Does this potential buyer deserve a reply?

[inhawaii]

Item price: $9 (offers not accepted)

Shipping: $6

The buyer sends me a message that simply says "$10 shipped?"

It's bad enough the buyer sends me such a low offer but to not even use a complete sentence.

How dare him!

[vintagecraze50]

For us, 8 OUT of ten people making low balls are just fishing round and never buy. OF THE ONE’S WE HAVE GIVEN IN TO many turn into returns or other disastrous issues. SO, we are not playing that game anymore unless they are a repeat good buyer that we want to keep with us.

[inhawaii]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

I had one person just send me "20". 

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Wow that's the epitome of laziness.

[vintagecraze50]

I had a customer message about an item they were looking at and said “Is this ever coming down” We sell Gold. Gold prices have been climbing non stop this year to astronomical levels. I told them you better buy it now because it’s  going to go up in price. It sold.

[t00ls_solar]

what they are doing is this, ...instead of asking, they are telling you to take their offer, subconsciously.....it is a tactic I use when buying things at different places

instead of saying :will you take $0.00 , they say take $0.00
most sellers dont even realize they have been told to take the offer

learn how the mind works and you could reverse that persons thinking through a reply, so they never do that again
( I wont say how to do it...I may want to buy from you sometime...HEH HEH HEH....LOL)

[gator08041971]

I get these sorts of low ballers occasionally.

If they ask nicely, I tell them nicely that the price is already a deal.  If they press farther, I thank them for their time and block.

All of my items with offers are auto set.  Either the system will auto accept or auto deny.  I don't have to respond to those at all.  But I still get the occasional message.  And if I tell them that its priced where it is, they start with the sob stories sometimes.   College student on a budget, that's always a good one.

[iamalwaysright]

Or how about such as 🖕

[iamalwaysright]

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@t00ls_solar wrote:

learn how the mind works and you could reverse that persons thinking through a reply, so they never do that again
( I wont say how to do it...I may want to buy from you sometime...HEH HEH HEH....LOL)

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I’m familiar with that method and how it works, it’s no secret.

[vintagecraze50]

Yes, we get the excuses for not wanting to pay full price as well, my last one was, I have been saving up for this item and do not have quite enough yet. OK SAVE SOME MORE.

[vintagecraze50]

THEY ARE BUSY , NOT lazy throwing “20” out to 500 sellers at a time. LOL!!

[pickapaper]

I'd rather have a short message like that than one where the person uses "u" instead of "you" or  "c" instead of "see" or "b4" instead of "before" and the list goes on.  

[profitweb]

First, try not to be offended.  Try not to (I just whined yesterday about a buyer who asked for a lower price when ours was already $50/20% lower than everyone else.  GRRRR).

You don't need to respond at all.  I do, just to let them know if they want it, it's available at the listed price and no further discount will be given.  They buy about 50% of the time.

I've found creating canned responses to these types of requests helpful for my blood pressure and a time saver.  I just copy and paste it.  Done!  Plus, why upset a potential customer/stranger?  There is nothing to gain, only to lose.

Here's my handcrafted, canned, response:

Thank you so much for reaching out.  This item was recently listed and priced very low. 

We accept offers and lower our prices after 90 days, if it is not sold.  This item was just listed May 10th.  If it was longer, I could accept.

Again, thank you for asking.  I'm sorry I am unable to help more.

Kim

My Business Name

I'm sure some will disagree with this.  That's fine.  I'm always looking for ways to make my messages clearer and less upsetting to the reader.  Kind suggestions are welcomed.

[frecklesfinery88]

We had a constant buyer do this several mornings a week. We figured out it was another seller, trying to get it low then they resold it. We thought that was unreal!  I blocked them and they started again under another name.  Which we blocked after that. 

Remember the item is in your inventory. You now what you want to make off of it and shipping is what it is.

As stated above:

Item $9

Shipping $5.50

Total $14.50

Send it and let it go.

Its your shop and you're the boss.  Great job!

[steve_stuff]

We don't have the make an offer turned on because we don't want offers.

When we're in a good mood our canned reply is "item is on consignment - we have no control over price." or just plain "Sorry but we don't solicit nor accept offers"

On a bad day it's "ebay has an option called 'make an offer' for us to officially request offers, which we don't use, as we don't want offers as our prices are low enough" --

or "Ebay likes to tell buyers to make an offer to sellers who don't use that function."

or "Your offer would result in us making minus $x.xx on this item and we don't want to make minus $x.xx on this item"

or "our best price is more that the staring price"

or "Thanks for the laugh"

[iamalwaysright]

Too bad you can’t attach animated gifs to reply on eBay messages. Otherwise this would be mine for these offers.

[asset_liquidators]

"It is frequently followed by another low offer."

Yep, that is a tactic that doesn't fly with me. When they pull that I go back to the original price (if I offered them a discount), or, I just ignore them completely.