How do you as a seller respond to Best Offers that come with unsolicited personal information?

[momcqueen]

I'm not hard-hearted but I am always at a loss as to how to respond to a buyer who adds as part of their Best Offer some kind of hard-luck story. It happens routinely, and has since I began selling here. 

Generally, if the message comes via Messages after an Offer is made, I reply with non-commital sympathy along the lines of, "I'm sorry to hear of your troubles...." but when the offer literally contains within the Terms section some detail about their one-legged dog being sick, I am at a loss. Those I tend to pretend I haven't seen.

Do buyers expect that if they have an autistic nephew, or just had their furnace breakdown that this will influence my asking price? Or that they're broke. Always broke. As if 85 per cent of the folks who sell on ebay don't have hard-luck of their own. If I replied to the buyer honestly, I could probably one-up them every time! Obviously, that's not what the buyer is looking for. 

I don't think Customer Service at Walmart hears these stories, do those of you who sell at Trade Shows and Craft Fair hear this too? Or am I the only one. Or maybe the rest of you do, in fact, lower your prices when someone tells you some detail of their sad life. 

I don't mean to sound mean but.... what the heck is a seller supposed to do? It's not my fault a buyer finds themselves in less-than-desirable circumstances; I'm in that situation myself half the time too. Like....?

Do you ignore the comments? Or what.  

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

First thing I do is check to see if they have a history of every purchase they have made or majority was by offer. A very large quantity of past purchases. Then check to see if they appear to be a seller. Can be 3 pretty good clues. Then make the judgement call from there.

-CM

[ricarmic]

I do the same thing I do with the irritating messages, I reply simply and without focusing on it...

"Thank you for your message and offer. This is the lowest I can go on this item."
(along with my counter offer at my lowest acceptable number)

(Of course if it was a stupid low offer I would not respond at all, I wouldn't even decline the offer just let it expire).

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

If the offer is ridiculously low I share this video with them and send my apologies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBPaMBPG7lc

-CM

[2nd-time-around-jewelry]

We are running a business & can't get emotionally involved with every sob story even if it is sad. If they can't afford the item then they should not be buying it.  I could tell them my own story that I am a caregiver to my elderly parents.  But I usually just say what the lowest offer I will accept & leave it at that.  And I don't haggle.  If they keep making offers, I just ignore them & add the person to my blocked list.

[reallynicestamps]

No new ideas?

How about a country song in which the singer's self-driving truck runs away?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

Great!!! Now I'm going to have nightmares about my packages being delivered by self-driving trucks and all the packages going to the wrong address!!!

-CM

[amcdc79]

I try to respond as professionally as possible, imho the hard luck buyers tend to turn the sellers, into hard luck sellers. Not all the time, but the buyers wanting a deal because of a story, seem to turn into a pita buyer. 

[recped]

I don't use Best Offer, I don't respond to unsolicited offers and I certainly don't respond to to sob stories.

[kawartha-ephemera]

Sigh ... the absolute champions of sob stories are Kijiji buyers.

[momcqueen]

I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do with the information given to me at the time. 

Like, I'm genuinely sorry there's been a death in the family but... but... but... how is that expected to affect the asking price of an item? 

And I'm sure you really do want to buy this for a friend so I'm sorry you cannot afford it because your baby daddy is serving time. 

Plus, it's just uncomfortable. I don't need to know, I really don't.  It's just way too personal. 

[ypdc_dennis]

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@reallynicestampswrote:

No new ideas?

How about a country song in which the singer's self-driving truck runs away?

---

Now available in Arizona -- Uber self-driving transport trucks...

http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/07/technology/uber-trucks-autonomous/index.html

[esclyons]

this goes with the horrible best offer thread.. i had a lot of 20 silver half dollars.  based on silver melt value alone, worth 130$.. i received an offer for 1$, so i countered it at almost the asking price, then they tell me they are in hard times, and would like me to give them a break and help them out.. they then countered my offer at 3.50$..  saying someone will help them out,  when i countered back at my original offer , they declined and moved on..

[jt-libra]

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@momcqueenwrote:

I'm not hard-hearted but I am always at a loss as to how to respond to a buyer who adds as part of their Best Offer some kind of hard-luck story. It happens routinely, and has since I began selling here. 

