Buyer negotiating price within the checkout message

[iamalwaysright]

I've been getting this occasionally where the buyer tries to negotiate the price they paid within the buyer checkout message. How do you deal with this?

My current buyer today wrote a message on there asking for a discount on his shipping he paid. What would you do, 1) message him back and politely say no (which might prolong your advertised handling time with a potential back/forth), 2) politely say no and ship it immediately without waiting for a reply, 3) ignore the message and ship the item anyway, 4) send them a partial refund as they asked, or 5) cancel the order?

[cobra_viper · Accepted solution]

I would first do away with giving them the option to leave you a message during checkout.  

Selling - > Manage Communications with Buyers - > Include a message at checkout when they pay - > No

That will solve that problem.  

As for the current situation, if they are demanding a discount...cancel the order.  If they are asking for a refund, they are already expecting it and if you ignore it and ship then you are leaving yourself wide open for negative feedback.  I would cancel as "something wrong with the buyer's address" so they can't leave you negative feedback and then immediately add them to your block list so they can't rebuy the item again.  I don't play games with buyers.  If they try to get a refund after purchasing an item at the listed price, then their order gets canceled and they are blocked for good.   If they expected a discount on the shipping, they should've sent a message asking about it before making any purchases...not after the fact.

[gator08041971]

@cobra_viper 

I have to agree with viper.

They are attempting to change the terms of the sale after it was purchased.  They should have asked before hand.

Buyers like this often lead to issues later.  You can (and should) review the feedback they leave other sellers as well, this often indicates patterns, especially if its a buyer that complains a lot about other sellers in their feedback.

Once in a great number of transactions is plausible.  Buyers complaining every other transaction indicates a buyer problem and one to add to a block list.

[titipeo]

Cancel the order. These are problematic buyers that may not be happy with their purchase and file a claim. 

[iamalwaysright]

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@cobra_viper wrote:

I would first do away with giving them the option to leave you a message during checkout.  

Selling - > Manage Communications with Buyers - > Include a message at checkout when they pay - > No

That will solve that problem.  

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Whoa I never even knew that was an option to disable it. Thanks! Now I have to wonder if I've ever gotten important info from a buyer in those checkout messages so I can afford to not see any of them.

I guess if that was the case, a (competent) buyer would just message me directly. That probably won't stop the negotiators from messaging me post-sale too I guess. But at least their statements won't be a part of the transaction record thus thinking it'll be a term of sale. It'll just be on a separate message.

When I dealt with this stuff in the past, how I respond depends on the verbiage of the message. I think there's a fine line between testing the waters or outright demanding something at all cost. This buyer today, like some others I've had, politely (and passively) asked for a lower shipping. He didn't give any reason as to why. I actually noticed this after the fact that my employee already shipped it out, lol. So I'm going to pretend I didn't see it and see if this guy has the balls to ask me about it again once he receives (and likes) the item. There's been many times as well when buyers use aggressive verbiage that I just ignore, cancel, block. 

[inhawaii]

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@iamalwaysright wrote:

How do you deal with this?

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Ignore it.

They bought it at the listed price.

The end.

[iamalwaysright]

I find it interesting as buyers are doing this as they are checking out. I can't help to think these guys know to typically do all this stuff pre sale, but the fact that they can state these "terms" on the transaction itself as if it gives it more leverage.