A question for the group, re: Ebay Offer Ettiquette

[AceByTerror]

Hi All,

I'm currently engaged in a rather amusing dialog with a seller on eBay. I was curious about everyone's feeling about offers on Buy it Now with offer type listings on eBay.

In my experience, depending on the initial asking price, I'm usually inclined to offer half of the asking price. I find this usually leads to an equalibrium being reached, but occasionally the seller excepts and I feel like I've found a good deal. As far as I'm concerned, I don't feel as though I'm "ripping" someone off or do I feel it's unethical. It's the seller's responsibility to know the value of the item they are selling and resolve themselves to a price they are happy with. Do you agree?

In this particular instance, the razor in question was a fair condition Aristocrat 66. Definitely used and with some plating loss. The initial asking price was £70.00 - I offered £35.00, fully expecting some back and forth. Below is the dialog for posterity. I xxxx out his name to keep some anonymity. I'd appreciate some sanity checks here by you folks. Do any of you feel i was in the wrong or out of line with that offer?

Seller's response to my offer:

i no how much its worth as i collect razors


so if £35 was your idea of a rip off offer
then you should look else where
regards d

My response to the seller:

Dear xxxx,


Wow. Great attitude.


I also collect razors and have for some time. As a fellow collector, I would have expected you also hunt for good deals and get them where you can.


I meant no offense - I was, as a collector making an offer to a seller to try and judge where your price range was. Usually (almost always actually) on eBay the seller would respond with a counter offer, and then some sort of resolution on a price would occur or not.


Clearly the razors you find you must have payed full top market value for. How noble of you.


Keep this one. It's all yours.

Seller's response:

I pay a fair price for razors


I do not try and rip people off unlike you
Then again i have morales
So i'll leave the robbing to you

My final response (I think he's done as there's been no response)

Of course you do. I'm sure you always told the sellers in those antique shops their prices were far too low and you wanted to pay more! How silly of me to imply anything less of you. You sir are a true gentleman.


To be fair, we'll never know what price I would have paid for your razor now will we? Unlike you - who would have of course offered more than the asking price being the saint that you are.


I'm happy to continue to debate the merits and methods of a free market economy with you to your heart's content. Or you can accept the fact that your response was terse and rather rude. Had you countered with an offer this could have gone an entirely different way.


Have a great day!


Rob

What say you people of badgerandblade? Was I out of line?

 

[Mick]

When you come across a bozo you should just move on and not bother to respond.

You can report them to ebay if the messages went through the eBay system but they never do anything unless they have lost money then they jump higher than a Olympic poll vaulter to get their $2-3 back

 

[AceByTerror]

Nah I don't really hold any ill will to the guy - no need to call the eBay cops or anything. I mean he wasn't a complete hostile jerk or anything like that. Only a partial one.

I simply found the exchange a little humorous for one, but secondly I really didn't like the insinuation that I would be ripping someone off had they accepted an offer like that.

I'm genuinely interested to hear other collector's takes on this.

 

[Attila]

For what it's worth I don't think you were out of line at all. I would just disregard their responses as you were perfectly reasonable in yours and your original contact. Maybe ignore them as a seller if possible for the future or somehow make note of them so you don't have to deal with them again?

 

[Lucidor]

He could have let the auction go to term and sold it to you afterwards, no?

 

[Obiwan]

I don't use DEs so I have no idea whether or not the price was insulting. I will say, if this seller happens to be a B&B member (and he may be if he's a collector) this thread may not be the best way to serve as a continuation of the discussion. Still a healthy discussion point for the broader audience, just something to be mindful of.

 

[mattdenicola]

I always find it amusing how people get offended enough by what they perceive as "low-ball" offers to actually issue a response about the offer. I mean, how offended could he/she possibly be? Is one e-mail popping up in his/her inbox so much of an inconvenience that it demands an angry reply e-mail? If his/her time is so valuable that a low-ball e-mail is that offensive, isn't taking the time to issue a brusque reply just doubling your losses?

The seller obviously knows he may not get his full asking price, or he wouldn't have listed it as an "Or Best Offer" auction. There is a way to set up eBay to automatically reject offers below a certain value - if you really feel that you don't want to entertain low-balls, just set that to your minimum acceptable price.

Of course, the razor is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it. So it's easy to be high and mighty about how "valuable" his/her belonging are - but it's all based on other people's impressions. And if his/her life is wrapped up in how other people value his/her belongings, well, that's just ... sad. I think this is where the hostility gestates, and not in feeling "ripped off."

 

[AceByTerror]

I don't use DEs so I have no idea whether or not the price was insulting. I will say, if this seller happens to be a B&B member (and he may be if he's a collector) this thread may not be the best way to serve as a continuation of the discussion. Still a healthy discussion point for the broader audience, just something to be mindful of.

