I don't get sellers on COMC

[SMPEP]

Okay perhaps I'm just venting because I just had a seller on COMC counter my offer with a 3 cent price raise (really you'd walk away from a sale for 3 cents?), but I just don't get sellers on COMC that counter offers.

Every buyer on COMC knows you can offer about 50% of list price, so no smart buyer is ever going to offer you full price as their first step. Right? They're going to put in a low price, and see how low an offer the seller will accept.

When they do that, COMC responds based on what discount price this particular seller has told them that they will accept.

So unless you accepted the default % off (which most don't), then you are in effect telling your buyer the lowest price you would accept. Why?

Because you as a seller cannot reasonably counter offer when I offer you the price that YOU set! You are saying "offer me at least X." I offer you X. You can't then say "Oh, the X price that I told you to offer me isn't enough. Give me more."

Yet, almost every single seller counters. Duh. Of course you won't get a sale if you do that. You are in effect pulling a bait and switch.

As a buyer, I love COMC (great scans front and back). But unless they knock some sense into their sellers (I won't even comment on the insane starting prices) they are going to go out of business.

Cheers,
Patrick