To the sellers:
When a listing is at auction, but has a starting bid price that generates no bids, what is the best way to approach the seller and offer less money without annoying the seller.
Assume that the seller is actually trying to sell and not generate hype for their Ebay store.
I guess everyone has a minimum they’ll accept and that’s where they’ll list it.
I’d think if you’re coming in close to their minimum it won’t insult them.
Just message them with your offer. If your not lowballing them, then they shouldn’t be annoyed at you. All they can do is say no.
I’ve actually never tried to make an offer on an auction. I always assumed that the idea was to make an offer higher than the opening bid price, which wouldn’t make any sense if the opening price was already ludicrous.
A seller was listing this high end card at 4k on ebay for years, then my friend just dm him offering 3900 and he accepted. Card at 4k was already cheap tho, but I guess no one cared. One year later it was selling at 9k in Japan. (seller was from Japan so idk wtf was he doing).
I usually message the sellers who do not have a make and offer option. Most of them try to stay firm at their price.
Currently I am watching one seller that has multiple cards I am interested in but they are priced almost double what all the sold listings, tcg player, etc shows as their value. To be fair, they are raw and REALLY clean. They all have make an offer option and I have made fair offers on more than one, and they always get denied and I am sent a counter offer that is only a few dollars under their asking price.
Im talking a card valued between 180-250 but seller wants $500 or more.
“I’m interested in this card but your price seems kind of high. I would pay $xxx.xx for this card. Please let me know if you are interested.”
I would add if they say “no” or “pass”, to not send them a nasty rebuttal about why their price is high. Just let it be and move on. So many people get upset when the seller does not accept their offer, even with no best offer option.
Every single ebay message I get is annoying to me. The platform is designed to facilitate the minimum interaction possible and every deviation from this annoys me. Yet I understand that certain buyers prefer that level of interaction or think it will give them an edge, so although it’s annoying I realize it’s a part of the platform and I always try to be cordial.
In other words, if your goal is never to annoy a seller then never message a seller about anything. It’s probably best to not worry about if you’re annoying a seller because there’s basically no repercussions to you as a buyer (other than potentially ruining a sale). Something short and to the point, that requires a short response, is probably the least annoying approach. See the suggestion by @pikachuisbestpokemon
some sellers will get annoyed and others might be happy to take an offer, you have no control over that. just fire off a short message and if they don’t respond or say no, just move on. if the card seems worthwhile, then it’s worth taking the chance to “annoy” a seller, because it’s really not that big of a deal - eventually they will learn to just ignore messages that aren’t worth entertaining to them, but everyone is different and you won’t know unless you try.
I ignore all messages with offers. Why? Because my listing price is my minimum price and/or the price I want for it. I have turned off the offer function since a long time, because of all the low balling people and their “but you card comes from Europe and with shipping it’s so much more expensive than buying local” commentary.
Instead of saying his price is high, say you only have x amount in your Paypal;)
When messaging a seller as long as you’re friendly, mannerly, use correct grammer and punctuation then you will generally have no issues.
Growing up in a small town our local community is the key factor. I buy local when I can and great customer service is standard. I’ve learned from a young age to not only buy the product but also to buy from the person selling it. To me that means a lot.
The downside to online shopping is a mentality like I see here, no customer service and minimal effort required. List it, sell it and move along. I understand that’s just the way the world works now but it reads like a Post-Millennials guide to selling online.
Nothing wrong with a bit of banter and rapport.
Very well put and right as rain.
Instead of saying his price is high, say that your son has diabetes and that he will die unless he sells you the card for x amount 