Buyers making lowball offers

[3islanders]

This is a Thing, I guess, is it....?

I don' t have "best offer" on my listings -- have just never bothered with it.  I rarely list much but suddenly in 2 days I've had 2 offers anyway.  One person wanted multiple items and offered 80% of the value, which I guess isn't awful, although I'm not in a big hurry and hope to get the asking prices... BUT, he also wanted free shipping to the States.  I  might have considered his offer otherwise, but shipping would be $24!!  I told him that and haven't heard back.

Then someone else messaged asking for a similar discount for an item that's already somewhat below what others have sold for.  He's a poor student putting himself through school, etc.

I don't HAVE the "make offer" option!  These are clutter-cleanout listings, so maybe at some point I'll be willing to give stuff away to get rid of it, but like I said, hoping to get asking prices for now.  If this happens to any of you, are you tempted to sell or do you always decline?  Do you wonder if you're being greedy and maybe are losing your chance to sell if you don't accept?

If you did decide to accept an offer, do you have to cancel the current listing and re-list, or can you add best-offer to it?

If it's several items, I'm assuming you'd have to cancel and re-list as a lot?  

Without the offer option, the first message I got sounded like a request to buy outside of eBay somehow.  

Anyway, just interested in people's thoughts. 

[thestuffofchris]

That's true. Some buyers (not all) probably think "I pay you $20, you get $20." They don't realize all the costs involved.

[ricarmic]

This morning I had the opposite problem. Apparently it is possible for someone to put an offer in higher than the original amount!

I had a $999.99 item that the buyer put a BO in of $4000 which was accepted and caused me very much confusion.(Buyer was from China and thought they were bidding 4,000 RMB which it took as $4,000)

Anyway it got cancelled of course and all is back to normal now....

[momcqueen]

This morning again. Unsolicited (paraphrased) message from a buyer on an item. 'I need this thing for my child but I don't want to spend anything on it. You're the only person who's got one. Will you give it to me for pennies?'

Like, really?

What reason could there possibly be that I would do that? Is this a Wish from the Rainbow Foundation? No, it is not. You're an Everyday Parent with an Everyday Problem. Would I walk into the clinic where this person work as a dental hygienist and say, 'I'd really like a cleaning today but I don't feel like spending my good money on that. Will you give it to me for free?'

I've got four kids of my own. If anyone knows what it's like when a kid gets a bee in their bonnet about needing something, it's me. Multiplied by four. So, I have no sympathy to spare. I grit my teeth and find whatever it is that they 'need' and pay for it. I don't buy shoes or purses or get my nails done, I buy toys for my kids because that is what I am expected to do. 

Adding insult to injury, the query came from a member who clearly has money to spend since he/she sells used iPhones and designer purses. Grrr. 

But, no. My response is always polite. 'Thank you for contacting McQueen and Mo Mater. Please use the Best Offer feature on this item to submit your offer. We look forward to serving you.' (And then I quickly revise the listing to auto-decline all lowball offers.) Do I invite this kind of thing by putting Best Offer on the item? No, the messages come forth regardless of whether Best Offer is present or not. At least with OBO, I can push them in that direction without having to actually explain the reason I won't entertain any requests to give people things for free. 

[ricarmic]

Yes I get far more offers on regular lots than I do ones with OBO.

Because I "live" on .COM I enjoy the feature they have there that one can "reply with offer", it has been working very well and it doesn't cause back and forth because it's a one time thing that nobody else sees.....

[momcqueen]

Ah, yes. It would be good to reply with an Offer to those messages. I guess I will have to wait and see if and when that feature makes it across the border to ebay Canada. 

[ricarmic]

If one replies at all.

Personally I might even block the "pennies" example above, that first communication is probably just a sign of further problems to come....

[momcqueen]

Yes, that thought did cross my mind. This buyer is an experienced user and would be aware of the ways one can create 'discounts' of their own choosing on other member's items. I do dearly wish that the Buyer Requirements Activity Log showed sellers which BUYERS BLOCKED MANUALLY were still trying to buy stuff. That at least would warn a seller of trouble to come on a particular item if it suddenly sold to a member whose account was created today after the BB tried three times to buy it an hour prior. 

[3islanders]

After I declined both the offers on the items which started this discussion, they sold for asking price, to different people.  I was glad to see that!  Didn't want them to go around a million times after I had a chance to sell them 🙂

And yes, what people said about the TIME you spend listing items.  I don't know if I'm missing something, but by the time you take a picture, upload the picture, find a box, pack the item, weigh it, measure it, look it up on Canada Post, find the shipping cost to Canada, the States, AND international... it takes like half an hour to list one thing!  "ur doin it wrong"?? 😛

Those sellers who have hundreds of items... wow, I just can't imagine.

[ricarmic]

Here's a link to a write up I did a while ago about how long it takes me to list an item...

It is a bit outdated but the gist is still correct as is the overall time when all is said and done...

http://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/My-experience-so-how-long-does-it-take-me-to-sell-1-ebay-...

