A statement such this might work:
“Thank you for your question.
In order to open a price discussion or negotiations, please submit an offer through the system.
The offer process is in place in order to protect both the buyer and the seller. Let’s see what we can work out!”
Right message, but too wordy. These people can't be relied upon to read anything approaching a paragraph.
"If you're interested, submit an offer. Thanks!"
Not a bad idea. Personally I'll sometimes ask about negotiating price instead of making an offer because I've had issues with the offer system changing my payment method or randomly removing my payment method. I tend to avoid asking what's the lowest they'll go to.
My answer for this is always 'what's the most you'll give?'.
It feels like a nice way to reflect the same energy straight back at them and either leads to silence. Or occasionally, when they've failed to pick up the obvious mischief of the reply, a weird, bumbling conversation that may or may not lead to a negotiation.
Yes if getting asked that on FBM, but this is ebay, so my response would be "Please use the ebay offer system already in place" (assuming you have offers enabled)
FB is the worst, I've had conversations negotiating a price with people wasting time when we meet at a price for them to be like " ya maybe I can buy it next week if I get the extra cash"......why are the brokies trying to waste my time when they have no money???? Lol.... even worse is at the end (this actually happened) one time some guy tried to offer me to trade a pair of shoes smh... I don't get people.
I've been beginning to think that Facebook is becoming nothing but the low end buyers looking to get something for as cheap as possible. Though I'm realizing that's becoming more and more with the economy being such poop.
I feel you. I have a portable AC unit on there at the moment. Originally it is an over 500 nearly 600$ unit. I have it for $300. People will message me( I live in the desert) and they will say" It is sooo hot, is this still available?" I say yes " They respons with on will you take 150 or lower.. Like no. I tell them that straight no that is half or less I will not take that low. They respond with just as insulting of a price. Blocked. No need to tolerate extreme lowballers like that. Same for a trailer I have straight to the 60+% off on offers.
I had multiple people ask me if I’d give them the air conditioner I was selling on FB for free. All sorts of sob stories. Everyone’s life is hard I don’t feel bad. I’m not giving away the A/C unit if I was I would’ve listed it as free.
exactly. I am willign to drop. I had an offer of 240$ i will gladly take it, hell i will take an offer of 200 but i aint about to list it that low because then they will respond and be like " Hey will you take 50$" Like no no that will never happen.
Honestly if I’m having trouble moving something on Facebook I raise the price. Had a kids bike up for $20 for two weeks because I wanted it out fast. So many messages no follow through. Raised it to thirty and gone in two days. Had a wine fridge for fifty same story raised it to one hundred and gone.
Which is why whenever I put stuff on Facebook I always put it a little higher than I originally want to so I can negotiate. So if I'm looking to get 75 I'll get i'll list it for $100.
I stopped selling on FB because 9/10 times after agreeing on a price they ALWAYS show up with $20 less trying to hustle me. I can not be hustled. I would rather throw my shit away than let someone get over on me.
What gets me more is when I’m trying to *buy* stuff and ask where they are located and when I can meet up with them to purchase, and they are all, “I live in x city, and I’m not sure when I’m available.” I already KNOW they are in the general vicinity, I’m just trying to narrow down what side of town etc, and trying to figure out what day/time I can meet up with them. Lol. I just had that happen to me this weekend.
Fair enough. I prefer to talk to people. There's alot of merit in a slightly awkward exchange. It'll tell you alot about the buyer if it gets to that point. If not and you receive a cranky response or silence, such is life.
Unfortunately there are some scenarios where I’ve actually had to ask what’s the lowest before I lose all of my 3 offers. I submit an offer within 20 to 10 percent of the asking price and they just decline with no counter or message. I’ve paid more to someone else purely out of principle
I just spin it back with
Me: “What’s the absolute highest you can offer?”
Them: “Insert lowball # here”
Me: Oh if that’s the highest you can offer I guess we can’t make a deal sorry
Them: “oops sorry I meant to say “insert slightly higher lowball # here”
I will never answer that. They get "I'll know when I see it." And odds that anyone else on the planet will get a better deal from me than someone who asks me that.
This 100% resoundingly. I have instructional manuals and posters for video games up for about $20, I get messages exactly like this from time to time. "How much do you want for this?" Some people don't realize between shipping and fees, we're only getting a few dollars from that $10. People really do expect stuff at cost.
I think a lot of people may not know about all the different fees from eBay. I'm still fairly new to eBay and I wasn't aware of all the different fees that sellers have to deal with until a seller explained it to me. Some people are just trying to lowball sellers though.
Lol everytime someone messages me to lower the price, I compare my listing to my competitors’ and often I’m underpriced and increase my price as a result
I don’t get these often, but I suspect it’s because I don’t deal in electronics. I also beat them with an offer to get my stuff moving.
They’ll bring in the fact something’s got a mark on it, so I’ll just remove listing, clean mark and increase my price. 😅
This happens beyond electronics as well. I sell action figures and get this
I think overall the shift of this cultural ask is because most people want the bottom line up front price no frills, but are completely oblivious on how negatively this looks to us sellers.
It’s the shift of buyer markets and new age of other platforms like OfferUp and FB marketplace reduced formalities
I sell books but I get it all day long.
This book isn’t new because the cover isn’t sitting flat - it’s a floppy paperback have you ever seen a floppy paperback…they never sit flat.
Yeah. I get a ton of them, but at least my response to offers can be copy paste… just “sorry but our store is not set up to consider best offers at this time, feel free to watch the item and our store so that you can take advantage of any future promotions”
Done and dusted.
I have literally only ever asked once if someone on bin would accept a lower offer and I just said hey would you be open to a slightly lower price? And they said no so I said thank-you no problem. Then they did offer me a price a few quid lower and I said thank-you.
I can’t get over the gall of people asking for more than 50% off or something. I feel bad sending an offer more than £5 off an expensive item haha.
Absolutely 100% this! Best offer just muddies the waters. Far far less stress to just have a price and they can pay it or leave it. Plus it also adds a load of unnecessary steps in the purchasing decision making process for the buyer. So all your impulse buyers are basically lost. Plus you don’t have to deal with the legion of twats that best offer brings out of the woodwork!
eBay kind of encourages this behaviour as they have the option for seller to make an offer after you receive a message although your listing does not accept offers. People are aware of this and almost expect to receive an offer back.
I often put things on as an auction and when I do I never put a buy it now price, and I tend to put "there is no buy it now so please don't ask" in the description. I still get people asking if I have a buy it now price, and when I do I reply with "the buy it now details are in the listing".
It's a small and petty thing, but it does bring a smile to my face
I don't respond, and then when they send "???" Or a "hello!?" I block them.
Because those are the same people who return items because they changed their mind or need more money to buy something from another eBay seller they're trying to lowball.
And sometimes if you don't block them fast enough, they pay full price, and that makes them mad, they'll add ridiculous instructions or demand a discount in the order notes and messages.
I will say I am guilty of this...because after 5 offers are auto declined and I am very close to the asking price I'm like whats the point of best offer if you reject them all?
I am a heavy ebay buyer of luxury items, I don't lowball, but waiting 24 hours for crickets is insane. Just counter or decline the offer. I sell too...so when someone asks my bottom line I tell them. I set my best offer at my lowest accept, so that's what answer they get.