Do you ignore the comments? Or what.   

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I don't sell a lot of items with Best Offer, but when I have received an offer with a sob story, my inclination is to not respond at all but then I feel bad, so I will send a polite note refusing the offer, adding a comment like "I'm sorry to hear that you're going through a difficult time".  If they contact me a second time, I don't respond.

The ones that irritate me the most are the unsolicited low-ball offers or a comment like "you know, the Bay sells this for such and such price, and Shoppers has this on sale for $xxx.  If you sell it to me for the same price, I'll buy it from you".  I know that they're talking about a limited edition item or a popular item that has sold out, so my usual reply is "how lucky for you that you found this for a lower price.  If I were you, I wouldn't waste any time getting there because they may sell out".   Never a second communication.

[momcqueen]

Oh, haha. Yes. I get THOSE messages too. Among my least favourite. I like your tactic. Mine has always been to deliberately misunderstand and pretend I think they’re offering to sell ME more stock and then I chastise them for making attempts to deal outside eBay. That leaves them sufficiently confused and frustrated enough that I don’t hear back a second time.

[jt-libra]

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@momcqueenwrote:
Oh, haha. Yes. I get THOSE messages too. Among my least favourite. I like your tactic. Mine has always been to deliberately misunderstand and pretend I think they’re offering to sell ME more stock and then I chastise them for making attempts to deal outside eBay. That leaves them sufficiently confused and frustrated enough that I don’t hear back a second time.

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LOL

[zee-chan]

I have never gotten any sob stories (probably cuz I sell mostly comic books), but I remember years ago when I was a very new seller here and a buyer tried to get me to refund an item that apparently didn’t show up after 6 weeks, I told them I’m a poor university student (fact) just trying to sell some of the things I owned or something like that and I don’t profit from it, a couples day later they replied saying apparently the item from me was stuck at the bottom of their mailbox and they just found it. No need to refund and even left me a positive feedback......

[rose-dee]

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@momcqueenwrote:

I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do with the information given to me at the time. 

Plus, it's just uncomfortable. I don't need to know, I really don't.  It's just way too personal. 

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You really don't need to do anything with this kind of personal information at all.  It's a bargaining chip on the buyer's part, don't get drawn in.   

You are running a business, you know what your margins are, and I see this as a sort of passive-aggressive ploy on the buyer's part.   It is really quite unfair to the recipient seller because (a) there's no way to know whether it's true or a made-up lie; and (b) it puts the seller in the position of feeling horrible to have to say no.  

If sellers regularly gave in to this kind of behaviour, I expect word would get out that the tactic works, and buyers with the saddest stories would soon expect to woe-bargain most items down to next to nothing.   

I am a sympathetic soul, but I don't see this type of approach by buyers as fair, whether true or not.  I get very few such hard-luck stories, but when I do I completely side-step them and focus on the offer itself.  I simply say thank you for the offer and either decline or counter-offer, with no further comment.  

[rosscd57]

Perhaps I'm just a grumpy old guy, but I tell em: "this is not a sale".

[momcqueen]

I really cannot sufficiently put into words how excruciatingly uncomfortable it makes me to be on the receiving end of such personal and unsolicited details of a person's life. When doing business. Or trying to conduct business. It's like being trapped in a crowded waiting room at the mercy of a doctor running an hour late when your neighbour starts telling you all about their gastroenteritis. I just don't need to know. I'm not unkind. I give more than I should to local non-profits and volunteer more of my time than is wise. But this.... 

And there is absolutely no way of knowing whether any of it is true. Some strikes true and just makes me sad, but others are really quite pushy about it. Like I should sell them a $45-toy for $4 (and free shipping) because their son happens to be on the spectrum. The most haunted sad story I had was actually from another seller. It was like six years ago now and I still to this day worry about the woman who sold me a shipped-late and incomplete-collection. 

But otherwise? No, no no no no. I can't help that your wife Lucille picked a fine time to leave you, with four hungry children and a crop in the field. It doesn't affect the price I can afford to accept for whatever it is that you want from me.