The Trials And Tribulations Of Lowball Offers

Lowball offers...Sellers hate them. Buyers often feel justified making them.

As a seller, I simply decline, counteroffer, or ignore, and move on. On some other nonphilatelic boards I frequent, some sellers actually get outraged to the point of replying to such offers with expletives or threats.

Seriously? It's not a big deal. Anyone who has ever been to a garage sale, flea market, or swap meet, has dealt with lowball offers.

So what actually constitutes a "lowball offer"? Is it 20% below the asking price, 30%? 50%? 75%?

I would argue that there is no true answer. Some sellers think any offer more than 10% below ask is lowballing. Some sellers deliberately set the asking price obscenely high, willing to settle for a relatively large discount off that number.

Then there are those sellers who list product as Best Offer, but will not take a penny below the asking price. Idiotic. Don't use the Best Offer option if you're not willing to actually entertain offers.

So why do buyers make what are considered lowball offers?

1. The bargain hunter that will not pay more than XX% of Scott for ANYTHING, just on principle.

2. Not being sure what an item is worth. This is especially the case when it is an item that isn't vanilla, that doesn't have a cut and dried catalog value.

3. Having a difference of opinion as to the item's condition and true value. A seller asking 75%+ of Scott for a stamp with multiple flaws is a bit off their rocker (special attributes like cancels, varieties, usage notwithstanding).

4. Making a point to the seller that their asking price is obscene. I don't recommend this method of communicating the point, as what do you do if the seller actually accepts? In all likelihood you probably weren't all that interested in buying the item.

5. Buyer being clueless.

6. Feeling out the seller, i.e., start low and see what the seller comes back with.

Making a "lowball" offer can have any number of results, ranging from acceptance to being blocked by the seller. You never know what the reaction will be.

As a buyer, if I am making an offer considerably below the ask price, I use the notes section in the offer to explain why. Many sellers though, don't even read those notes.

Just in the last day I've made two offers that most sellers would consider lowball: at or under 50% of the asking price.

The first one garnered a counteroffer just a little bit above my offer. I was pleased to accept that counter.

The second one created the quandary that is the bane of all buyers: he accepted my offer. This then creates uncertainty and second guessing. Should I have offered lower? How low might I have gotten it for? Is there an aspect of the item that I missed? Did I overestimate it's true value and hosed myself?

Ahh, the drama of lowball offers...

Personally I am not a fan of low-ballers or low-balling.

If I don't know the value of something, I won't bid. If I do know the value and feel it is too high, I will only make an offer if the price is within 20% of what I think is fair.

A higher lowball offer can be seen as an insult, and I prefer not to go there.

Receiving lowball offers is different. I can politely say no thanks or counter. It depends on the item and how "low-ball" the offer really is.

These are my personal feelings and I'm sure there are many that feel otherwise. I never really liked bartering and am a bit of an easy mark when it comes to buying items that could possibly be negotiated.

Good old skills at buying and selling.

Thanks for the write up, excellent.

Whatever happened to the simplest (and least judgmental) explanation of them all?

The buyer simply bid what the item was worth to the buyer.

Q/ Doesn't that belong on the list?

Not what it was 'truly' worth, not what was 'fair', not what anyone else 'ought' to pay ...

In any auction, the 'winning' buyer has *always* paid more than the item was worth to *everyone* else.

Q/ Why doesn't that lead people to never buy at auction?

Because the buyer's higher-than-anybody-else bid was (one hopes) based on what the item was worth to the buyer.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

A low ball offer could also be accepted if the seller has some hardship that demands he raise cash. I would not feel very good about myself if I low balled a seller 'to make a point' but then had him accept because he was desperately trying to generate cash flow for a medical bill for his sick wife or child.
Don

Excellent posting! As a "busy" seller on ebay, I've found that you can (almost) totally automate the entire process on Best Offers. This automation simply consists of a) setting the floor on what you will accept for a particular item; and b) setting the floor on what you will not accept for a particular item. Low ball offers will be automatically rejected, offers that meet or exceed your minimum price will be automatically accepted. The low ball offers you will not even see - the system automatically rejects them. No emotion involved in that at all, and no time wasted, either.