Good point - one that I did take into consideration before posting this. That's why I left his ebay name out of it. It's up to him if he wishes to continue (in a friendly manner) the debate on here.

 

[maxman]

That happens quite a bit. I think you were being nice enough.
Personally I wouldn't have given him the time of day after the first message.

 

[Slash McCoy]

I wouldn't have wasted time replying. He had your offer.

 

[StuMcB]

This sounds like the chap who I had a run in with a few months back on the bay . Terrible postage times, when I asked where the razor was he replied that I didnt trust him and that it was guys like me who gave guys like him a bad name. When I explained it had been a month from payment and he'd not yet marked as despatched he blamed me for being in the UK not the US. I pointed out to him his seller page clearly stated he dispatches to the UK. No reply for another several weeks. In the end I got E-bay to sort him out and refund my money. He was just a kinda funny chap who had no sence of customer service and was always on the defensive. Steer clear of idiots like this on the bay.

 

[oakeshott]

Ace,
Clearly his response to your offer was unnecessarily rude (in other words, he started it), but remember, it's ebay and many of the people there are not experienced or skilled in the give and take of negotiation. The seller let his emotion get in the way of the deal which was poor judgment. I think your response, however, escalated the emotion and thus took the dialogue to a place from which no deal could ever be done. Maybe next time a simple response along the lines of

"My apologies. Certainly didn't mean to give offense. I've successfully bought many items here at half the BIN price. Would you like to counter offer?"

I agree though, it was a bizarrely hostile way to respond to someone looking to buy what you have for sale and it ended up being a much more entertaining conversation for us.

 

[Elder Scrolls]

I dont think you were out of line, you made an honest, respectable offer as far as I can see......his response was hostile for no reason, if he had countered your offer, both parties could end up happy.

 

[NexlevMM]

I have a golden rule where I never deal with people with poor grammar. Poor grammar usually means bad people/business skills in my experience.

After the first message I wouldve left it alone, but you handled it like a gentleman and kept your cool.

 

[Toothpick]

I've only bought one item from a "best offer" auction on the bay and it was a Gem 1912 SE razor. He was asking $16 and i had no issues with offering him $7 for it (a little less than half) and he accepted without a blink of an eye. My intention was similar to yours, offer him half, get a counter offer, then meet in the middle. i've always thought offering half the asking price was a good place to start, you usually know they wont accept it but it will get them to come down further on the price. i think if you would have offered him 10 or 15 then that might merit his initial response. he probably paid to much for the razor to begin with. IMO you can't ask people to make you an offer then get offended when they do.

 

[goatee]

not out of line at all. seller always has the option to refuse. i ALWAYS low ball my offers.

 

[AceByTerror]

Ace,
Clearly his response to your offer was unnecessarily rude (in other words, he started it), but remember, it's ebay and many of the people there are not experienced or skilled in the give and take of negotiation. The seller let his emotion get in the way of the deal which was poor judgment. I think your response, however, escalated the emotion and thus took the dialogue to a place from which no deal could ever be done. Maybe next time a simple response along the lines of

"My apologies. Certainly didn't mean to give offense. I've successfully bought many items here at half the BIN price. Would you like to counter offer?"

I agree though, it was a bizarrely hostile way to respond to someone looking to buy what you have for sale and it ended up being a much more entertaining conversation for us.

Thanks oakshott - I'd have to agree that you are correct here. I could have really softpeddled my response to try to salvage the deal. I did indeed shut down any plans to move forward.

In my defense.... I wasn't that attached to his #66 to begin with. At half price or a little more it would be a good deal. I more or less evaluated my RAD for the razor at that point and found that it was outweighed by my desire to verbally joust with the little d-bag. I don't deny that I took a little bit of pleasure in crafting my responses. Guilty

That said, perhaps a little more tempered response would have served me better considering that possibly next time, the razor he does post blows my RAD through the roof.

Thanks for the voice of reason

 

[rajagra]

He invited offers. You made an offer. He acted like a jerk.
I wouldn't have responded after that. Nor would I raise my offer, his bad attitude could indicate other problems with the sale.

I see nothing mercenary in making a low offer. He set the ground rules, you were playing by them.

Additionally, some offers seem to be accepted automatically by the system, presumably if they exceed a value defined by the seller. Almost as a matter of principle I think buyers should start with a low offer to explore where that threshold is.

 

[sir-nix-alot]

No need to respond in the manner that you did. A simple "Offer stands until 11/20/2012 @ 1700 EST" would have sufficed and kept you in the game.

 

[tinashubby]

I don't think you were out of line by making an offer. However if the seller feels he was presenting an item at a reasonable price, he may get offended by what he perceives as a lowball. In the end it is his option to determine the amount he wishes to sell it for, end of story.
I got a lowball offer on a motorcycle once. I was offended, he began to try to increase his offer and I literally closed the door. It was a face to face deal however, before the age of e-bay and such.