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I spent all day yesterday posting a Lot of Cabbage Patch Kids clothing. I have most of them priced at $14.99 with free shipping. I woke up to find the message in my in box-
“hello I was wondering if you might take less for this item 10.00 as I am a senior almost 70 and my doll needs this please let me know sincerely freeda ”
Scavengers – what does you B.S. meter tell you. The customer has a feedback score of 112 and has been a member since January 2018. Freeda bought 100 items in a year and can’t afford to pay full price on dolls clothing?!
How do I proceed? Offer a 10% senior discount? Ignore the email? Ask her to pay $20.00 because I am on a fix income and awaiting a kidney transplant? (<— not true).
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I almost always will give someone who contacts me a discount UNLESS it is something I just listed. Of course, I may still give a discount, but I would think through it.
A 30% discount that includes shipping for something you just listed seems a bit much to ask for. You don’t know whether they are a senior or not. Personally, I might extend a smaller discount and include a positive comment like “thanks for your interest in my item” or “I can extend a discount for you”.
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Yeah, it’s your call. We often give discounts on items we would have taken an offer on. We have hefty margins so no big deal.
But we assume most of these reasons are bullshit. Im sure all of us have gotten the messages about being disabled, a charity for the military, foster care mom, etc.
We just treat it like an offer like any other. Either we’re hungry to sell or we counter offer. Doesnt matter what their story is.
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I would make an offer of $14 and say that it’s the best you can do since it already includes free shipping. I find that when people ask for huge discounts, they are fishing for ANY discount since they want the item. Offering even a small discount will please the buyer and make them feel as if they have “won.”
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I’d probably do as almasty suggested.
I have someone contacting me about once a week giving me a sob story about wanting reduced shipping on some wallpaper I have listed. She’s waiting for her disability check, my wallpaper is the only thing that will bring some joy to her life, yada, yada, yada. I’ve responded twice telling her that it’s heavy and I can’t absorb the shipping cost.
Last message included several photos of themed items in her house that would go along with my wallpaper. Sheesh! I didn’t respond to that one.
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Yeah I took the Alamsty route and offer a 10% discount and of course no response.
@Terri – What I wanted to say was “If you can’t afford $14.99 on a fix income then you certainly can’t afford $10.00 on a fixed income. Perhaps you should sell your dolls on Ebay.” -
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I’m curious in the psychology of some people coming up with these stories…I don’t understand it. Why not be succinct as a buyer and just straight up state “Will you take $XX” and leave it at that?
I don’t trust anyone (ebay or in the world) that has a story that goes along with a totally unrelated request.
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Yes @Jay I took the high road 🙂
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In my humble opinion, trying to make logical sense out of unreasonable offers or weird communication is a complete waste of spiritual energy. Some people are happier when things are complicated. Their lives and mind are a complex labyrinth, full of twists and turns and dead ends that you would never be able to find your way out of.
My personal philosophy is I don’t even waste a second trying to understand irrational communication or wonder why the person cannot see how irrational it is. If a weird message comes my way, I acknowledge the person in a nice way, or answer their request politely, and move on…and count to 100 before I blow the person away with an angry reply.
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Every time I’ve had a “Senior Grandma on a Fixed Income Who Just Wants to Buy XYZ for Her Grandkids!” ask me for a discount? They’ve been a pain-in-the-socks type of customer. Every.single.time.
We negotiate a discount, then they have very specific, nitpicky shipping instructions, then they get the item and find one eensy little thing that isn’t perfect and demand further discounts because NOW your item is causing them a financial hardship and they are old. And on a fixed income. And won’t someone think of the (grand)children?
I’m at a point where anyone that starts out the negotiation with a tale of woe, sickness, and financial ruin gets a hot block.
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“anyone that starts out the negotiation with a tale of woe, sickness, and financial ruin gets a hot block.”
Let this be on my tombstone.
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Huh. This made me realize that I have no recollection of ever receiving any commercial item as a present from my grandmother for any holiday, ever. Of course there was LOTS of cooking and baking for us grandkids, but never a wrapped present that was purchased somewhere. And I adored my grandmother and never felt slighted in any way by this lack of presents. This is not really relevant to reselling, but it’s just funny that I never ever realized this or thought about it until reading this thread, now in my 40s. Just never crossed my mind. So I guess this means that when I end up getting one of those grandma requests, I will not be moved. As it is, my finicky/OCD/engineer self always wants to respond to the “fixed income” pleas by saying “What does “fixed income” have to do with anything? You could have a fixed income of $10k per month!”