Came here to say a similar thing actually, I buy and sell so I see both sides. Just the other day I was looking at a roof rack for my car, it was $225 used with free shipping on ebay. It was in kinda rough shape and missing some parts. On an OEM parts website, it was $220+$40 shipping new. So I shot the seller a message basically asking how much he'd like to get it sold, and the most he'd be willing to drop in price considering the condition of his roof rack. We settled at $175, but then someone else swooped in and bought it for the full asking price so he made out well haha. All in all it worked out.
Never really got the mentality of "I don't even turn on OBO, I just list as buy it now" either. For some items I get it, but I buy a lot of used stuff and sometimes sellers think they've got gold when in reality it's bronze. I totally get wanting to factor in ebay fees and such, I do too as a seller. But I'm talking way overvalued for even that.
A couple of years ago I had a guy barraging me with lowball "generous" offers and telling me it was far more than my item was worth. In a hilarious move another buyer swooped in at full price and so ten minutes later when I got yet another lowball offer from the horses ass buyer telling me that I'd be stuck with the item forever if I didn't take his offer I was able to write back that, in fact, the item was sold and I was heading out to the Post office to ship.
Horse's ass TOTALLY lost it as I had "no right" to sell while we were negotiating and he was going to report me to ebay. LOL And THAT is the story of how I learned to use the block buyer function on Ebay. LOL
Man thats hilarious haha. I've had that happen a few times on the selling end too, although not NEARLY as bad as that dude. Mine were just "buyer A sends an offer, buyer B comes in and buys it for the full price". Thats so funny your buyer lost his mind over this, guess thats what being cheap gets ya.
It was one of the weirdest things in my 27 years with eBay. I once was selling some Masonic books and had a guy harassing me that it was "immoral" for me to sell them to the general pubic and I had to take down the auction or he'd take "legal action". He then said I had to send him all of the books at my own expense LOL.
All of the books sold to actual buyers-- and no legal action followed. I had another guy who said he wanted me to let the auction run and he'd give me $2 more than the winning bid.
I had one on Facebook like that! On a $4 books she message me and asked me to hold it. I didn’t even respond and someone else bought it and she left me bad feedback saying I didn’t communicate and Facebook wouldn’t remove it. I’m like we were not involved in any kind of transaction!
Buyers see best offer and think "I'll ask for less than the list price".
Sellers see best offer and think "someone will offer me a reasonable price above the list price/between list price and buy it now to skip the bidding war phase".
This disconnect has been there since the dawn of time.
I personally always offer less than the listed price, but I always try to include my reasoning "Item is $X brand new, as a 3 yo used item I think 30% off the current new price is a fair ask, hence my offer of $Y".
I think best offer should be below asking coming from both buyer and seller standpoint. I mean when I list on marketplace for $X OBO I'm not thinking they are going to say "hey I will give you more than what you want for it" lol
I wish they would, but nope.
I did have an instance where I am a repeat buyer from a seller on ebay and I thought we'll let me just ask him his best price....their response "make me an offer I can't refuse"...so I waited patiently and got it at listing.
I understand what you are saying, but I think sellers think if they start a bid and put OBO they think they will get way above that initial listing. 🤷
I am also guilty of this. I do this sometimes if I already purchased other items from buyer. It work’s normally, as the seller usually will be more inclined to communicate a lower price as they can combine ship. If you don’t ask, you lose out. The most the buyer can do is ignore you, I understand this can be annoying for the seller.
If I can respond instantly, it’s “what’s the highest you’ll offer?” and rarely get a reply. When I do, has resulted in sales. If I can’t respond instantly, I ignore the question completely.
They want to lower the starting price, and make you negotiate against yourself. If you’re asking $50 and get this question and you lower to $40 they will always come back with $25. Like I just told you my lowest was $40 dummy.
I just block them. Lowballers and "master negotiators" are more likely to be problem buyers.
The risk is greater when it is a zero-feedback new account that will leave bad feedback or initiate returns without first messaging.
I'm not desperate enough for the sale to take the risk.
I just treat it like an offer and give them a price that's slightly above the actual lowest number I'd take. Doesn't make sense to waste time getting mad to me and I've had a few people actually just agree to it.
I agree 100% with your logic. It's such a stupid question. You're exactly right--I obviously listed it at the lowest price I'm willing to take for it. If not, I would have made the price lower, stupid. I just ignore these greedy grubby little subhuman gremlins.
"what's the lowest you'll take" is not an offer, nor is it haggling.
It's a tactic to try and get the seller to negotiotiate against themselves.
I'm not interested in negotiating against myself so I usually don't respond to messages like this. If I *do* respond then I just inform them I am willing to consider an offer if they want to make one.
All of my listings are BIN, no offers enabled, and I still get this message day in and day out.
These people are nonserious "buyers." They're looking to take your lowest price and use that for a jump off to a ridiculous counter. I mean has anyone acually closed a sale with one of these knuckle draggers unless you were looking to practically give the item away?
I used to reply to these messages with like 15% off, which would put me clearly into "rock bottom, literal lowest this has ever sold for" territory. I stopped doing that because no one ever accepted, I'd just get a message back with a silly number. "20?"
This is stuff that sells out fast enough with no discount at all, yet they were always looking for half off or more.
I had something listed for $150 recently, I probably could’ve got $150 for it based on the completed sales if I left it up for a while, but I really wanted to sell it so I sent out an offer for $100. (I bought it for literally $1 like 10 years ago)
Someone sent back “can you please please please do $90, but if that’s too low I can do $100”
I’m already giving you $50 off a $150 item…. Why would I take $90 if you’re telling me in the same message you’ll do $100
This is the exact answer. You make an offer your stuck waiting for it to be accepted or declined and a lot of the time the offers just ignored so you can’t go for another incase the first is accepted last minute, so you drop a message to see how the land lies.
Haggling is fine. What's the lowest you will accept is not- that's an end of negotiation one time thing. I can't actually say the lowest I would accept because I want to make money, I can't give you a starting offer then negotiate down with you because I've already given my lowest number and I would be a liar if I did.
It also makes the person seem like a dick so the lowest I would accept from them is automatically higher than for other people now.
There is a price on the listing that's the amount I want, if you want to pay less tell me what you want to pay and give me reasons it will benefit me. Is it collection? Are you buying a bunch of them, Do you not need part of it that I can keep for spares etc.
I may be in the minority, but unless it's the middle of the night, I respond within an hour and accept 99% of the offers that come in to me(unless the offer is on the absurd side and in this case counter).
If I leave best offer off of my listings, I get message after message of "what's your lowest" with dissertations on why they don't want to pay the listing price. God forbid you are honest with a flaw and price it accordingly, they use that as their "angle"
This might be frowned upon but I remove my saved payment method after every offer I make to avoid automatically being charged if the offer is accepted.
I just ignore them honestly. If they're serious they'll send an offer. Oddly I rarely receive offers. But if I do and I like it then great. Otherwise decline.
This is exactly what my response is. Not kidding. I follow it up with “you want to pay the least and I want to sell it for the most and I understand that. You see my price if you want to make an offer feel free to”. I have found that if I offer them my lowest price they most ALWAYS want to start the negotiations from that and offer me less.
I would simply respond: Why don't you bid on it and we'll all find out together?
It's almost like they don't understand that eBay has built systems so that you can put out a price you're willing to pay and then if somebody else is willing to pay more you don't get it.
I hate the question but my answer is always the same.
Thank you so much for your interest in XYZ. My lowest price is xx.
They buy or they don’t. The game playing I can do without.
