Mentioned in the “special place in hell for …”, but thought it was worth it’s own thread.

Just sold a rather in demand item and got a few “what’s your best price for this?” questions. My default answer is always “was planning on letting the auction run but open to offers, what’s your best offer?”.

Not once have I got an offer back, and more than once I have got some mild abuse saying that’s not now things work.

Am I not playing the game?

Getting those kind of questions from would be buyers is a sure fire sign that their offer will be less than it would fetch if you just let the auction run.

I’ve sold a few things and had various offers on them, but always let the auction run, and its always sold for more than their offers.

They sometimes do get shirty when you say no thanks.

If someone sounds like an idiot through messaging then it’s always best to ignore them!

I have got some mild abuse saying that’s not now things work.

It’s a good idiot filter.

i always reply with basically the same as OP. I’ve not ever had abuse back. Mostly no reply, sometimes ‘ok thanks’.

think yourself lucky that people have spent their time insulting you due to their own disappointment. A privileged place to be!

that’s not now things work.

“In this case, it apparently is…”

Its just part of selling online. I don’t mine people asking. I’m sure there are plenty of sellers out there happy to let something go cheap so why not ask? Its quite useful in that the more messages like that you get the more confident you can be in holding your nerve on the auction.

what’s your best price

****ing Bargain Hunt… 😡

What’s your best price?’

3 million quid.

****ing Bargain Hunt…

This.
It seems the world now expects every small business to just halve their price if you ask nicely.

There are two types of people that want the auction to end soon, people who:
1) think they can get the item for less money that way, or
2) need a rare item quickly and are perhaps willing to pay a premium to secure it.

I’d bet most of your messages are from people in the first category, and as a seller it’s simply not going to be in your interest to end early.

I am bemused by people who reply to classified ads with just ‘best price?’ as if I’m going to drop the price by x% instantly because they typed an extremely half-arsed text. But life is far too short to let idiots like this get you down.

When I was selling my mam’s e-bike, I had some woman messaging me, being all pleasant, saying how she’d been waiting a long time for the same bike to become available, and it would be perfect for her etc etc. Kept aksing for my buy it now price – (there already was one, but she obviously wanted it for less). I kept telling her to just make a bid if she wanted it. Then someone did, at the buy it now. The abuse I got from her! Madness.

Like @Superficial says, the questions come from one of two places.

Most are no. 1 and I reply to them no thanks, I’ll let the auction run its course, it’s fairer if everyone gets the same chance to bid, good luck bidding, etc.. And it almost always reaches a higher final value than the offers I’d got.

A few times I’ve been the buyer in position no. 2 and I’m always clear to say that’s why I’m contacting them to ask if I can make an offer and I totally understand if they don’t want to end the auction early. But a couple of times it’s worked and I’ve got the item I wanted at a price I was happy with, in time for whatever I wanted it for. When people contact me with requests like that I’m happy to just add a Buy It Now price at a particular time, tell them when I’ll add it, and let them go through eBay’s Buy It Now process to protect both of us.

Not eBay, but the local FB freecycle/thrift group, which, I have to be honest, normally runs really smoothly. Anyway, I had something on there, someone messaged saying they’d have it, I did my normal “great, PM me and we can arrange pickup” reply.

So they did:

Them – “Hi, can I have the chair please”

Me – “Yeah, great, we’re at [full address and postcode, plus little note to avoid common confusion with next door property]. When will you be able to come and get it?”

Them – “Whereabouts is that?”

I dunno about ‘whereabouts’, I’ve told you absolutely exactly where it is. If you can’t google the postcode, that’s your problem.

Someone else had the chair.

i got told last week, he was picking it up saturday morning and paying me 11 hundred,
item is listed for £1500 :0)

I’m really disappointed at my recent Facebook selling experience. It was a turntable and amp for £65.. bloke messaged me “Is this still available?”. I thought, here we go. I messaged back, yep.
Few days later he turns up at my door, I demo Gimme Shelter on it, he’s impressed by my impeccable taste – tries to give me the full asking price! I mean what’s that all about?! I ended up letting him off a fiver just cos, well..!

It’s not just eBay though. In a previous life I used to work as the assistant manager of a wine shop in a well-to-do North Yorkshire spa town, the name of which sort of rhymes with ‘arrogant’.

We’d get two or three customers a week trying to haggle on price, who’d get shirty and sometimes down right aggressive when we turned them down. During my tenure there, I had to deal with grown men throwing their toys out of the pram and threaten to “email their MP” when we wouldn’t price match a tax free wine store based in Andorra. I had blokes threaten to “kick the xxx out of me” when we wouldn’t reduce the price of a bottle to below the minimum legal limit.

Some people are mentally unstable, online and offline.

Love an eBay chancer, just ignore and move on with your life, oh sorry letting the auction run isnt playing the game, i thought this was an auction site?? Idiots.

I once sold a motorbike, bloke messaged me told me he would offer me about 600 quid less than i was willing to accept as my lowest price, he hadnt even seen it yet. I politely declined and told him my price, i just got a message back, “Good luck with that, its not worth any moe than ive offered”
ok mate, thanks.

i then sold it for more than what i offered to him for, he text back 2 days later offering me more but still not enough, so i let him know how much i sold it for. Never heard from him again.

people are idiots, just do what you want and move on.

My default answer is always “was planning on letting the auction run but open to offers, what’s your best offer?”.

so you’re up for screwing over people who’ve already bid on your item? And presumably ripping off eBay by doing a cash transaction outside their system? Special place in hell for people like you… 😉

Just engage the mental filter and treat such offers like spam email.

I usually have a damn good idea what something is worth and would take a little less for a quick sale but an auction is an auction.
I set my reserve and it sells for whatever it sells for.

