic.....................
iamalwaysright
OP4 months agoYou are arrogant and insulting others because by doing what you do, you are implying that they are too weak to take care of themselves. And you are stronger and better than they are. 😉
meme6253
·4 months agoThere has been a lot of low ball offers, & don't forget to ship it for free!
keziak
·4 months agoI consider myself quite generous in accepting offers but lately it seems like a higher percentage are very low so I decline. I do not counter unless they are in the ball park or offering a price just below my counter offer. My sales are not so great so I am willing to work with people and always combine shipping. I put information about this and offers in my TOS but apparently it's not widely read.
fullers_uk
·4 months agoEbay is becoming a beacon for this type of thing.
iamalwaysright
OP4 months agoIs it mainly just eBay or other online channels as well?
chapeau-noir
·4 months agoIt's everywhere I sell (three or four channels). The world is full of low ballers and tire kickers - always has been.
albertabrightalberta
·4 months ago$8 shipped on a $19-$23 item is a "slightly cheaper price?"
iamalwaysright
OP4 months agoI know right? When I choose my periodic "buyer offer/negotiation" message to reply to, it's not entirely at random. I make sure to either choose the one that has a closest to realistic price (tbh none of them really are), or one that doesn't have a price stated. But I almost always find the messages that don't state a price end up being lowball numbers.
sin-n-dex
·4 months agoI had a Dominican Banknote up for $40. A guy contact me to buy for $35, so I enabled best offer for him to make the offer. (I think the offer I sent him had expired, that's the only reason I can think of for doing that and not just sending an offer).
While it was sitting there with best offer, someone else came along and sent an offer for $5. I immediately realized I hadn't set an auto decline on it (didn't think it was necessary I guess) and went and fixed that so I wouldn't see any more silly offers. I didn't even bother to answer the guy.
Normally I answer people and tell them their offer is less than I'm willing to accept, or say something nice to decline in a non-offensive way. Offering $5 on a $40 item is just silly, in my books doesn't require a response. I don't usually block people who make offers unless they say something offensive when I decline.
C.
chapeau-noir
·4 months ago@iamalwaysright His original message was asking for a slightly cheaper price. Obviously I asked what price did he have in mind.
I would have simply sent an offer for what I was willing to accept (if anything) rather than asking what he meant.
iamalwaysright
OP4 months agoI was using this to get an impression of how negotiating buyers conduct themselves these days. I admit I was already biased in not expecting this to work out, but at the same time trying to keep a more relative open mind to it.
Just like recently I actually made a deal with a random buyer asking for custom work. I was skeptical at first but still went thru the motions. In the end I sold him $300 worth of items and he surprised me with his etiquette. He left me glowing feedback. I never replied to any buyer asking for custom work until now. And because of this experience I’m probably going to be advertising some custom work from now on.
chapeau-noir
·4 months agoMy experience is that it's always better to take control of the negotiations and be clear about expectations rather than leaving it nebulous and open-ended. For me the process hasn't changed in years.
Good going on the custom work!
sfau
·4 months agoI got a five dollar offer on a $60 item. I asked if they meant $50 and no response. $5 would not even cover fees.... Not sure what people expect and why they waste people's time.
shado-x
·4 months agoDon't even respond and delete the mail.
iamalwaysright
OP4 months agoI never answer anyone trying to negotiate except for one random buyer every 6 months or so just to re-evaluate if the norm of trying to negotiate is still a PITA or not. And according to this recent example, I’m going to continue to refuse to negotiate price for at least another 6 months.
beyondfirstbase
·4 months agoKeep it professional, the last portion of your response was agrubly no so much.
iamalwaysright
OP4 months agoWhat part? When I answered him to why I declined and I said his offer was over 50% off? That was the last thing I said to him.
cheech2021
·4 months agoKeep it simple, just counter with the number you want, after his offer. You asked what he had in mind, he told you, OK then you tell him what you have in your mind, and maybe someone buys and sells something today, and maybe not. No emotions. People love a bargain, and some people ask for those bargains, and some get them, and some don't. Don't hurt to ask. I bought a lot things in life... pennies on the dollar! Its fun, and most of the time those buyers are the ones who have the "cash", thats why they have the "cash".
kibble-net
·4 months agoSounds like you dodged a bullet by not giving them a deal. A new friend for the "Best Buddies List" 😉
chapeau-noir
·4 months agoI say this all the time - selling online (or dealing with anything online), instead of just your own village idiot, you get everybody else's. It's inevitable.
