Ive been listing some of my PSA cards that I have duplicates of or want to raise funds for other items. Im a long term ebayer but never have I had so many questions of whats the lowest price, or would you take…, Ive even just had would you accept a trade for this card.
Ive not sold cards before, only bought but is this normal in this hobby? At what point is it rude to not reply. I dont have offers on the listings and I keep replying with sorry i’ve only just listed said item and im in no rush to sell, I will approach offers at a later time.
For the people that say would you take 50 like an hour after ive listed it for 100, I find it hard not to be daft with a response.
I sell products/parts people need and very very rarely offer but im talking like listing 20 cards, getting 2-3 offers per card within the hour. Most are polite people, Maybe i’m used to the business side of ebay and not the hobbyist. Also getting a lot of would you take like £10 less which maybe acceptable but I dont see the point.
Anyone able to share what they do? On my business account I have blanked some dumb offers in the past and then theyve bought it for the full price but then left a negative/neutral for bad communication. Those feedbacks get removed but I also now just block people before they buy.
Just as they don’t think about how insulted you may feel when offering 50% of the listed value, you shouldn’t feel bad about blanking them. I do that to all lowballers without exception, and only consider replying to unsolicited offers if they are somewhat reasonable like when someone asks for 10%-15% discount.
If a buyer makes an offer and you blank them but they then eventually buy full price, just reply to them saying you were busy with work and did not see their message on time, but are unable to give a discount. This should prevent any reasonable person from leaving negative feedback as they will accept that you weren’t ignoring them on purpose.
If, on the other hand, you get one of those pesky buyers who send several offers followed up with multiple messages within the day asking ‘Did you get my messages?’, ‘Hello?’, etc. do yourself a favour and completely block them from buying from you. It will save you the trouble of them buying one item out of resentment just to leave negative feedback.
It might help if you wrote in your description a message regarding firm pricing on all items. Otherwise you could entertain them or ignore. It’s tiresome but can lead to good sales too
Also, I historically have blocked offers at 20% of asking price for easily researchable FMV, ignored offers at 60-75% of asking, and typically respond to offers greater than 75% of asking.
It happens a lot, and people are often rude. Usually I thank them for their message and say I’m not looking for offers, but I can’t remember anyone just buying the item after that. I have also just ignored people; sometimes they demand an explanation, in which case either I explain or block.
People like to feel like they’re getting a win/squeezing the lemon so will ask for anything they can get. Sometimes you ask yourself if your pride/that £10 is worth it or if you want to get the deal done and out of the way.
I personally don’t think it is rude to not respond. Many buyers who ask that question hop from listing to listing asking that question. There is a good chunk of buyers that aren’t even serious and just wanna make a quick buck. Sometimes I thank lowball buyers for reminding me that I forgot to put an auto-decline minimum on the listing.
If I don’t NEED to sell , I don’t NEED to entertain any offers. I just leave my listing up until the right buyer shows up. No point in selling for 25% off to get rid of it in 1 hour when you have all the time in the world to listen to offers! However, if you are in an actual rush to sell, what I usually do is create a polite response informing the buyer what my non-negotiable floor price is. Copy and paste it so you don’t invest much time into potentially non-serious buyers. My message is usually thrown into declined offer messages and states “Unfortunately this is my best price at this point in time ”
when you handle volume responses, it’s best to keep a spreadsheet or word doc where you can copy and paste some of your generic responses and keep different versions. it’s a huge time suck sometimes having to respond to many messages.
When people discuss immaturity in the hobby, this is what they are talking about. The longer you stick around and the more you sell, the more annoying this will get. Personally, I would set your auto decline at 85-90% and below your listed price and ignore the rest. Your time is more valuable than that. I think it was Scott that said it in his last video, but the people that message you the most are typically the least serious buyers.
I’ve found it is best to ignore those kind of offers because eventually the right buyer will come along and buy the card at your asking price. In my experience, the people sending messages about “what’s the lowest you will go?” are total time wasters!
Even when I have Buy it now with best offers turned OFF I’ll still get messages from people asking if I’ll take less.
Just don’t bother, unless it’s close to how much you want so you could negotiate there is absolutely no point in wasting your time and energy responding to those people. They are just trying to get a under market price to then flip for profit.
Even on the odd VERY small chance it’s genuine, if you don’t respond to the offer and they do actually want to pay more for it and make a serious offer they will soon let you know.
Don’t feel bad for ignoring the super low-ballers. As someone else said there are people who shoot out the same copy/pasted message to lots of different sellers all at once, hoping one will accept.
Asking for a discount is par for the course in most industries now, not just with Pokemon cards; I sell antique jewellery as my day job and I’d say 50% of my sales come after somebody has asked for a discount, the other 50% buy at my asking price. Insulting offers (asking for 50% or more off) usually go unanswered unless I have the time to reply.
Ultimately you can reply/not reply to whoever you want. But remember - it doesn’t matter what information you put in your listing description, it doesn’t matter if your font is 300pt, red and flashing, people will still ignore it.
Alright, makes me feel a little more happy in ignoring them. Just to mention none of my listings have the best offer option as Ive put them on for the price I will sell it at, otherwise ill keep it. All the offers are just through messages.
Most members of ebay should know by now that if a buyer will take an offer they will have the offer option turned on
3 PSA 10 Pichu cards which I don’t have in my collection have appeared since the start of the year for absolutely ridiculous prices. I will happily overpay for a card I don’t have in my collection, and in all 3 cases I’ve offered the sellers 150% to 250% higher than their previous sale prices but have had no bites.
I’m talking about common, basic set cards that you can buy raw for $1-$3 which usually sell for around $30 in PSA 10 slabs that sellers have listed for $300+ which I’ve been offering up to $100 on only for them to flatly refuse as they believe their cards are worth the full amount they have them listed at. Some even claiming things like “I’ve already had a $200 offer but I rejected it”, etc.
Surprise surprise, none of them have sold yet and they’ve all been up for 4-6 months. I’m sure they’d all regard me as a “lowballer”, too. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Got this one yesterday… The total for the items in question was $319. After this he ended up offering about 95% of my asking price which I accepted. There are always going to be stingy buyers, you’re always going to be lowballed as a seller. People love to bargain and get better prices. But if you can be a “better” seller than they are buyer, then you will always get what you were after in the first place. I could have ignored this guy for sure, but then I wouldn’t have got the sale. Instead of taking offense to their offers, just hit them with the sales pitch and see if they bite. You already have the advantage of knowing that they want the item you are selling anyways. He also mentioned that he was looking to partner with some sellers. This means he also values relationships with sellers. I made him realize that sometimes relationships you build are more valuable than the monetary value of an item or saving just a couple bucks, and in the future could save you even more as a buyer than you would have thought. That was some pretty big leverage lol.
I’ll respect any offer that includes recent sales data. As in, they went above & beyond to validate their offer and type an explanation. The offer may seem low if you have the only copy of something on eBay in a growing market. However, these messages will always get replies.
If I’m in no hurry to sell and it’s a BIN with no offer option - I’ll usually reply to the “what’s the lowest you’ll take” question with a polite:
Hello and thanks for your inquiry!
I’m not taking offers on [card name] at this time. I’ve already listed it for the lowest price that I’m willing to accept.
Cheers and stay safe!
Sometimes they buy at the listed price, but usually not.
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