Would you block somebody making silly offers ?

WLM21

I have an item listed for over £10 and have had one offer of less than £1, which I declined. Now the same person has offered £1.20.
Would you just block them ?
When I have 'accept offers' listed, I am expecting something approaching the original price, maybe even 20% less, but not 90% less

soolin

I’ve had this as well and just remember that they only get a limited amount of offers , it used to be just 3 but now it can vary based on some strange eBay metric. Once I get a couple of silly offers I play silly with them when they try a third- and instead of lowering my price like they expect, I put it back up to less than 1p of the start price. 

I’ve had a few angry messages after doing this, usually along the lines of I am supposed to be negotiating and my price should go lower not higher and I’m an idiot - and then I block them. 

On occasions I have blocked early and not engaged in any counter offers, or just rejected an offer outright with no counter offer being made. It all depends on my mood and just how daft the offer is . 

General_Applause

Yes, without hesitation.

You can set your listing to auto-decline offers below a certain amount.

WLM21

thanks .. have blocked him / her

Spoonie_Turtle

General_Applause said:

Yes, without hesitation.

You can set your listing to auto-decline offers below a certain amount.

This is what we do.  Never had to block anyone because either they run out of offers or bring it up to something sensible.  Of course if someone started messaging getting shirty about the (auto)declined offers, then yes they would of course be blocked.

theonlywayisup

If you can manage it, I would block and remove the item. for a period of time.  

pbartlett

i petsonally disable offers on my listings it saves an awful lot of hassle

GabbaGabbaHey

I can understand why you might put an automatic reject on offers below a certain amount, but I cannot for the life of me see any rationale in blocking a potential buyer.

Just because they have chanced their arm with an initial lowball offer (or even two), there's no way of knowing whether they might not pay full asking price to get the item.

RFW

If you set your auto decline as suggested. I'm assuming you can still check the declined offers, one thing I noticed was that some buyers never really knew how to work out best offers, so whilst they may have chanced their arm offering £10 on something listed at £100 they were still willing to pay £100.

If you block them they can't buy from you at all. Blocking potential customers who've done nothing more than try and get a ridiculous bargain seems a bit silly. Ebay is often marketed as a place where punters can get a £500 telly for a tenner.

theonlywayisup

I guess it's all down to personal experiences but those that I've encountered who haggle (and I mean ridiculous offers as per this thread) tend to be picky and even devious.  Something that starts with silly offers tends to end in a SNAD.  As I said, that's my opinion from experience I have encountered. I removed BO in the end.  I had also had to remove particular items after users were blocked or ignored and came back with a vengeance under new usernames.  Too much hassle. 

soolin

theonlywayisup said:

I guess it's all down to personal experiences but those that I've encountered who haggle (and I mean ridiculous offers as per this thread) tend to be picky and even devious.  Something that starts with silly offers tends to end in a SNAD.  As I said, that's my opinion from experience I have encountered. I removed BO in the end.  I had also had to remove particular items after users were blocked or ignored and came back with a vengeance under new usernames.  Too much hassle. 

That's why I block people, if they want to pay a silly low amount and end up paying more they are already in a bad mood and may take it out with an SNAD or a return for buyers remorse. I keep my life simple, I list, I sell and I move on- I try to waste as little time as I can with difficult buyers, I don't need sales that desperately as this is just a sideline for pin money for me. It might be different if I was reliant on it as my main income.