So if I reply, I just say its an auction, happy bidding!

“What’s Your best price?”
“Best price for me or best price for you?” normaly gets rid of them.

If someone sounds like an idiot through messaging then it’s always best to ignore them!

I block them so they can’t bid as they will be trouble if they win. One guy asked a lot of really annoying questions even if what I was selling was broken so I blocked him. He was well pissed when he tried to bid to win the item. Yes, I may have lost a few quid but worth it.

I’m selling something at the moment and had about ten enquires from Germany asking if I’ll ship despite clearly stating collection only/will meet within reasonable distance. You always get people asking for something that you specifically state you won’t do.

Just listed something last night as a BIN, not accepting offers.  Already had someone asking if I’ll sell it for 20% less than the BIN.  It’s a fixed-price listing FGS.

I might consider it, were it not for the  extortionate seller fees.

I tend to list stuff for BIN, with offers available, but set the automatic “reject low offers” function.

FB marketplace is my favourite though. I’ve sold loads of stuff on there at good prices. Easy enough to filter out the “I give you full money, courier will be along to collect” folk using hacked profiles from Eastern Europe.

I am with you OP, I list some stuff on FB market place cheap 5 and 10 quid, anyone who offers or asks stupid q’s like lowest price gets instablocked without a reply. I love it.

Purely as a counterpoint…

Years ago, I sold an as new Haynes manual on ebay (a birthday gift, unused as I already had a well grubby copy of my own. A few bidders on it. Eventual winner emailed to ask some question and we we got chatting. Turns out he was an older bloke and this was his first ever ebay purchase. He ended up wining, at a few quid less than a brand new one would cost. Before he paid, he emailed to say that it was too cheap and he felt he should pay more than his winning bid! I declined his generous offer and politely suggested he should speak to his grandkids to get some advice about using ebay!

He even sent me a couple of pics of his car a few years later, once he had completed his build!

This isn’t a counterpoint, its an example of legit buyer/seller convo.
Where did he mention “Whats your best price mate?”

Honestly?

He didnt.

I was just making conversation.

But thanks for your input.

Was looking at something recently on eBay that was open to offers. The asking price was higher than similar items I’d already seen, so I offered a similar price. He made a counter offer of £5 more so I declined and watched the auction. I didn’t bother bidding, but noticed the auction ended £5 less than I offered. Sellers sometimes have high expectations.

I’m selling something at the moment and had about ten enquires from Germany asking if I’ll ship despite clearly stating collection only/will meet within reasonable distance. You always get people asking for something that you specifically state you won’t do.

I once sold a set one white industry eno cranks for a frankly staggering amount to a greman who begged me in three seperate interactions when organising delivery (to one of those ship to this place and they ship it to the buyer organisations) to not put the price in or on the packaging, i dunno what fund he dipped into but i like to think he only got one half of the crankset in the breakup when she found out 😀

Actual counterpoint… 😉

I sold a couple of very inexpensive roof mounted bike carriers a few years ago on Ebay.

Bloke won them for £15 for the pair of them. Fair enough, they were 2nd hand to me, Under £30 each new and I just wanted shot of them.

He came to collect them and insisted on giving me £25 for them as he thought that was what they were worth. Tried to explain that wasn’t how it worked but he was adamant. Put £10 in the local air ambulance charity tin.

My response is always “£1 more than anyone else is prepared to pay”.

I’m currently sitting on £650 of someone’s money, plus the guitar they paid for, because they won’t tell me when they’re coming to collect.

I’ve sent my address over, and the times I’m available. I’ve asked repeatedly if they could let me know when they’re coming to collect, but have received no response.

The money is currently in my bank account, having been released by eBay some time ago.

It’s utterly bizarre. If I’d paid that amount of money I’d be there like a shot to collect (and indeed have done in the past).

Just listed something last night as a BIN, …………

………… were it not for the extortionate seller fees.

Guessing you didn’t realise that until midnight last night there was an 80% offer on fees as there is pretty much every other week. I just draft up my listings and then wait until a discount offer and list them. My fees are very low…

I’m currently sitting on £650 of someone’s money, plus the guitar they paid for, because they won’t tell me when they’re coming to collect.

I’ve sent my address over, and the times I’m available. I’ve asked repeatedly if they could let me know when they’re coming to collect, but have received no response.

The money is currently in my bank account, having been released by eBay some time ago.

It’s utterly bizarre. If I’d paid that amount of money I’d be there like a shot to collect (and indeed have done in the past).

Tried sending a letter?

Not being funny but there may be a good reason the buyer has dropped out of contact with you.

Tried sending a letter?

Not being funny but there may be a good reason the buyer has dropped out of contact with you

To where? I don’t have his address.

Whatever issues he’s having, to be blunt it isn’t my problem. He committed to buy, has paid, so it’s all down on him to sort out.

I suspect he thought after he bought it he’d persuade me to post it (it is collection only for a particular reason). I can see (and have had in the past) buyers winning the auction and not paying who don’t want to go through with it, but never someone who’s actually paid and doesn’t collect!

I always start an auction at the lowest price I’m happy to sell for, you get less ‘offers’ than on BIN listings. If any one asks the ‘have you a BIN price?’ I just say no, it’s auction only.

However I have “negotiated” a few cheeky offers on items on eBay my self. But they are generally on local collection only items that have been for sale for along time.

I once sold a bike on here and the buyer paid straight away.
Then took months to actually arrange collection.
He then had half of it collected and I ended up delivering the rest of it at a later date. 😁

Guessing you didn’t realise that until midnight last night there was an 80% offer on fees

I used to get emails telling me about those offers, but haven’t seen one for months. Maybe they don’t send them to you if you have a draft listing ready to post…