Hey Folks,
I’m hoping to get some of your professional opinions on a fairly minor eBay issue. I have a potential buyer who has sent me half a dozen messages asking for my lowest price on the same card over the course of about 10 days. My answer has always been the same, yet he/she continually makes offers under my lowest price (which I counter) and then he/she messages me asking me for my lowest price again, thus continuing the cycle. This user has occasionally lowered his/her subsequent offers and has now started to do this with other cards as well.
Question: Is it preferable, at this point, to just ignore the buyer’s offers/messages, to send an assertive message asking the user to quite contacting me, or simply block the user all together? I don’t want to be unprofessional or deter users from contacting me, but I also don’t want to continue this futile process. The buyer has good feedback and has made “reasonable” offers (not the typical low-baller that I’m sure we’ve all experienced). What do you think?
I have a pretty big sales backgound so I can tell you right now a lot of what you’re experiencing is a customer wanting a win (I hate to say it but there’s a big culture group that does this, I won’t say which but everyone where I worked hated dealing with them because they would pull the same crap everytime).
On eBay I’ve found the best way to avoid it is don’t answer the ‘what’s the lowest you’ll go’ question, unless it’s with ‘what’s the highest you’ll offer’ or something similar. I used to give an answer and hated it when someone would counter with a lower offer. I would remain firm on the price and stay professional, but would always have in the back of my head ‘why would you ask for the lowest if you’re going to offer less’.
In this instance if you want the sale you’re best bet is to give them a false win, say a higher number than what you normally answer with. When they give you a counter they’ll probably go with the price they’ve been normally countering with, tell them I don’t know if I can do that but I can come down to (price you normally say) but that’s the absolute bottom. It might seem that this shouldn’t work as nothing has changed, but some people just need a win even if it’s not really a win.
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Tell them you only accept offers using the best offer feature on the listing. If that feature isn’t present then the buy it now is the least you’ll take.
I just tell people, I have listed my price. You want to make an offer, make an offer.
People think they are so smart, trying to use dealers tricks on dealers. Duh, oh, think I fell for that.
I find them time wasters as they are just people looking for GREAT deals on GREAT cards that most sellers aren’t in a rush to sell. I think if I kept getting that many messages I would block them.