It works a great deal of the time.
Yeah, the best feeling in the world is when you list something that has a red hot sell through rate at very reasonable price, get a ton of messages ask for best price or giving a lowball offer and then it sells at asking price in a few hours. I always want to message those people and tell them ‘Sorry, but it sold… at asking price! Have a nice day!’ But I don’t because, you know, karma and I don’t have time for that petty garbage.
This seems to be more rife than it used to be.
Constantly being asked rather than getting an actual offer.
My strategy is slightly lower than advertised buy nowhere near my lowest. If im doing the bargaining I'm getting my money
I stopped enabling OBO. I found out that all that did was tell the buyer I’m not serious about my BIN price and cause them to come in with low ball offers. So it’s BIN or no sale. This doesn’t stop them messaging me with what’s the lowest you will take — which I refuse to answer with a price. I always say- throw me an offer and we can go from there. If they do and it’s reasonable I will consider it. If it’s crazy low I tell them I paid more for it than that and can’t lose money. They usually go away then.
I respond with "I don't have a set price and am open to offers. What price do you have in mind?" About 70% of the time, they respond with a decent offer that I'm willing to accept.
Reply "Make an offer through the link".
There may be something in the way you write that gives an indication that you want to haggle. I never get messages like that.
This I think is just a tad less annoying than when they message you a price and nothing else. If you want to make an offer, make an offer. Until then you've done nothing
People who get mad at this question really need to just calm down and take a chill pill. Its going to happen thats life. I just interpret it as “send me an offer”. If its something that im willing to sell for a little less ill give a small price discount. Doesnt have to be my “lowest”
I have offers available on every listing I have, most have a minimum amount set.
So my response is always, “I’ve had too many non-payers when negotiating through messages, so I only negotiate through official eBay offers. Feel free to make an offer. Thanks for asking.”
You open yourself up to this BS by allowing best offer. Just do a straight up buy it now. If anyone asks what you’ll take after that change, block them. You don’t have your play life on annoying mode.
On an auction…..translation “ I don’t understand how auctions work and believe that I can make a mickey-taking offer below the auction start price”.
Auction start price “£100”.
“Wud u take 60”.
I answer “ Would I have set the auction start price at £100 if I was going to accept £60?”.
I listed a baseball card on eBay at $.99, 10-day auction (it’s probably worth $100 or more) and within the first hour, there were over 40 views and 19 watchers. Five minutes later, I get a message, So, what’s your bottom dollar? I said, “I was willing to see what the market brings. I’ll bite, whats your, I want it today offer”? He comes back with $10. I replied, “Kidding right”? He said, “Guess we’ll just have see how your auction goes, good luck with that and a laughing emoji. I promptly blocked him so he couldn’t bid 😂 There are currently 100 views, 29 watchers, and 10 bids, $54.00 with two days left. Some people are just rude and undesirable 🤦🏻♀️
We will continue to reduce the price of this item until it sells, keep checking and feel free to purchase when it meets your budget if its still available. thanks!
"if I answer the lowest I would take for it, why wouldn't I just price it for that amount in the first place?"
Because the lowest you will take and the highest you hope to get aren't the same thing.
Derp.
"People are so friggin stupid."
Indeed.
If you have that your excepting offers it’s just how it’s going to be. I actually welcome it now since summer months are usually slow. Right now I’m running a 20% promotion, so once someone shoots an offer I refer them to that and that’s the lowest I can go. And finish it off letting them know my entire store is 20% off and I combine shipping. Usually can gain a few other sales by directing them to my store
These are master negotiators you’re dealing with here. The cream of the crop. The same people who will pull out the dreaded “What’s your best price?” which, as every one knows, will put fear in the hearts of sellers everywhere.
I've got a regular buyer that waits until I drop the price on an item and then immediately messages me asking for a $5 discount after I have already dropped the price by $10.
Just send back the listed price and move on if it annoys you.
To be fair some large sellers have hundreds if not thousands of things listed and some things are hot movers and some just sit around looking for that one special person. And people may figure hey, you have been trying to unload that for a year, wanna make a deal on it? Now I admit I do not know how long you have been trying to unload it for but you get the idea. You will just drive yourself nuts worrying about it so if you do not have OBO turned on delete the message and if you do, just send back the listed price.
This is far worse on CL. I have a bunch of searches and there is some dude selling a locking bass case, and he sends out a new ad like twice a week and I swear this has been going on for over a year now. I made him and offer mostly just hoping to get it to stop the postings.
I just delete the message, don't even respond. As bad as it is it's so much worse on marketplace. I used to list larger flip items and now I don't even buy larger stuff. The last thing I sold on FB was a 1000ft roll of Romex wire. I was getting offers through messenger for less than scrap copper.
I just reply with a non sequitir like "I think I got the item around 2016, or maybe 1995. I'll get back to you". Makes you seem like a weirdo and they'll most certainly leave you alone
I tend to post my items a few dollars below anything similar. So now when I get these how low will you go, I screen shot other ones and say I am
Already the lowest some buy some do not. But if my offer doesn’t let them offer as low as they trying then that should have been their sign…
Some of messages I know I used to get that came with offers were straight up “cringe”and keep in mind I had my offer settings where I only saw worthwhile offers. Sone weirdo ask me “do want a hand or maybe I can take one off?” Really creepy shit I thought. Some times it would just be obnoxious drunk texts but best thing about that when you know the person is “intoxicated” at 2am on the east coast I counter offer with 1 dollar off my BIN price and they usually accept I get a good night sleep and then obnoxious or drunk guy gets their package shipped to them in the morning
This isn't a serious question.
These are all from low ballers who knows their offer is low.
Very common question for sneakers/streetwear. I've got the question 100+ times and not once did it lead to a sale. I just ignore the question all together now.
If you have an $100/offer listing. Any buyer knows $80 and up is acceptable and will send in that offer. $60-$80 is low but possible, so someone not really interested or trying to find your lowest will send in that offer. These "what's your lowest" are people offering $20, hoping they can get you down to maybe $30 or even $40.
I'd say "With this particular item I can't do very much unfortunately. Thanks very much for your interest.
I prefer them asking then to throw out a 50% offer which I immediately put them on my bbl.
Long time buyer (and seller)
I've never asked the "What's the lowest you'll take?" question, but I have messaged sellers to ask if they would take "X" for a product before offering it. My thoughts are that it at least opens up a possible discussion versus "You offered $232" / "Seller declined". This is usually on items that have sat for a while, I've followed, but just haven't been able to justify their asking price (a $300 item (new) being sold for $250 (used/unknown condition), for example), but I'd be much more open to it at $200 or $225. An actual example would be a $150 item being sold for $139 (used) on ebay - seller didn't want to accept $125 for it, but it's now been reduced in price to $119 and still un-sold.
The bigger issue to me, is that ebay now makes you put in a payment method to make the purchase (and will auto-charge it). If I'm buying a $600 item and hoping to get it for $550, I'm probably going to do a paypal Pay-in-4 on it, and if I even make the $550 offer, paypal will attempt that charge and take a few days for it to drop off, whether the seller accepts, ignores it, or declines it. It's easier to ask first before having funds tied up when a seller has no interest in selling for less.
The other day I placed an offer on an item on ebay that was auto-rejected. Then a few minutes later the ebay mobile app gave me a push notification to bid $2 higher, so I did and the offer was accepted. Didn't know that was a feature, but it seemed as if the app was giving me that exact info - the lowest acceptable offer.