[momcqueen]

Well done, ricarmic. My own time invested in getting an item listed is a little longer. It typically takes me 15 to 30 minutes to source the item, another hour spent on photography as well as colour-correction and photo editing. Product research and completing Item Details and Description with Calculated Shipping is another 60 minutes per item plus post-sale packing and shipment with associated packing slips and postage labels (add another ten minutes if it's international) and leaving feedback et cetera between 45 minutes and 60 minutes. The items I slip into oversize lettermail can be pushed out in 20 minutes. Boxing things with bubble wrap takes longer. 

If I had every item flawlessly catalogued, I could find it quicker for dispatch, but that is not my reality. As I have said before, my system of inventory is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-style.  

If I have multiple items that are similar in nature, it reduces the amount of time I have to spend listing because the Calculated Shipping details will be the same and many of the Item Specifics will be similar. Best of all is multiple quantities of the same listing: it takes the same amount of time to list something with a quantity of six as it does with one. 

It used to be worse, I'd re-shoot every single item that was for sale. Now, if it's another Cars 2 Race Team Mater that I've re-stocked,  I simply note in the listing that the product images are from an item previously sold and relist with those images.

[3islanders]

Holy cow, an hour to take photographs?  For one item??  Or did you mean you do batches.

On the other hand, I don't believe I've ever packed ANYTHING, to mail, EVER in my life, in 4 minutes.  I'd like to see that.  

[ricarmic]

Regarding packing time, my situation is easier than most, or perhaps it is because of the way I set things up. (remember I'm a stamp guy)

Generally the way I store my items they are already in the format that they are mailed in, even up to the bankers boxes sized boxes.

For a normal "non-box" type package all I do is include cardboard reinforcing, if necessary, and enclose the item in plastic and put it in the envelope.

Often the longest part of the boxes is the customs forms, although the stamping time is longer as there's a lot more stamps that go on the boxes.

[momcqueen]

An hour per item is spent on images for the listing. From Staging to shooting and post-production. I do extensive colour-correction so that everything appears exactly as it really is in life. And then adding watermarks. It's the most time-intensive part of listing for me and I'm always looking for ways to improve the process. Sometimes, it may take less time. But not usually. As a result, I get REALLY irate when other sellers and other sites steal my images.

If I'm in a real hurry to get the listing up. I'll use the manufacturer's promotional product image as a placeholder until I have the time available to invest in shooting it.

[ricarmic]

I've always believed that it is worth the effort to produce good pictures.

I'm lucky that my material is generally more easily picturable than most and "stealing" my pictures generally doesn't do any good because mine are usually one of a kind.

Normally my biggest picturing problem is my camera's automatic white balancing, if I'm not careful it "blues" the white a bit and this I don't notice till after the pictures have been taken....usually I just live with it, I absolutely hate doing things a second time.....

[momcqueen]

What I wouldn't give for a proper white balance feature. I can do white balance and set the auto-adjustment to lock but that lock also includes focal range so I need to be shooting with a tripod which doesn't work with everything that I do. I do think that really good pictures are what sells an item which is part of the reason I obsess over the image for my listings. That, and I used to shoot things as what I did for a living when I ran a small newspaper. Plus, my partner is in graphic design and he would harass me if I published cruddy pictures. 

[greenmangoes]

Most times the offers are reasonable but sometimes I have to check the calendar to make sure it's not April 1st because of how ridiculous the offer is.  I love the "reply with offer" feature - it reduces a lot of back and forth.

[momcqueen]

Yes, I'll be excited to see that on eBay.ca at some point.

[greenmangoes]

Good pictures are really important - I consider it part of the description because although I add the good/bad in the description the customer can also see it in the picture.

I got myself a proper camera and a lightbox and it's making a big difference so I'm slowly starting to redo my listings - it's taking forever but I'm hoping it'll be worth it.

I'm struggling with white items though as sometimes they seem washed out/blended in with the background.

And... sometimes I swear it shows more details than what is actually on the item.  I'll look at the photo and at the item and think "it don't look that bad" LOL.

[momcqueen]

Definitely, there are times where I see things in the pictures I've taken that are unnoticeable in the item itself. It's very interesting that way.

[3islanders]

I agree with the need for good photos... I hate listings with too-dark out-of-focus pictures.  But as long as it shows the item clearly and the colour isn't completely out of whack, I wonder if the differences between different monitors doesn't render all that careful colour-balancing ineffective?  I've tweaked photos, not for eBay, on my laptop to what I think looks like good colour, and then looked at them on the desktop and gone "Hey, I thought that was better colour."  And vice versa.  With everyone who looks at your items having a different monitor, they're all going to see slightly different colour anyway.

We digress.

For an acquaintance:  she made an offer which was accepted, then a couple days later the seller cancelled the transaction.  She's now trying to get her money back.  Ebay told her that the seller has a record of accepting offers, then cancelling, then re-listing.  "If it happens again" they "may" be suspended.  If the seller already has a history of doing this, shouldn't that be enough for them to be already suspended?  Is this a Thing, too?