Low ball offers on ebay

I was curious how others deal with low ball offers on ebay. Do you just decline the offer or do you respond back. I gotten so many recently its frustrating.

I haven’t done any sales on ebay on years, but isn’t there a setting that will automatically just reject/decline any offers made under a certain threshold you set? I thought that was useful back then.

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I block everyone who lowballs my listings. For example if I had a listing for $100 or best offer, if they reply with $10 it’s an instant block with no reply. These people are not responding to you in good faith and will waste your time in the future or cause you problems.

If they respond with $65 or thereabouts I will thank them for their offer and depending on the book I will accept or counter with something like $75. Thankfully I haven’t gotten too many lowballs and I’ve been selling virtually all of my best offers. My goal is to sell everything and I do offer fair prices on ebay. I’m not going to sit on books for months or years, there’s always the next new hot book.

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Are they messaging you with " Whats the lowest offer you’ll take ?", even though you have Best Offer option available ?

I block them.

Pretty much anyone that messages me with stupid questions…I dont answer.

I block them.

I know the types of people they are and I’m not dealing with it in the long run.

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When you set up Best Offer there is an option to automatically decline offers under an amount you set.

There is also an option to automatically accept offers over an amount you set.

You just can’t enforce that someone immediately pay for an offer that is accepted.

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If the offer is so low it’s insulting, I just decline and block them. No need to waste time on such people. These are likely the types you don’t want to deal with when things go bad.

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Or when it’s a $10 or so book and they want 15 more photos of it. Sorry, I’m not spending that much time for $4 profit.

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I avoid that by taking very good photos. I always take pics of the entire front and back and then take multiple close up pics of the spines, front and back even if it’s a $10 book. The book may not mean much to you but to someone else it could be a big purchase.

It really helps me sell the book way faster as they don’t have to sit on it thinking about the condition and also won’t be any problems in the future. It’s a little more work but it’s worth it imo.

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I normally do have good pics, it’s just the unreasonable people asking for more. Those I don’t bother with, it’s not worth my time. Sure they might think the book is worth the time but for me, nope, cause the book eventually sells without issues or more pic requests.

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thanks for the advice, will start blocking bad offer.

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Yeah, that’s logical to turn away potential buyers because of low offers. Seriously if that’s what you do you it’s immature and lacks common sense. Especially considering you can avoid what you consider lowball offers by setting limits on the listing. I make plenty of lowball offers and spend tens of thousands of dollars annually. So yeah turn away someone like myself because it’s so offensive to get a lowball offer.

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Pretty sure I have ToddW blocked on ebay. :grin:

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I agree with you to a degree. IF I don’t have that cutoff in place, I usually respond with an offer regardless of how low it is. I don’t care how far away from their offer it is either. I usually have a lowest price I would go with and my first counter offer is above that. Sometimes you can find some middle ground and get a good sale. Sometimes it doesn’t work out. I had someone who lowballed, I counter offered and they shot back with same lowball offer. Then I declined. I usually don’t block anyone unless they scam me in some way.

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I understand people’s frustration with low offers but it’s completely avoidable by adjusting your settings. I make low offers at times and you’d be surprised how many are accepted.

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One time I went and looked at a book I had up forever and saw someone-for example- offered me $18 when my offer cutoff was at $20. It was up so long that at that point I would’ve taken $18. So Having that offer cutoff in place, cost me a good sale. I mostly leave those as low as I can think to or leave no lowest amount. Just depends on book.

I usually do set a min low offer but people still message me directly, or well, they did. I don’t do eBay anymore.

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From the other perspective, does anyone here ever make reasonable offers on eBay to people who price their books stupidly high - with a Best Offer option - and make any progress?

By reasonable offer, I mean FMV (as determined by Covrprice, Go Collect, etc.) rather than a self-determined number

For me - lowball offers don’t bother me at all.
It’s one click to say “no”.

A few times I’ve had ridiculous, low ball offers, declined them - and they came back and ultimately provided a very reasonable offer. Why? - I have no idea. But it all worked out.

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i love when you ignore those would you take x y or z messages
and they message the next day waiting for a response

I love the lowball offers that I have yet to respond to and someone else comes in and just buys the book at what I have it listed for… :slight_smile:

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