I love this thread. Definitely a “stand around the water cooler” conversation. 🙂
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Sonia.. the water cooler idea is not a bad one. Years ago I was on a forum, that had a section actually called the “Water Cooler”. Maybe Jay and Ryanne may just add a category called the “Water Cooler” or “The Hangout Corner” or my old favorite back from high school, “The Smoking Tree”.
Just a thought. A section for some humorous or lighter stuff, or weird stuff we all see and or read that doesn’t fit any of the other categories.
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No!!!
Then people will start posting political crap. Then people will get offended fight and leave. New users will show up who spend all their time there and don’t contribute anything of value anywhere else in the forum. Then it will bleed over into the rest of the forum. Then a sub forum just for political crap will be created to try and fix things. Then J&R will start wondering if this place is really worth their time….So, no. Absolutely not. EH EH! Nein! Nay! No Dice! However you want to say it, we don’t need it. It’s not a good thing.
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Here’s one of the more detailed sob stories I’ve received, asking about a mini-disc player.
Hi, I’m I’m George, I’m a 66 yr old record producer. Just had heart surgery. I’m actually poor.
I know all about minidisk players. I bought one of the first 3 in Pa. MZ1. Then 6 mths later the MDS 101. I have 5 in my basement that are all dead. No parts avaliable… since 2009.
I’ve spent over 120 hrs trying to fix them plus hundreds upon hundreds of dollars. The real deal is……. They JUST DIE.
Therefore my offer. I’m still at risk.
Thanking you in Advance. Thanks
George
He didn’t include the actual offer with his message. Out of curiosity for how low he was going to ball, I messaged him back and asked what he was offering. The item is for sale for $350 plus shipping.
I’m so sorry, I thought the offer was in the Email with comments? As I said, The unit will die soon. They all do. That’s fact. Your unit came out in 1993 (about), So, it’s 26 yrs old. or so. I need one that works so I can copy my 18 (off the board ) record masters. Grand daddy needs tom pass it down to the grand kids. Not kidding here. I’m poor and need help. Not kidding. All true. I know the unit was over a Thousand dollars NEW. I bought One. It died. I have at least a thousand hrs in this. All true. They just wont read the TOC.
So. I’ll bid $120.00 Dollars. Total including shipping. Heay, it’s ,low, but, it has a 99.80% of not working correctly. The time to send it back, complain about it,. Is just not worth either of our time. Ok,
Thanks George
Between the first and second message, he apparently put an extra 880 hours into his mini-disc player. Not kidding. All true. Anyway, I respectfully declined his generous offer.
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I once had a popular school yearbook for sale and a woman wanted it for half the price — she never came right out and said exactly what she wanted. It was just really long emails with a very long story.
The story was that she gave her yearbook away to a friend who lost it all in a fire and it just so happened that she happened to have his actual personal year book. So out of the goodness of her heart she gave it to him. At the time she got the year book she paid about 36.00 for it…
She never came right out and offered that price, she was working to gain my sympathy and befriending me.
Just out of curiosity, to see if I was being played, I looked her up on FB and I did not get the impression that she was poor as the emails were implying.
I stayed polite, I never said I would not sell her the yearbook for that price. I just kept telling her how amazing she was and how kind it was of her to help her friend.
Eventually she just disappeared.
And I sold the year book for the price I wanted not too long after that.
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I love that my “Grandma rant has become a such a hot topic”. I offered her a 10% senior discount and with out further fanfare, she paid. I am sending it out today FULLY expecting her to have some sort of problem with it. All of my spidey senses are tingling on this one.
And by the way. This Cabbage Patch Kids clothing IS NOT for her Grandchildren. It is for her Cabbage Patch Kid.
Oh Ward!
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I’d be more likely to believe some of these stories if they wanted something run of the mill. But no like the message I got: I am a poor college student who doesn’t have to to thrift therefore I want to buy your vintage one of a kind converses but only for 25% of your asking price. I wanted to respond how about you go to Walmart and buy a pair of shoes there? But I didn’t. 🙂
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I enjoy those who complain about shipping, when the shipping cost is the actual cost to me on the listings.
