Inundated with offer questions

[1funkydude]

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? 

[bigdeals.etc]

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@bayp26 wrote:

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@2013grotz wrote:

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@toysaver wrote:

How about doing a bulk edit and adding OFFERS NOT ACCEPTED? 

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Leave it to ebay to disrespect sellers and undermine their listings causing untold problems for the sellers and creating angry vindictive buyers who think the offers are ebay sanctioned.

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[iamalwaysright]

I'm selling an item that I don't want to sell to UK buyers for legal reasons. I can sell it everywhere else though. I asked ebay how to handle this and still sell internationally except for UK. He told me simply to just uncheck UK in my international shipping section but have all other countries checked.

I did that but now when you try to buy that item in my listing and have your location as UK it doesn't show a price. But ebay then says "This item will ship to UK, but the seller has not specified shipping options. Contact the seller and request a shipping method to your location."

I beg to differ, I definitely WILL NOT ship to UK. How stupid is that?? It's exactly the same thing that ebay is doing to us with this dumb "make offer" business.

[femmefan1946]

I asked ebay how to handle this and still sell internationally except for UK. He told me simply to just uncheck UK in my international shipping section but have all other countries checked.

@iamalwaysright 

No you just put an Exclusion on buyers from the UK.

That's a few lines lower on the Advanced/Business form.

Sigh.

The problem is that the Customer Service phone people are very poorly trained and the US reps are not only working from a book of standard answers, but  are minimum wage workers who would leave if they could find anything better. And while the Pinoy workers are well-paid by Phillippine standards and the jobs are actually sought after, their options are even more restricted.

That rep was not wrong--he was just desperate for a pee break and needed to get you off the phone.

[downunder-61]

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@thebookhill wrote:

That is a good email to have on hand to copy and paste.

Are there any eBay employees who answer on the boards anymore who might chime in?

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They were tagged way up thread - not likely to answer, because there really is NO justifiable answer/reason for eBay doing this.

[thebookhill]

Keep a list of buyers you blocked only because of unsolicited offers.

You can always un-block them.

When I did, I found it was the same 10-20 people.
It felt like there were 100s.

Those people are now permanently blocked by me.

You might have as few as 100 or less "buyers" who keep making offers on almost anything you sell.

Just something to think about.

[thebookhill]

Found the page!

Unchecked the offers question.

Thank you .

[dhbookds]

If your primary goal is to reduce mail and sell items.......

I would, as others have suggested, enable b/o........after raising the price if necessary.....with the acceptance at an acceptable price to you.......  That way, you cut down on at least some of the messages, eliminate those who are angry you don't respond......and sell to those who are "happy" to get a price cut. 

To me, no point in all the workarounds to eliminate those who are trying to offer......more time than it's worth.....use the tool that is available.........

[anestitized]

Hi 1funkydude, In advance, I apologize if this has already been addressed. I see a lot of responses here, but too many to read through. Anyway, starting in June 2021 (for me) eBay did one of their "Awesome upgrades." When I say upgrade, I actually mean downgrade; noted just in case that wasn't evident by my quotes. I found out by a potential buyer making me a very low offer on an item that I never placed a Best Offer option on. After digging around, I found that eBay is now automatically adding this option to everyone's listings.  And it's actually pretty sneaky how this is done. When you are filling out a new listing, you have to click on a tab (never had to do this before) to reveal/open the Auction Type section of the page wider to find the Best Offer button already checked. You then have to uncheck it if you don't want to offer a Best Offer. Also to note, the best offer dollar amount is also pre-loaded with a ridiculously low price; so much lower than any coherent human being would ever accept. And like I said, you have to actually click on an extra tab to reveal this feature and price being pre-loaded. I bet tons of sellers have no idea about this yet. Then when you finish your listing, eBay gives you 3 more annoying pop-ups to click out of trying to get you to reconsider their stupid selling options that you already did not choose, including...yes, the Best Offer option. Even worse, I have also discovered that I have to keep going back into my active listings because eBay keeps turning the best Offer option back on; WHAT!!! Yes, it's true. I think that the Best Offer option resets when your item automatically relists. I have a regular eBay account, not a business/store account, so I don't know if any of this applies to your situation. But you may want to dig into one of your listings to see if this same thing is happening to business accounts too. Best of luck!