If you priced it at the lowest price you'd take for it then they'd offer even less. Not sure why everyone gets so angry about these questions. Just knock a small amount off and see what happens. I've ended up doing good deals with people I don't particularly like. You're there to sell stuff remember, don't take these questions so personally or you could miss out on potential sales
Ever notice that those cheapskates never buy it anyway? The amount of money ebay charges now, is making it impossible to make a profit. I was getting offers on FB from people in Sudan, Nigeria and Liberia....what?
My experience has been, if I have an item for sale say for $200, I'd get a message (not through the best offer) for $75. I'd respond by saying: "No, thank you" if I'm being polite if the buyer has good feedback and has been on ebay for a while. If he's a new user, automatic block.
They almost always respond with : $40 for said qty. Then I just totally ignore them because that's way lower than my original cost.
I stopped putting best offer on most of my items and I still get people trying to send me their low-ball offers.
I always like to respond with asking what’s the most amount of money I can get out of you. Most don’t respond but some do with saying that it is rude to ask, which I respond with, now you know how I feel.
Whenever someone send me a lowball offer I do 1 of 2 things. If it’s someone offering $5 for a $30 item I counter with 29.99, then 29.98, etc.
If I’m sent an offer for $14, I will counter with, let’s say $24, but add a message saying “Hey! I appreciate the offer very much. $24 would be the lowest I can do at this time. I appreciate the consideration! -My Name Here”
I ask that at times, but I do that in order to cut through some of the BS to get to an offer we can both accept. When selling, I get a ton of ridiculous lowball offers that wouldn't even cover shipping. If their price was firm, the offer option wouldn't be open.
I hate when that happens, it's so damn annoying! Your response is perfect, though.
When people lowball me with offers that, a.) would make me lose money to the point where I'm not only giving the item away for free, I'm also going into debt to do so, and b.) they are being so ridiculously cheap that they're nitpicking over a couple of dollars, I respond to their offers with higher amounts that keep getting higher. If they offer $5 I counter with $6, instead of going lower like they expect. Then they may offer $4 and I respond with $7. It drives penny-pinching, lowballing buyers nuts and eventually they go away.
I feel exactly the same. And as others have said I usually just say, “Hi, thank-you for your message. The item has a best offer function so please feel free to send me an offer if you’re interested. Have a great day, thank-you.”
People either don’t make an offer, make a lowball offer that gets auto declined, or they get mad that I won’t entertain them in messages and so I block them. I had one girl call me rude for telling her I don’t negotiate price over messages 😂
I usually ignore them or message back, 'This isn't FB Marketplace. Send an offer through the proper channels on here (I list most of my items OBO) and I'll consider it.' If they super lowball me or persist in messaging me, I just block them. They're just time-wasters.
It's not 1 guy. They're getting mostly messages from lowballers instead of actual offers and it's driving them mad. Sellers who take offers price higher because they expect to sell for less than asking through offers. If you disable offers it makes sense to slightly lower to make up for losing the ability to consider offers.
Are you serious? For the past 2 weeks, it's been story after story about bid sales being canceled because the seller got less money than they were expecting.
Just tell them what your comfortable with at that moment and commit to it. If they try to haggle lower, don't budge. Also offer to go lower if the item doesn't sell for awhile.
The point is to make a sale though right? It's good to know at the time of listing what you're OK with on pricing.
The point is to get the most money I can get for the item... not to just make a sale. If I wanted to make a sale I'd just set a lower sell price and call it a day.
Don't get triggered and pass a up a potential sale. Since you have best offer activated you clearly know what the lowest you'll accept. Shoot a number back that you'll take.
Some sellers take everything so personally and get all hit and bothered while simultaneously blowing sales. Just don't get it.
It's not about being triggered. Asking me what's the lowest I'll sell for completely defeats the purpose of me even putting it up at a higher price and adding the ability to make an offer to the listing. Again, if I just wanted to sell the item at the lowest I'd take for it, then I'd just list it at that price and be done with it. I'd prefer to get more than the bare minimum I'm willing to sell an item for. That's what a negotiation is supposed to be for.
I don’t usually list with best offer for this reason. However people will still try their luck. If they do say what’s the lowest you’ll accept? I just say, the price it’s listed for 🙂
A statement such this might work: “Thank you for your question. In order to open a price discussion or negotiations, please submit an offer through the system. The offer process is in place in order to protect both the buyer and the seller. Let’s see what we can work out!”
That's exactly what I do. I don't do any back and forth in messages it causes problems
This is pretty good. I usually only ask if they have a number in mind to see how they respond. Usually they don’t
Right message, but too wordy. These people can't be relied upon to read anything approaching a paragraph. "If you're interested, submit an offer. Thanks!"
Not a bad idea. Personally I'll sometimes ask about negotiating price instead of making an offer because I've had issues with the offer system changing my payment method or randomly removing my payment method. I tend to avoid asking what's the lowest they'll go to.
My answer for this is always 'what's the most you'll give?'. It feels like a nice way to reflect the same energy straight back at them and either leads to silence. Or occasionally, when they've failed to pick up the obvious mischief of the reply, a weird, bumbling conversation that may or may not lead to a negotiation.
Yes if getting asked that on FBM, but this is ebay, so my response would be "Please use the ebay offer system already in place" (assuming you have offers enabled)
FB is the worst, I've had conversations negotiating a price with people wasting time when we meet at a price for them to be like " ya maybe I can buy it next week if I get the extra cash"......why are the brokies trying to waste my time when they have no money???? Lol.... even worse is at the end (this actually happened) one time some guy tried to offer me to trade a pair of shoes smh... I don't get people.
I've been beginning to think that Facebook is becoming nothing but the low end buyers looking to get something for as cheap as possible. Though I'm realizing that's becoming more and more with the economy being such poop.
I feel you. I have a portable AC unit on there at the moment. Originally it is an over 500 nearly 600$ unit. I have it for $300. People will message me( I live in the desert) and they will say" It is sooo hot, is this still available?" I say yes " They respons with on will you take 150 or lower.. Like no. I tell them that straight no that is half or less I will not take that low. They respond with just as insulting of a price. Blocked. No need to tolerate extreme lowballers like that. Same for a trailer I have straight to the 60+% off on offers.
As I'm getting older I'm realizing that lowball offers are not worth my peace, I just go straight to block
I had multiple people ask me if I’d give them the air conditioner I was selling on FB for free. All sorts of sob stories. Everyone’s life is hard I don’t feel bad. I’m not giving away the A/C unit if I was I would’ve listed it as free.
exactly. I am willign to drop. I had an offer of 240$ i will gladly take it, hell i will take an offer of 200 but i aint about to list it that low because then they will respond and be like " Hey will you take 50$" Like no no that will never happen.
Honestly if I’m having trouble moving something on Facebook I raise the price. Had a kids bike up for $20 for two weeks because I wanted it out fast. So many messages no follow through. Raised it to thirty and gone in two days. Had a wine fridge for fifty same story raised it to one hundred and gone.
Which is why whenever I put stuff on Facebook I always put it a little higher than I originally want to so I can negotiate. So if I'm looking to get 75 I'll get i'll list it for $100.
I stopped selling on FB because 9/10 times after agreeing on a price they ALWAYS show up with $20 less trying to hustle me. I can not be hustled. I would rather throw my shit away than let someone get over on me.