I had a guy this weekend who wanted a coat sent to him (I’m in Canada, they were in Mississippi) and complained that my US$12.10 shipping was too high and I should be able to do it for under $5. He said he has never paid over $5 for shipping in his life…must not have bought anything through the mail since the 1980’s.
Not sure where people get their postage rate ideas from, when it costs almost $2 these days just to send a letter from Canada to the U.S.
I also like the people who think you can send a small, but yet large by postal standards item by regular mail for letter postage rates.
I just ignore them all.
eBay needs to build some sort of message filter to get rid of certain messages…
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My hands-down favorite one of these started with the buyer saying this was a “Christmas present” to herself. Next, she doubled down with a long, incoherent story about being in tears over a falling-out with a childhood friend over religious differences, and here I was telling her she couldn’t have her Christmas present.
I am 100% not the person you want to try to manipulate with your religious beliefs, but let’s set that aside. Also, P.S., it was past Christmas.
I got a third message, I guess after she’d sobered up. She didn’t know if I’d received her previous message, but I should really explain why I wouldn’t sell the item to her.
Through the whole thing I was just repeating to myself over and over, “Don’t engage with crazy.”
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I have to chime in on the postage comments by Inglewood above. I had a customer contact me after receiving an offer to watchers from me for 25% off my asking price. (Keep in mind here that my selling philosophy is that I list my items matching the lowest listed price and charge only actual shipping to the customer.)
She said and I quote “Thank you for offering a tiny reduction in price. Unfortunately, it’s the shipping price to UK that’s the ‘killer’. If you can find a more cost-effective shipping option, then I might start to get interested.”
Umm, actually you are already interested if you are a watcher, but I got ahold of myself and answered:
“Wow, 25% must be a lot less in the UK than it is in the US, here it’s considered a great savings.” then I went on to offer to sell her the item on etsy since I was sure her inflated shipping cost was because I use eBay’s global shipping program, since I only charge actual postage.She replied: “As I said, shipping is the killer. Ebay is charging US $16.39! To be honest, this seems completely outrageous, and I thought UK postage prices were high. If I was sending this from UK to USA, I would charge approx US $6.00. That’s why I don’t use ebay shipping. I do my own international shipping. How much is your Etsy shipping to UK please?”
Well, etsy actual shipping was over $13.00 so I told her I assumed she wouldn’t be interested due to the actual shipping cost or over $13.00 and that was that. Not sure how she could send the item internationally for $6.00 US, maybe by pretending it was a letter?
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@ Vintage Treasures: Never message via eBay messaging about selling ANYWHERE off site. You mentioned that you offered to sell to them through ETSY. Ebay takes any attempt to do business outside of eBay very seriously and can suspend or completely shut down your account if they find out.
Please be very careful about any verbiage that even implies an intent to take business off site, such as exchanging phone numbers, email addresses or any other such information. And if a buyer asks you to, disengage and move on. It’s not worth the risk of being banned from eBay.
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Humorous update to the saga of the senior with the Dickensian Cabbage Patch Kid (who NEEDS clothing). Much to my shock and surprise, beyond asking for a discount, she did not complain about what I sent her. To date she has come back twice and each time I have received a note that she is a senior and that her doll “needs” clothing. On the 3rd request for a discount, I politely told her “no.” and she still purchased.
So there you go. This is just her standard schpiel.
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Well this has been my week for entertainment? I guess.
1-I found this exact same shirt in a size medium item # blah blah blah for 9.00 so here’s my offer for 9.00. Mine is a size small. Um no it is not the same shirt then..
2-I bought these exact shirts new a month ago for 9.00 since then I have not been able to find them so I think 10.00 is a fair price for a used shirt. Um no.
3-I ordered these thinking these were men’s but they’re boys! Cancel and refund my money please! I respond I think you read the title as Big Boys but is actually big dogs and a man’s just as you thought. Customer responds Oh! Great! I’ll take them! (facepalm)
4-Hi I am buying one plate and if it suits my purpose I will buy the other 10 you have. Can you put them on hold for me? No.
5-Hi I put in a best offer and won but I can’t buy it because I only buy new clothes and not used. I filtered by new with tags and that’s why I didn’t read the description. Me: opens an unpaid item case.
And these are all from this week! 🙂 I didn’t know that free entertainment was part of this job!!-
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We had a good one this week also. To make 7 or 8 messages from this lady very short, she was trying to tell us how to run our business and how she wanted to see us handle a bulk order from here.
