Offers

[notag]

How do other resellers handle low ball offers?

[farmalljr]

Low ball is in the eye of the beholder. There are plenty of things listed on eBay that are grossly over priced. I'm sure those sellers have convinced themselves they are asking market value, even if that is not true. Nothing is worth more than a buyer is willing to pay for it, period. 

The first step in knowing what to do when you get an offer, is to know what the actual market value of the item IS. Not just the price in which other sellers price something at, but at what buyers are actually paying and how long ago they were actually paying that price. 

There are a few books by a particular author that "list" here in the 150-200 dollar range.  A Half dozen or so sellers LIST them at that price, even though they NEVER sell at that price. I'm sure those seller taking offers found offers for under 100 dollars "insulting and low ball" but none of those books actually ever sold for that price. They sell for under 75 bucks. It's apparent that buyers are not buying anyway, even if those listings have watchers and people making offers. So holding fast to "your price" doesn't mean you eventually get a sale. Knowing what the real value is, means you will get sales. 

Yes, the advice to set limits on the offers does eliminate much of the true low ball offer frustrations, but that is ONLY if you actually know what the items are worth. If you are like many sellers who grossly over price your items, you will end up being like most sellers here who complain about no sales. If you are pricing correctly, you rarely end up dealing with "low ball" offers anyway. 

[bashort]

Ignore, but I never block someone for making a low ball offer at the worlds largest online yard sale 

[chariot_badges]

The first thing I do is think "the buyer may be right - this might be over priced".  

The market can move away from you.  

I go to ebay solds and find out what they sell for.

Then I do one of three things:

I outright reject it if less than half is offered with the comment "Thanks for your offer but these are selling for pretty close to to my price."  If they continue to make stupid offers ... I block them.

I see that it IS over priced ... and accept the offer.

I see that the buyer is offering low, but not too low.  They want to buy it, they just want a little off.  At that point I counter with $1 off of my price.  I will go as low as a 20% discount and if they respond to the dollar off offer, I then offer the 20% number and they can take it or not.

I sell a lot thru BIN.  Probably 10% of my sales start with an offer.

[brightlightbookseller]

The ones that aren't filtered out by my offer settings I either ignore, decline, or sometimes send a polite message to (usually that's if they send a message on an item we haven't opened up to offers).  I don't worry about it too much.  Only if they make multiple lowball offers do I block them usually, as at that point they're getting annoying.

[mantle1951]

I just let it sit there until it expires.

[weluvstamps]

eBay should establish a nominal fee, say $ 2.00 or even $ 5.00 to make an offer (Refundable if your offer is accepted). This would help reduce ridiculous, insulting, and time-wasting offers.