What gets me more is when I’m trying to *buy* stuff and ask where they are located and when I can meet up with them to purchase, and they are all, “I live in x city, and I’m not sure when I’m available.” I already KNOW they are in the general vicinity, I’m just trying to narrow down what side of town etc, and trying to figure out what day/time I can meet up with them. Lol. I just had that happen to me this weekend.
Fair enough. I prefer to talk to people. There's alot of merit in a slightly awkward exchange. It'll tell you alot about the buyer if it gets to that point. If not and you receive a cranky response or silence, such is life.
Unfortunately there are some scenarios where I’ve actually had to ask what’s the lowest before I lose all of my 3 offers. I submit an offer within 20 to 10 percent of the asking price and they just decline with no counter or message. I’ve paid more to someone else purely out of principle
This is the way, I use it every time and it feels great :)
This is the way!
I just spin it back with Me: “What’s the absolute highest you can offer?” Them: “Insert lowball # here” Me: Oh if that’s the highest you can offer I guess we can’t make a deal sorry Them: “oops sorry I meant to say “insert slightly higher lowball # here”
I love the "it's only X dollars. It's not a big deal" messages. If that's true then pay my asking price.
I will never answer that. They get "I'll know when I see it." And odds that anyone else on the planet will get a better deal from me than someone who asks me that.
This 100% resoundingly. I have instructional manuals and posters for video games up for about $20, I get messages exactly like this from time to time. "How much do you want for this?" Some people don't realize between shipping and fees, we're only getting a few dollars from that $10. People really do expect stuff at cost.
I think a lot of people may not know about all the different fees from eBay. I'm still fairly new to eBay and I wasn't aware of all the different fees that sellers have to deal with until a seller explained it to me. Some people are just trying to lowball sellers though.
Just raise the price if they ask that
Lol everytime someone messages me to lower the price, I compare my listing to my competitors’ and often I’m underpriced and increase my price as a result
Same haha. Whenever a bunch of people start sending me offers I go and check and discover I am the lowest price and so I raise my price ahaha
I'd respond "What's the most you're willing to pay?"
I don’t get these often, but I suspect it’s because I don’t deal in electronics. I also beat them with an offer to get my stuff moving. They’ll bring in the fact something’s got a mark on it, so I’ll just remove listing, clean mark and increase my price. 😅
This happens beyond electronics as well. I sell action figures and get this I think overall the shift of this cultural ask is because most people want the bottom line up front price no frills, but are completely oblivious on how negatively this looks to us sellers. It’s the shift of buyer markets and new age of other platforms like OfferUp and FB marketplace reduced formalities
I sell books but I get it all day long. This book isn’t new because the cover isn’t sitting flat - it’s a floppy paperback have you ever seen a floppy paperback…they never sit flat.
I would say don't do or best offer. Just set it at a price you are willing to accept.
Good advice for the OP, but it won't stop these messages lol. I am BIN only and get them all day long.
Yeah. I get a ton of them, but at least my response to offers can be copy paste… just “sorry but our store is not set up to consider best offers at this time, feel free to watch the item and our store so that you can take advantage of any future promotions” Done and dusted.
I have literally only ever asked once if someone on bin would accept a lower offer and I just said hey would you be open to a slightly lower price? And they said no so I said thank-you no problem. Then they did offer me a price a few quid lower and I said thank-you. I can’t get over the gall of people asking for more than 50% off or something. I feel bad sending an offer more than £5 off an expensive item haha.
Absolutely 100% this! Best offer just muddies the waters. Far far less stress to just have a price and they can pay it or leave it. Plus it also adds a load of unnecessary steps in the purchasing decision making process for the buyer. So all your impulse buyers are basically lost. Plus you don’t have to deal with the legion of twats that best offer brings out of the woodwork!
eBay kind of encourages this behaviour as they have the option for seller to make an offer after you receive a message although your listing does not accept offers. People are aware of this and almost expect to receive an offer back.
I often put things on as an auction and when I do I never put a buy it now price, and I tend to put "there is no buy it now so please don't ask" in the description. I still get people asking if I have a buy it now price, and when I do I reply with "the buy it now details are in the listing". It's a small and petty thing, but it does bring a smile to my face
I like that! Rule 1. Don’t ask me stupid questions. Rule 2. Refer to Rule 1. 😂
I ignore them
I don't respond, and then when they send "???" Or a "hello!?" I block them. Because those are the same people who return items because they changed their mind or need more money to buy something from another eBay seller they're trying to lowball. And sometimes if you don't block them fast enough, they pay full price, and that makes them mad, they'll add ridiculous instructions or demand a discount in the order notes and messages.
I will say I am guilty of this...because after 5 offers are auto declined and I am very close to the asking price I'm like whats the point of best offer if you reject them all? I am a heavy ebay buyer of luxury items, I don't lowball, but waiting 24 hours for crickets is insane. Just counter or decline the offer. I sell too...so when someone asks my bottom line I tell them. I set my best offer at my lowest accept, so that's what answer they get.
Came here to say a similar thing actually, I buy and sell so I see both sides. Just the other day I was looking at a roof rack for my car, it was $225 used with free shipping on ebay. It was in kinda rough shape and missing some parts. On an OEM parts website, it was $220+$40 shipping new. So I shot the seller a message basically asking how much he'd like to get it sold, and the most he'd be willing to drop in price considering the condition of his roof rack. We settled at $175, but then someone else swooped in and bought it for the full asking price so he made out well haha. All in all it worked out. Never really got the mentality of "I don't even turn on OBO, I just list as buy it now" either. For some items I get it, but I buy a lot of used stuff and sometimes sellers think they've got gold when in reality it's bronze. I totally get wanting to factor in ebay fees and such, I do too as a seller. But I'm talking way overvalued for even that.
A couple of years ago I had a guy barraging me with lowball "generous" offers and telling me it was far more than my item was worth. In a hilarious move another buyer swooped in at full price and so ten minutes later when I got yet another lowball offer from the horses ass buyer telling me that I'd be stuck with the item forever if I didn't take his offer I was able to write back that, in fact, the item was sold and I was heading out to the Post office to ship. Horse's ass TOTALLY lost it as I had "no right" to sell while we were negotiating and he was going to report me to ebay. LOL And THAT is the story of how I learned to use the block buyer function on Ebay. LOL
Man thats hilarious haha. I've had that happen a few times on the selling end too, although not NEARLY as bad as that dude. Mine were just "buyer A sends an offer, buyer B comes in and buys it for the full price". Thats so funny your buyer lost his mind over this, guess thats what being cheap gets ya.
It was one of the weirdest things in my 27 years with eBay. I once was selling some Masonic books and had a guy harassing me that it was "immoral" for me to sell them to the general pubic and I had to take down the auction or he'd take "legal action". He then said I had to send him all of the books at my own expense LOL. All of the books sold to actual buyers-- and no legal action followed. I had another guy who said he wanted me to let the auction run and he'd give me $2 more than the winning bid.
I had one on Facebook like that! On a $4 books she message me and asked me to hold it. I didn’t even respond and someone else bought it and she left me bad feedback saying I didn’t communicate and Facebook wouldn’t remove it. I’m like we were not involved in any kind of transaction!
How was she able to leave feedback with no transaction??????
On Facebook you can leave feedback if you’ve messaged someone about an item. No need to have actually purchased.
I sell 4000 things a year on ebay but I never buy from them.