She made one offer, we accepted. It was sitting on hold waiting for payment. Then she proceed to start shopping our store and sending us email messages of all the things she wanted. The catch was, she wanted us to pull about 8 items and send her an invoice for how much the total would be with us including a bulk purchase discount and what the combined shipping would be.
Us, no, we are not pulling and boxing all that up, no some of the items are delicate and we choose not to combine them, no the box would become over sized have to go FedEx and would fall into the dim weight pricing, we don’t know where this may ship to so basically no, no, no.
She has a feedback of over 13,000 and buyers a ton.
She replies, you can do anything if you want to, so just put all of it in a box, weigh and measure it and tell me how much it will cost.
Basically she was indirectly telling us to shut up, do as i tell you to, and what part of this don’t you understand.
We told her to just click on putting everything she wants and put it into her shopping cart and ask for an invoice. Nope she didn’t want to do that because Ebay can’t do more than just combine the weights we put in for single box shipments and in reality when objects get combined in real time, they always come out lighter and smaller boxes than Ebay’s estimated-calculated combined shipping which results in cheaper shipping than what a Shopping Cart Invoice will be showing. [actually she is right on that point]
Susan said she didn’t like this lady’s tone at all and to just kill the listings on everything she was asking for and open the case for the one offer accepted item but I chose not to get into an “in your face” scene.
We went silent, waited 48 hours and was just minutes away from opening an unpaid item case and she buys it all at list price and we have Instant Pay turned on, so she paid in full.
Now, we pull, pack and ship and combine as much as we can as we would normally do and after all was said and done, we refunded her $5.51. All of this non-sense and attitude toward us just to save $5.51.It is entertainment up to a point, but what a waste of time. The only reason we even engaged with her was due to the first purchase, we had to be polite and try to accomodate her if she was going to buy the other items.
She is a seasoned buyer with that many feedbacks, she knows the drill and ropes very well. for sure and bet she pulls this tactic on all the sellers to see who she could bully into doing what she asks.
Mike at MDCGFA
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Just as Jay says .. “Welcome to the world of online selling!” 🙂
I just thought of something… Ever seen those videos of the crazy, weird Walmart Shoppers? The ones in raincoats and rubber boots and see through everything I didn’t want to ever see? Well if brick and mortar stores get their fair share of crazies, I guess online sellers get our fair share, they come in different forms and hit us in different ways.
But unlike Walmart, we don’t have our own “Security” people to usher dead head online buyers out of our store. So we have to pull, the old.. “Shoo, shoo, you crazy people get off my lawn” routine for ourselves. 🙂
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I have a pair of shorts listed. Description says “See pictures for details & condition”. I have 7 photos that include close ups. I also have dimensions in the listing and describe the rubbery waist band liner thing these golf shorts have to help them stay up.
This morning I got a message that says this:
“There are no comments on the condition of the shorts. We need more information”.So after reviewing my listing I sent this reply:
“If the pictures are not enough information for you, then this item is probably not for you. ”Definitely set off my red flags.
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Whenever someone gives me a sob story, like how they are saving up for an operation, I just say me too. I have a bad heart, me too. I need a hip replacement, me too. Etc.
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I’m with Jay on this. I don’t worry about whether the sob story is true or BS. It’s the dollar amount being offered that will (or will not) sway me. IF I accept the offer, because the price is right, I’m always happy to include some sort of note (because the story MIGHT be true). So, I might say: Hope this brings a smile to your little granddaughter as she recovers from her accident) But otherwise, I never refer to the sob story. I just decline, or counter offer without comment.
Sometimes, it IS tempting to be snarky, especially when my BS meter is going off like crazy, but I refrain. I’ve written some dandy responses ion my head though!
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Just this morning I had someone send me a message asking why shipping was so high on a ladies vintage blazer type jacket. I asked her what her zip was, she sent it and I did have the shipping a little bit higher ($2.),so I adjusted it and let her know. She replied with “it’s still high. I went on to explain that I have worked in the garment industry a long time and then explained that the crepe fabric the jacket is made from is heavy alone. It has shoulder pads, the jacket is fully lined, has heavy embroidery, has metal hooks, and frogs. The jacket weighs almost 2 lbs and she was complaining about $12. shipping charges. I won’t absorb the cost for the shipping on a $34.95 purchase. Not to mention, last time I listed this jacket on ebay, I had it for $55., so she is already ahead of the game.
