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Has anyone noticed an upward trend in this irritating customer question?
Lately, it appears someone asks me that at least several times a week.
The first thing I do when this happens is check what feedback the customers have left for others, as the question itself screams a red flag.
After that, I usually just knock 10% of the purchase price and respond.
But I find it so deeply annoying. I know I shouldn’t care. I know I need to put my big boy pants on and run my business, but all I want to do is respond, “What’s the absolute most you will pay for this item? Add one dollar to that figure.”
Curious how others respond?
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I think that “whats the lowest you’ll take” is something people are seeing on those TV shows around picking/buying. I completely agree with the feeling of annoyance.
Ultimately we just see how hungry we are to sell it. If we’re hungry, we throw out a price. If we arent hungry, we ignore.
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@jay of course thats the most rational response.
This mornings was “Whats the ABSOLUTE LOWEST you will take?”
The only thing more annoying than “the question” is “the question” emphasized in all caps.
Then I looked at the buyers feed. They were themselves scavengers and looking to sell my item for x3 my asking price.
So I guess I should be thankful. I tripled the price.
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but all I want to do is respond, “What’s the absolute most you will pay for this item?
i did that once. The lady told me I was rude. Lol.
eventually it won’t bother you. Just stay the course. I can tell you that if someone asks me that they never get the best price than if they just outright negotiated. They’re likely not going to buy anyways.
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It used to drive me nuts as well. Absolutely looney! So I removed Best Offer from my listings. Folks message me offers now, asking if I would drop the price to $xxx, but I seldom get the “lowest” question. If they have to go to the trouble to send me a message, it’s more work, so I think it weeds out the trolls.
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I agree with Amatino. I think having best offer on your items invites this kind of question. I don’t have best offer on any of my items as a general rule.
People do send me messages with offers but I find people making offers without an invitation to do so tend to be serious buyers.
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I get these types of messages every day. With the rise of “experts” like Sports Card Investor I suppose it is just part of that mindset. I don’t respond to these messages ever, really.
I do think that eBay has made it a lot easier to engage with these types of buyers. The ‘reply with offer’ button is a simple way to respond to a “what’s your lowest” buyer without actually engaging in a conversation. The auto decline offers below $x.xx means you won’t even see the lowball offers. And for the oddball who keeps persisting with “what’s your lowest” price messages, there’s a link to block bidders right in seller hub.
I’ve found occasional sales using reply with offer, but again I only reply to repeat buyers or buyers who purchase multiple items.
However allowing best offers on your listings is, in my opinion, eBay’s single most distinguishing feature as a marketplace. I really encourage all of you who are reading this but have best offer turned off on your listings to reconsider. At a minimum, try this: search for listings in your store via price using seller hub’s filters, take all of the listings at the same price (for example $20), go into the bulk editor and turn on offers, and set an auto decline of $10 or $15 or whatever number is your lowest.
I’m confident that you will get some sales just from turning best offer on with some listings. 50 to 75 percent of my sales every week are via best offer, and that’s been the case for 3+ years. This was the case when I sold a hodgepodge of items rather than focused on a single niche as well.
While you can send offers as a seller, it’s not the same. Allowing the buyer to make the offer gives them the power to make an impulsive purchase and feel like they are saving a few bucks on their schedule, not yours. I’m confident that there are some very casual eBay buyers who don’t check eBay all the time, and who don’t buy that often, and when they do they’re mostly looking at new listings or very specific saved searches, and saving $5 or less can be the difference between them buying and not buying.
This will give you the chance to reach those buyers and get $15 for that $20 listing or $30 for a $40 item. As scavengers, that’s a deal we will take 95% of the time or more since there is always more stuff to scavenge.
So give yourself that chance, please…and maybe report back with your numbers (good or bad) if you do turn on offers for listings after having them turned off? A lot of what I wrote here is theoretical and anecdotal…but I also really believe it’s good eBay practice for any seller. And I’d be curious if my intuition is correct.
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Craig Rex, I had ALL my items with BO from the beginning and you are correct; I got a fair number of sales from offers. However, since eBay has actively and forcibly pushed the Free Shipping Fiasco, I’ve had to remove BO from anything with free shipping. Folks offer me lowball prices because, as one genius buyer informed me “shipping is free!” I received so many rude offers ($5 on a $50 item, for example; and a “how low will you go?” on an item that is $4.99 free shipping!) that I eventually got fed up and took BO off everything! Furthermore, I’ve noticed that most of the returns I’ve been getting since eBay’s “new and improved” model, have been from the lower priced items. With the free shipping, it means I have to eat the shipping both ways! I’ve been gypped and lied to: a buyer claiming INAD that is so obviously fake, but you have to accept the return to argue the point; or in one case, a buyer being granted a return, only to lodge a Merchant Payment Dispute and get to keep the money AND the item. Yes, I know that you are supposed to build these expenses into your business, but the uptick in these types of transactions since I moved to free shipping has been remarkable!
Since I’ve removed BO from my items, I’ve received messages from serious buyers asking if I’d accept a lower amount, and I’ve replied with the Offer option, and gotten the sales, hassle free, with no returns. I’ve not had to deal with rude or delusional buyers, and I’ve not had to scratch my head to work out how much is a good deal because part of their offer includes shipping.
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This is not the same thing exactly, however it reminded me of what people will do to get the lowest price. Something like this may have been told before as a story, but this Really Did Go Down.
A cousin of mine who I thought was the coolest (this was back in the late 60’s) wanted to buy a car as he had just got his driver’s license. He found one he liked a lot in the classified ads of the Detroit News and went to see the car. It was being sold by an older woman and belonged to her departed husband. My cousin offered her about one half her asking price as that’s all he could scrape together and she said “absolutely no”.
Well he really wanted that car so he and his dad (also a cool guy) came up with a plan. My cousin got together 4 of his buddies. Each one went to look at the car and offered her WAY less than my cousin had, with no intention of actually following through. A few days later cousin called to ask if the car was still available and the woman said “could he please come and pick it up today” as she would sell for what he had offered.
That’s what I think of when people ask that stupid question. Hey why not get creative folks and you may get what you want.
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What helped me with the annoying aspects of eBay (bad offers, returns, messages, etc) was turning off all notifications from the app and filtering all non-urgent emails to skip my inbox. Now I have a choice when I want to interact with eBay, and I find myself more level-headed in response to issues that pop up.
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@Will B – I like the story. You cousin had chuztpah.
The thing that ruffles my feathers about “Whats the lowest price you will take” is the laziness and sense of entitlement.
Admittedly thats my baggage. Ultimately people can do what ever they want and I acknowledge that.
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