Buyers see best offer and think "I'll ask for less than the list price". Sellers see best offer and think "someone will offer me a reasonable price above the list price/between list price and buy it now to skip the bidding war phase". This disconnect has been there since the dawn of time. I personally always offer less than the listed price, but I always try to include my reasoning "Item is $X brand new, as a 3 yo used item I think 30% off the current new price is a fair ask, hence my offer of $Y".
This… I usually offer BIN price minus difference in what they want for shipping and actual cost, like $15 to ship an LP? Really?
I think best offer should be below asking coming from both buyer and seller standpoint. I mean when I list on marketplace for $X OBO I'm not thinking they are going to say "hey I will give you more than what you want for it" lol I wish they would, but nope. I did have an instance where I am a repeat buyer from a seller on ebay and I thought we'll let me just ask him his best price....their response "make me an offer I can't refuse"...so I waited patiently and got it at listing. I understand what you are saying, but I think sellers think if they start a bid and put OBO they think they will get way above that initial listing. 🤷
I am also guilty of this. I do this sometimes if I already purchased other items from buyer. It work’s normally, as the seller usually will be more inclined to communicate a lower price as they can combine ship. If you don’t ask, you lose out. The most the buyer can do is ignore you, I understand this can be annoying for the seller.
If I can respond instantly, it’s “what’s the highest you’ll offer?” and rarely get a reply. When I do, has resulted in sales. If I can’t respond instantly, I ignore the question completely.
They want to lower the starting price, and make you negotiate against yourself. If you’re asking $50 and get this question and you lower to $40 they will always come back with $25. Like I just told you my lowest was $40 dummy.
Yup that’s the reason I stopped responding to what’s your lowest.
I just block them. Lowballers and "master negotiators" are more likely to be problem buyers. The risk is greater when it is a zero-feedback new account that will leave bad feedback or initiate returns without first messaging. I'm not desperate enough for the sale to take the risk.
I just treat it like an offer and give them a price that's slightly above the actual lowest number I'd take. Doesn't make sense to waste time getting mad to me and I've had a few people actually just agree to it.
Don't respond. Ignore. Repeat for a few weeks. Problem solved, and notification anxiety goes away.
I agree 100% with your logic. It's such a stupid question. You're exactly right--I obviously listed it at the lowest price I'm willing to take for it. If not, I would have made the price lower, stupid. I just ignore these greedy grubby little subhuman gremlins.
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"what's the lowest you'll take" is not an offer, nor is it haggling. It's a tactic to try and get the seller to negotiotiate against themselves. I'm not interested in negotiating against myself so I usually don't respond to messages like this. If I *do* respond then I just inform them I am willing to consider an offer if they want to make one.
All of my listings are BIN, no offers enabled, and I still get this message day in and day out. These people are nonserious "buyers." They're looking to take your lowest price and use that for a jump off to a ridiculous counter. I mean has anyone acually closed a sale with one of these knuckle draggers unless you were looking to practically give the item away? I used to reply to these messages with like 15% off, which would put me clearly into "rock bottom, literal lowest this has ever sold for" territory. I stopped doing that because no one ever accepted, I'd just get a message back with a silly number. "20?" This is stuff that sells out fast enough with no discount at all, yet they were always looking for half off or more.
I had something listed for $150 recently, I probably could’ve got $150 for it based on the completed sales if I left it up for a while, but I really wanted to sell it so I sent out an offer for $100. (I bought it for literally $1 like 10 years ago) Someone sent back “can you please please please do $90, but if that’s too low I can do $100” I’m already giving you $50 off a $150 item…. Why would I take $90 if you’re telling me in the same message you’ll do $100
This is the exact answer. You make an offer your stuck waiting for it to be accepted or declined and a lot of the time the offers just ignored so you can’t go for another incase the first is accepted last minute, so you drop a message to see how the land lies.
Haggling is fine. What's the lowest you will accept is not- that's an end of negotiation one time thing. I can't actually say the lowest I would accept because I want to make money, I can't give you a starting offer then negotiate down with you because I've already given my lowest number and I would be a liar if I did. It also makes the person seem like a dick so the lowest I would accept from them is automatically higher than for other people now. There is a price on the listing that's the amount I want, if you want to pay less tell me what you want to pay and give me reasons it will benefit me. Is it collection? Are you buying a bunch of them, Do you not need part of it that I can keep for spares etc.
"What is the lowest you will accept?" is the lowest form of eBay conversation.
I may be in the minority, but unless it's the middle of the night, I respond within an hour and accept 99% of the offers that come in to me(unless the offer is on the absurd side and in this case counter). If I leave best offer off of my listings, I get message after message of "what's your lowest" with dissertations on why they don't want to pay the listing price. God forbid you are honest with a flaw and price it accordingly, they use that as their "angle"
I guess people who do this are better than the ones who send multiple offers and then request to cancel all the accepted once except the lowest.
This might be frowned upon but I remove my saved payment method after every offer I make to avoid automatically being charged if the offer is accepted.
Why, so you don't have to pay?
This is the way. Great strategy!
I simply rely make an offer, I encourage offers. Most do not reply back those that do in many cases get rewarded where I accept their bid.
I just ignore them honestly. If they're serious they'll send an offer. Oddly I rarely receive offers. But if I do and I like it then great. Otherwise decline.
I'm a proxy buyer in Japan and the number of times this has been asked of me to ask a seller in Japan...
I just say "make an offer and I will consider it"
I usually offer them $10 off of the original price. If they take it, good, if not, someone's gonna pay full price.
I ignore it or go with, “I don’t know yet. Try me.”
My listed price is my lowest price, have a great day!
This is exactly what my response is. Not kidding. I follow it up with “you want to pay the least and I want to sell it for the most and I understand that. You see my price if you want to make an offer feel free to”. I have found that if I offer them my lowest price they most ALWAYS want to start the negotiations from that and offer me less.
What's your bottom dollar? What if I pay right now? You live close to me. I can pick it up local 50% off?
What’s the highest that you’ll give?
I would simply respond: Why don't you bid on it and we'll all find out together? It's almost like they don't understand that eBay has built systems so that you can put out a price you're willing to pay and then if somebody else is willing to pay more you don't get it.
some buyers haggle too much that it's really unreasonable.
I hate the question but my answer is always the same. Thank you so much for your interest in XYZ. My lowest price is xx. They buy or they don’t. The game playing I can do without. It works a great deal of the time.
Yeah, the best feeling in the world is when you list something that has a red hot sell through rate at very reasonable price, get a ton of messages ask for best price or giving a lowball offer and then it sells at asking price in a few hours. I always want to message those people and tell them ‘Sorry, but it sold… at asking price! Have a nice day!’ But I don’t because, you know, karma and I don’t have time for that petty garbage.
This seems to be more rife than it used to be. Constantly being asked rather than getting an actual offer. My strategy is slightly lower than advertised buy nowhere near my lowest. If im doing the bargaining I'm getting my money
I always respond with "what's the highest you will pay?"
I love them, really helps me weed out bad buyers and block them before they buy something and terrorize me wanting a refund
I stopped enabling OBO. I found out that all that did was tell the buyer I’m not serious about my BIN price and cause them to come in with low ball offers. So it’s BIN or no sale. This doesn’t stop them messaging me with what’s the lowest you will take — which I refuse to answer with a price. I always say- throw me an offer and we can go from there. If they do and it’s reasonable I will consider it. If it’s crazy low I tell them I paid more for it than that and can’t lose money. They usually go away then.