Anyhow, she purchased the jacket and sent me a note that she has purchased many of these in the past, and never paid more that $8. for shipping. I wanted to ask her if she purchased those jackets in the 90’s, and instead, I replied with “Thank you for your purchase, you will love the jacket, it is truly beautiful. Enjoy!” It’s a moot point to continue the back and forth with this one. jeesh!
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Yep, I never engage with shipping complainers.
My canned response is “I input the actual weight and dimensions of item for the shipping calculator. Shipping cost is what the post office charges. Thanks.”
There is no point in arguing a black and white open/shut issue. You have facts and reality, while they operate in lala land. You can’t ever win that argument.
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Good job, daisy! I, too, find it difficult to not engage with customers on pointless discussions/arguments, so whenever I stop myself, I consider it a great victory. So pat yourself on the back. 🙂
Yesterday I was going back and forth with offers on a high end tie with this guy, and he kept telling me to look at the solds to see that the average selling price range was lower than what I was asking. I never engaged. The hardest was the message with his last offer which complained that by paying a certain amount (still less than what I wanted), he would be the guy increasing the average sales price for this brand of tie. I SOOOOOO wanted to reply with something snarky like “and why should I see that as a problem?” but I was able to restrain myself and in the end just silently rejected his offer. 🙂
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To the point of buyers asking for lower shipping prices: On many of my listings that will run above about $10 in shipping costs, I put the following at the end of the description:
“You are paying the actual shipping cost, as determined by eBay’s USPS shipping calculator.”
(I used to put it in all, but have been omitting it lately on lower weight items.)
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I finally got one of those rare people who actually thing free shipping is really free.
A buyer made an offer on an item that has free shipping on it. They are in Puerto Rico, which gets the free shipping just like domestic USPS.
I declined their offer and said that I would need full price to ship to Puerto Rico.
They messaged me and basically asked why it was a problem since the shipping was free. ::facepalm::I politely replied that shipping is free for the buyer but is most certainly not free for me, the seller.
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I received another weird sob story, so thought I’d resurrect this thread. The item in question is a vintage board game (in poor condition). Some of this sob story is almost incoherent, and I have no idea what they are talking about in regard to stamping it “damaged article.”
Seller, Thank you for your consideration. What is a fare offer. Let me tell you something.. As a child never in my life growing up have someone sold this for Me since parent took item away at Christmas time to purchase. The condition is somewhat in dire repair and needs care.My health has been in jeopardy with recent mild ♥ heart issues.Not to worry am resting. Am relying on your thought to work with me to come to a price we can agree on. The postage is easy to work out since item is damaged to send. The postage is best sent by The person to locate you notify USPS manager they put stamp damaged article.Best Wishes To Your Family. And For My Speedy Recovery. Bless you seller.
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This one has me scratching my head, because the buyer has never made an offer or even indicated he wants to buy the item. It’s an action figure, still on card. First question came in I think it was a few weeks ago, something like : Did you buy this from (the company) online when it first came out? I responded: No.
Not long after: Where did you buy this? I responded: I bought out a collection from a collector, don’t know where he purchased it originally.
I figured that was the end of it. Yesterday he writes again, after maybe a few weeks: Where did you buy this from, was it online from (a different company)? I responded: “No, it wasn’t purchased online”
The third question makes me think he either thinks this is a different listing (GTC, so maybe he got a notice when it auto-relisted?) But whatever, I can’t figure out why he’s asking in the first place. I’ve looked to see if there appear to be any rare variations of this figure, something like: the figures sold at such and such online had an extra accessory or something, but I could find nothing to indicate that, and besides, he could probably see that in the photos.
So, I just scratch my head and answer politely.
What I find odd is that , not only is he asking this particular question, but he offers no context. Nothing like: I’m very interested in buying this…or…hope you don’t mind answering a question about this…. just asks the question like he’s entitled to know where I source my stuff. He’s not rude or anything, and I can answer quickly enough so it doesn’t really bother me, I just am puzzled by it….
Any thoughts?
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Might be an attempt at a longer grift. I wonder if this “person” just sends out blasts with a a sad story to start up a relationship. The item isn’t important. What is important is that that the seller is stupid enough to believe this is a real person with a real problem. If a correspondence can be started than who knows what the buyer might start asking for. (i.e I can only pay by international money order and the money order is for 1k extra can you wire me the refund).
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