Also, Jonathan Swift once said (paraphrase) that one obnoxious person takes up the energy of five normal people. I'd say that subjectively that's about right. That was a few centuries ago, and it's obviously not changed, save for getting everybody's obnoxious people, etc. etc. I remind myself that most people are good people.
caldreamer
·4 months agoThis customer must think EBAY sellers are suckers or morons. $8 shipped, does he want you to buy him "free lunch" too.
chapeau-noir
·4 months agoI'm quite willing to haggle - I sold on Posh for years and that can be a lot of haggling, but I have my limits. Stuff like '$8 shipped' is beyond them.
Honestly, it would be tough not to write back to the 'miserable human being' guy with a head-patting reply telling him to dry his eyes, the sun will rise tomorrow and he'll smile again. 🙄
inhawaii
·4 months agoAnyone who said that to me just for rejecting their offer is someone I would not want to sell to anyways.
Consider it a blessing.
heckofagame
·4 months agoI get lot of buyers asking if I do deals. I now answer, "I do not".
worldcoinauctions
·4 months agoWay back when I took offers I would set my auto reject at a cent below my lowest acceptable price so I didn't have to hassle with this. I have no idea how many rejected offers were made. Since I turned it off I get a few in my messages, mostly I ignore them. I did have a reasonable one recently and ended up selling 3 items to the buyer. Mostly though, they get ignored.
tobaccocardyahoo
·4 months agoIt has been several years since I had Make An Offer turned on.
It might be almost as long since a watcher accepted an offer I sent them.
I still get offers in messages, usually seeking to buy multiple items at my lowest prices and wanting a discount. They are not even willing to waste their time identifying all of the listings they want, and I am not willing to waste the time dealing with their purchase.
I tell them that we do not offer quantity discounts on inexpensive items. and block or not depending on my feelings about their request.
There is a lack of respect for Ebay sellers, in general, and many of these folks do not understand sellers who have specialized inventories of slow turning items who are offering the obscure to collectors and want and need a broad selection. They assume we are all selling obsolete New Old Stock product which is destined to the dump if they do not rescue it.
stephenmorgan
·4 months agoI receive this one a couple of weeks ago.
jonathanbrightlight
·4 months agoWe got one out of the blue a few weeks ago (no prior messaging or offers) that just said "$134 plus shipping for a used DVD you are a piece of s***" (censoring in the original message, not sure if they self-censored or if eBay censored it for us). We just reported it and archived it, no sign that anything was done to the account of the person who sent it.
Edit: They also left this feedback for another seller at some point in the last 6 months:
"You should know what you're selling, this was supposed to be a multi-region player and it's only region A this is what happens when you let monkeys sell things on eBay or Amazon or wherever!!!!!!"
1786davycrockett
·4 months ago@iamalwaysright
I'm sure that your buyer would also have willingly agreed to a 50% cut in pay, as well.
Apparently, to avoid being called a "miserable human," we should just agree to ANY low-ball offer made by eBay sellers.
Think I'll try offering 50% off the sale price the next time I'm shopping for a car. . ..
tarotfindsandmore
·4 months agoSounds like a whole lotta projection right there.
spreadlovelikefire
·4 months agoI've had quite a few of these lately and I've just been blocking. I had one earlier today ask me what my best price was if they bought several boxes of chocolate from me. I told them, and I was being generous considering that I do free shipping and ship chocolate with ice packs. Her reply was " I was hoping I could get it for the after Easter price at the stores for $.95 each". I just blocked. Sure lady, let me give you exactly what the store charges and ship it to you for free. I'm your personal shopper. I don't offer the "make offer" option for this reason but sometimes I'll be nice and give a discount if they message me. 9 times out of 10, they want the discount to be over 50% or even more.
toomuchstuffagain35
·4 months agoI love it when potential buyers tell me what they can get it for at the store. Except that the store doesn't have them/it anymore and it's been discontinued. Which I assume is why they're looking online?
iamalwaysright
OP4 months agoOr also when they tell me how so many other sellers are selling it for $10 less but fail to mention that those sellers charge $10 more than I do for shipping. They love never telling the whole story.