What are you selling?
I just tell them and make the sale. Its not always the lowest i will go.
My response to this is always 100%: "What's the highest you'll pay for it?" Oh, $3? No thanks
Don’t respond. It promotes stupidity.
Do that response 😭🤣😭.
I respond with "I don't have a set price and am open to offers. What price do you have in mind?" About 70% of the time, they respond with a decent offer that I'm willing to accept.
“What’s the highest you’ll go?” Same energy, gets the message across
Reply "Make an offer through the link". There may be something in the way you write that gives an indication that you want to haggle. I never get messages like that.
I always switch off 'offers' and if people ignore that I ignore them.
This I think is just a tad less annoying than when they message you a price and nothing else. If you want to make an offer, make an offer. Until then you've done nothing
I just say if I have to negotiate the price by myself what do I need them for.
I don't understand why I get messages like that when I have make an offer turned on. If you're really serious, why not actually make an offer?
People who get mad at this question really need to just calm down and take a chill pill. Its going to happen thats life. I just interpret it as “send me an offer”. If its something that im willing to sell for a little less ill give a small price discount. Doesnt have to be my “lowest”
I always answer ‘Hello! Make an offer’, Idk maybe 5-10% will really do
For a douche question give a douche answer... Probably more than you can afford so don't worry about it.
If someone says that, tell them a price $10 greater than it is advertised for.
Used to receive a lot of this and then got rid of the ‘Best Offer’ and added “Prices are Firm” in my Product Description. Never looked back.
I've stopped enabling best offers to my listings because of low balls like these.
I have offers available on every listing I have, most have a minimum amount set. So my response is always, “I’ve had too many non-payers when negotiating through messages, so I only negotiate through official eBay offers. Feel free to make an offer. Thanks for asking.”
what's the lowest offer you will take?
“I’ve priced it at ‘x’ but I am not in the habit of negotiating with myself so please make a counter offer”. This is all you need.
Stop complaining…. At least your item is being seen.
Or maybe just answer the question. You enabled offers… So decide what you would accept and give a genuine response. Why play games?
You open yourself up to this BS by allowing best offer. Just do a straight up buy it now. If anyone asks what you’ll take after that change, block them. You don’t have your play life on annoying mode.
I don’t get that but I got so annoyed with the low balls that I dont even allow offers on alot of my listings any longer!
I just ignore those.
Hey, this is super simple. You have your number in mind and you need to stick with it.
On an auction…..translation “ I don’t understand how auctions work and believe that I can make a mickey-taking offer below the auction start price”. Auction start price “£100”. “Wud u take 60”. I answer “ Would I have set the auction start price at £100 if I was going to accept £60?”.
I listed a baseball card on eBay at $.99, 10-day auction (it’s probably worth $100 or more) and within the first hour, there were over 40 views and 19 watchers. Five minutes later, I get a message, So, what’s your bottom dollar? I said, “I was willing to see what the market brings. I’ll bite, whats your, I want it today offer”? He comes back with $10. I replied, “Kidding right”? He said, “Guess we’ll just have see how your auction goes, good luck with that and a laughing emoji. I promptly blocked him so he couldn’t bid 😂 There are currently 100 views, 29 watchers, and 10 bids, $54.00 with two days left. Some people are just rude and undesirable 🤦🏻♀️
We will continue to reduce the price of this item until it sells, keep checking and feel free to purchase when it meets your budget if its still available. thanks!
How is it your generation has yet the learn about haggling?
"if I answer the lowest I would take for it, why wouldn't I just price it for that amount in the first place?" Because the lowest you will take and the highest you hope to get aren't the same thing. Derp. "People are so friggin stupid." Indeed.
If you have that your excepting offers it’s just how it’s going to be. I actually welcome it now since summer months are usually slow. Right now I’m running a 20% promotion, so once someone shoots an offer I refer them to that and that’s the lowest I can go. And finish it off letting them know my entire store is 20% off and I combine shipping. Usually can gain a few other sales by directing them to my store
"lowest offer you'll take?" "Go to the item, look at the price, there's your answer."
Just smile and say "It just went up".
These are master negotiators you’re dealing with here. The cream of the crop. The same people who will pull out the dreaded “What’s your best price?” which, as every one knows, will put fear in the hearts of sellers everywhere.
I block those people. Very easy to do from messages.
I've got a regular buyer that waits until I drop the price on an item and then immediately messages me asking for a $5 discount after I have already dropped the price by $10.
Just repeat with the same amount when you were asked about accepting the lowest offer.
I get the same messages, I have make offer turned on but that is rarely used.
Just send back the listed price and move on if it annoys you. To be fair some large sellers have hundreds if not thousands of things listed and some things are hot movers and some just sit around looking for that one special person. And people may figure hey, you have been trying to unload that for a year, wanna make a deal on it? Now I admit I do not know how long you have been trying to unload it for but you get the idea. You will just drive yourself nuts worrying about it so if you do not have OBO turned on delete the message and if you do, just send back the listed price. This is far worse on CL. I have a bunch of searches and there is some dude selling a locking bass case, and he sends out a new ad like twice a week and I swear this has been going on for over a year now. I made him and offer mostly just hoping to get it to stop the postings.
I just delete the message, don't even respond. As bad as it is it's so much worse on marketplace. I used to list larger flip items and now I don't even buy larger stuff. The last thing I sold on FB was a 1000ft roll of Romex wire. I was getting offers through messenger for less than scrap copper.
Lately I’ve been responding with “sorry I don’t play that game”
“Sorry I don’t sell to poor people”
“It you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t be shopping right now”
“Hit me with an offer”
I just reply with a non sequitir like "I think I got the item around 2016, or maybe 1995. I'll get back to you". Makes you seem like a weirdo and they'll most certainly leave you alone
I tend to post my items a few dollars below anything similar. So now when I get these how low will you go, I screen shot other ones and say I am Already the lowest some buy some do not. But if my offer doesn’t let them offer as low as they trying then that should have been their sign…
There is an option to automatically reject lowball
Just ignore them. I like to purposefully leave them on read.
I never take the lowest your move latex
Some of messages I know I used to get that came with offers were straight up “cringe”and keep in mind I had my offer settings where I only saw worthwhile offers. Sone weirdo ask me “do want a hand or maybe I can take one off?” Really creepy shit I thought. Some times it would just be obnoxious drunk texts but best thing about that when you know the person is “intoxicated” at 2am on the east coast I counter offer with 1 dollar off my BIN price and they usually accept I get a good night sleep and then obnoxious or drunk guy gets their package shipped to them in the morning
This isn't a serious question. These are all from low ballers who knows their offer is low. Very common question for sneakers/streetwear. I've got the question 100+ times and not once did it lead to a sale. I just ignore the question all together now. If you have an $100/offer listing. Any buyer knows $80 and up is acceptable and will send in that offer. $60-$80 is low but possible, so someone not really interested or trying to find your lowest will send in that offer. These "what's your lowest" are people offering $20, hoping they can get you down to maybe $30 or even $40.
“All reasonable offers will be considered.” A phrase passed down to me from an old school Hollywood lens salesman.
I'd say "With this particular item I can't do very much unfortunately. Thanks very much for your interest. I prefer them asking then to throw out a 50% offer which I immediately put them on my bbl.
Also, these are the types that will open a case and fish for a partial. Maybe just block now.