If I solicit best offers on my listings, I do not feel insulted if someone makes a low offer - it isn't a personal thing at all - just someone trying to get a bargain or offering what they are comfortable paying. They are allowed three separate offers on a listing, after that, the system blocks them from making further offers. This activity is behind the scenes, you don't see it. When you automate things as I explained above, you are not personally involved in the process anyway - the system acts as your agent.

John

I have sold over 8,000 stamp items on ebay in recent years and I use the Best Offer feature in different scenarios. One benefit (for me) is that it helps me to screen out people that I might not want to do business with.

As a seller, that's how I use it as well, which is why I do not automate the auto-accept or auto-decline thresholds on my listings like johnsim03 suggests.

Wow, what a concept - trying to fish for fodder to block by using the best offer feature... I honestly had never thought of that. I have a very low instance of any problems, whatsoever, on ebay. Stamp people tend to be easy to work with. I suppose you can't eliminate every problem in every transaction, but having to manually reply to best offers gets old after awhile. But, even then, I suppose you could just let it expire after 72 hours, which would give you plenty of time to block low-ball bidders.

Actually, using the automated method, you can still find out which offers the system automatically rejected, and from whom. But, there is a logic to pre-screening bidders, I suppose.

John

Well said Rev.

It's not a matter of using it as a way of blocking buyers, at least not in my case. However, it allows me to do some quick checking and see if there are any "red flags" before entering into a transaction with that party.

For example, there could be a history of nonpayment. By checking the feedback they have left for other sellers (checking their feedback is useless since all buyer feedback is automatically positive), are they someone who is constantly having issues with sellers or leaving negative feedback on a regular basis. That is indicative of a "problem child" whom I would rather avoid, especially if selling at a discount.

Also, given the difference in shipping and insurance costs depending on where the buyer is located, a particular offer may be more or less acceptable than the same dollar amount from someone living somewhere else.

Having the opportunity to do some quick evaluation of all aspects of a prospective transaction allows me some latitude in whether to accept or decline, or if counteroffering, by how much.

revenuecollector.....
Well written. I agree 100%.

That's exactly how I sell on ebay - Everything I've sold (nearly 100% baseball/sports cards) over the last 6 or 7 years has been BIN/BO and by having the chance to look at who it is ahead of time has helped me achieve 100% positive, 100% 5 star selling rating. Although the occasional buyer has just hit the BIN and when that happens, I just hope for the best.

Great topic!




This is often the basis for my "best offer". If I like an item well enough, I just bid and/or buy. If I am on the fence, I will submit a best offer that discounts (100%) the seller's listed shipping charges. This is rarely more than a buck or two, but is quite often acceptable to the seller.




I really like this point. Can't stress it enough!


I propose a couple of other scenarios to justify (in my mind) low-ball offers.

I buy a lot of small to medium sized collections - usually just to acquire a couple key items. After those key items are assessed, what you are often left with is common definitives not worth a penny each. And yet, sellers often insist on listing "catalogue value" as the basis for their prices. I can't count how many times I have seen an ad state "Priced at 10% of Cat value $xxxx.xx!" (or something close to that). I got news for them - 10,000 definitives are not worth .25/ea!

Another problem with buying collections is that you are often gambling on the condition of the stamps. If a seller simply posts a picture of a page of stamps, the buyer has to make a judgement about the quality of said stamps. Lowball offers help minimize a buyer's risk.

Brian

I've put in a best offer before simply based on how much I had in my PayPal account at the moment.

I'm not an overly active seller on ebay. I sell items I obtain for whatever reason and don't want. What surprises me is I don't get more "best offers." The one time I did receive a best offer, we had a good back and forth, settled on a price, and I cleared out a huge tub of stamps, making my wife happy.

What drives me nuts is when a number of people are "watching" an item I'm selling but don't bother to make an offer.

The only time I make a "best offer" is when I'm buying railway newspaper stamps, which with one or two exceptions, are not Scott listed.