@1funkydude wrote:
We have two selling accounts. The other one is larger, and we move over 5,000 items a year. We’ve anywhere from 500-1000 listings at a time. We’re seeing an avalanche of messages about offers. We have no offer option on the listings. I understand the “send seller a message” has a subject line about offers, and they’re free to message sellers about a possible offer. The issue we’re having is we’re now receiving 100 messages or more a day about offers, and it’s growing. Yes, 100+. I understand we have “hot” items, so there’s a lot of traffic. We’ve a stock answer of “thanks but we’re not taking offers”. This has, however, reached a point where an inordinate amount of time is being spent answering all the messages individually. We simply can’t get to all of them, let alone as quickly as people want an answer. Last week we had a day of almost 150. These potential buyers are also becoming increasingly angry and impatient. Many are following up with another message after we decline with a question about “why”. They too are expecting an answer. Many are upset they don’t get an answer in 30 minutes. We’ve missed some of them, and failed to answer. There’s just too many. The argument it “only” takes a minute to answer isn’t valid once the volume of questions reaches a certain point. Now we have some of those buyers going on to buy the item anyway only to leave neutral/negative feedback about “communication”, or lack thereof. They’re dinging us for not answering their question about something we didn’t offer in the first place; dinging us for communication prior to the sale. We got some of them removed by eBay, which again, takes time. We’re seeing more returns, often with made-up reasons, from these same buyers who go on to purchase, some out of spite with the sole intention of returning. Understand, I’m not whining or bashing eBay. I get there’s a delicate balance with buyer/seller relations and rules. Has anyone a solution when the problem is the volume of inquiries? Or have a better message than our short and to the point message?
If I received 100 messages a day about offers I would stop replying (perhaps look at them quickly while waiting in a checkout line to see if any of them require responses). I think you can turn off asking questions, but I'm not 100% sure. I don't generally recommend that but in a case of someone spending more time replying to questions than actually doing selling I would say it's warranted.
Where I work, we have clients that call every few hours to speak to their representative and it's at a point that the rep ignores any messages regarding that file. One guy who called me last week told me he was told to stop calling by a team lead. I said I wasn't going to put his call through if he's been told to stop calling. He went away and called back an hour later. I told him we've already talked and I'm not putting the call through. He tried at least once more and got someone else. I was copied on that because he told the agent I wasn't relaying messages (I actually did tell their handler that he called in when he wasn't supposed to, just to cover myself).
So based on that anecdote I completely get that some people think the world revolves around them and a seller has nothing better to do than reply to questions about the listing. If you don't want to accept offers and you get too many messages, just stop replying to them.
C.