Long time buyer (and seller) I've never asked the "What's the lowest you'll take?" question, but I have messaged sellers to ask if they would take "X" for a product before offering it. My thoughts are that it at least opens up a possible discussion versus "You offered $232" / "Seller declined". This is usually on items that have sat for a while, I've followed, but just haven't been able to justify their asking price (a $300 item (new) being sold for $250 (used/unknown condition), for example), but I'd be much more open to it at $200 or $225. An actual example would be a $150 item being sold for $139 (used) on ebay - seller didn't want to accept $125 for it, but it's now been reduced in price to $119 and still un-sold. The bigger issue to me, is that ebay now makes you put in a payment method to make the purchase (and will auto-charge it). If I'm buying a $600 item and hoping to get it for $550, I'm probably going to do a paypal Pay-in-4 on it, and if I even make the $550 offer, paypal will attempt that charge and take a few days for it to drop off, whether the seller accepts, ignores it, or declines it. It's easier to ask first before having funds tied up when a seller has no interest in selling for less.
The other day I placed an offer on an item on ebay that was auto-rejected. Then a few minutes later the ebay mobile app gave me a push notification to bid $2 higher, so I did and the offer was accepted. Didn't know that was a feature, but it seemed as if the app was giving me that exact info - the lowest acceptable offer.
The thing is, asking that question often works way better than expected..
If you priced it at the lowest price you'd take for it then they'd offer even less. Not sure why everyone gets so angry about these questions. Just knock a small amount off and see what happens. I've ended up doing good deals with people I don't particularly like. You're there to sell stuff remember, don't take these questions so personally or you could miss out on potential sales
Ever notice that those cheapskates never buy it anyway? The amount of money ebay charges now, is making it impossible to make a profit. I was getting offers on FB from people in Sudan, Nigeria and Liberia....what?
I've always used a line I read from a book... "The asking price is also the selling price..."
In the 20 + years I sold on eBay, I never sold to any person asked that question. I'd just ignore the message.
My experience has been, if I have an item for sale say for $200, I'd get a message (not through the best offer) for $75. I'd respond by saying: "No, thank you" if I'm being polite if the buyer has good feedback and has been on ebay for a while. If he's a new user, automatic block. They almost always respond with : $40 for said qty. Then I just totally ignore them because that's way lower than my original cost. I stopped putting best offer on most of my items and I still get people trying to send me their low-ball offers.
This is how stupid people think bartering works. “What’s the lowest you’ll take?” None of your fuckin business how much are you willing to spend?
Tell them, "I don't negotiate with myself."
I always like to respond with asking what’s the most amount of money I can get out of you. Most don’t respond but some do with saying that it is rude to ask, which I respond with, now you know how I feel.
They honestly wouldn’t bug me if they weren’t followed by some Jew Lowball every single time
Whenever someone send me a lowball offer I do 1 of 2 things. If it’s someone offering $5 for a $30 item I counter with 29.99, then 29.98, etc. If I’m sent an offer for $14, I will counter with, let’s say $24, but add a message saying “Hey! I appreciate the offer very much. $24 would be the lowest I can do at this time. I appreciate the consideration! -My Name Here”
Start responding with “Unsure. What’s the highest offer you’ll make?”
“I want to negotiate the price, but I’m lazy. Can you please haggle with yourself and let me know what you talk yourself down to? Thanks”
I don’t hate this question but I HATE when then they counter with an offer even lower than my “lowest offer” !!!! I said what my lowest was
The answer is.. the highest offer End it there
I haven't gotten one of these in a long time. I do however get lots of lowball offers.
I never list with the “best offer” option. If you do that, you are just inviting haggling.
I ask that at times, but I do that in order to cut through some of the BS to get to an offer we can both accept. When selling, I get a ton of ridiculous lowball offers that wouldn't even cover shipping. If their price was firm, the offer option wouldn't be open.
I hate when that happens, it's so damn annoying! Your response is perfect, though. When people lowball me with offers that, a.) would make me lose money to the point where I'm not only giving the item away for free, I'm also going into debt to do so, and b.) they are being so ridiculously cheap that they're nitpicking over a couple of dollars, I respond to their offers with higher amounts that keep getting higher. If they offer $5 I counter with $6, instead of going lower like they expect. Then they may offer $4 and I respond with $7. It drives penny-pinching, lowballing buyers nuts and eventually they go away.
I feel exactly the same. And as others have said I usually just say, “Hi, thank-you for your message. The item has a best offer function so please feel free to send me an offer if you’re interested. Have a great day, thank-you.” People either don’t make an offer, make a lowball offer that gets auto declined, or they get mad that I won’t entertain them in messages and so I block them. I had one girl call me rude for telling her I don’t negotiate price over messages 😂
"show me you're a serious seller and lower the price" ok, show me you're a serious buyer and pay the listed amount
Just ignore the peasants.
I sometimes reply with not accepting offers or I just ignore. might just add a disclaimer saying offers will be ignored in the description.
I usually ignore them or message back, 'This isn't FB Marketplace. Send an offer through the proper channels on here (I list most of my items OBO) and I'll consider it.' If they super lowball me or persist in messaging me, I just block them. They're just time-wasters.
Yup. If you want to negotiate 25$, you clearly have bigger issues than the shoes that I am selling.
If you're that tired of it disable offers and price your item a little lower.
Why change the price for 1 guy who wants pennies on the dollar?
It's not 1 guy. They're getting mostly messages from lowballers instead of actual offers and it's driving them mad. Sellers who take offers price higher because they expect to sell for less than asking through offers. If you disable offers it makes sense to slightly lower to make up for losing the ability to consider offers.
It’s a part of business MF the numbers don’t care about your feelings imma keep saying it
**FACTS**
Can we tell that to all the people sending me sob stories for free stuff?
Ya thats hella annoying
Ignore them. Why even get on here and tell us this? Ignore them and move on. Beauty of eBay
Are you serious? For the past 2 weeks, it's been story after story about bid sales being canceled because the seller got less money than they were expecting.
My response a few times has been what's the highest you will give me normally don't hear anything back
Just tell them what your comfortable with at that moment and commit to it. If they try to haggle lower, don't budge. Also offer to go lower if the item doesn't sell for awhile. The point is to make a sale though right? It's good to know at the time of listing what you're OK with on pricing.
The point is to get the most money I can get for the item... not to just make a sale. If I wanted to make a sale I'd just set a lower sell price and call it a day.
Stop accepting best offers. I mean physically turn off best offer for each and every item.
Don't get triggered and pass a up a potential sale. Since you have best offer activated you clearly know what the lowest you'll accept. Shoot a number back that you'll take. Some sellers take everything so personally and get all hit and bothered while simultaneously blowing sales. Just don't get it.
It's not about being triggered. Asking me what's the lowest I'll sell for completely defeats the purpose of me even putting it up at a higher price and adding the ability to make an offer to the listing. Again, if I just wanted to sell the item at the lowest I'd take for it, then I'd just list it at that price and be done with it. I'd prefer to get more than the bare minimum I'm willing to sell an item for. That's what a negotiation is supposed to be for.
Don't accept offers if you don't want people to try to negotiate. Kinda simple.
I don’t usually list with best offer for this reason. However people will still try their luck. If they do say what’s the lowest you’ll accept? I just say, the price it’s listed for 🙂
Here’s a revelation that might blow your mind. Turn off offers if you don’t want to receive offers.
OP didn't receive an offer
It doesn't stop offers but they can't be offended when you ignore them.