They're wasting my time and that's what pisses me off. I can't get my time back and I'm not interested in dealing with people who can't even afford to buy it in the first place.

How many sellers out there have declined and offer and had the buyer come back with a second offer lower than the first? Not long ago I had a buyer provide an 'offer' on an item about 25% of my asking price (no, I didn't have auto-decline set). I responded with a fairly quick 'no thank you' (figuring it wasn't worth the effort of a counter offer). The next day the same buyer offered less that his first offer. It was that time I just 'let it ride' and didn't even respond.

Just saw an example that made me think of this thread. I am helping a buddy find a t3 Cobb in low grade that looks nice (let me know if you have one for sale). That is a particularly good card to find with those specs because many are graded low because of minor paper loss on the back, despite being otherwise beautiful cards. So I find one on eBay for $3,750 obo. It is an SGC 10 with one torn corner and tack holes on every corner. It is not a particularly nice example, but has a decent image. T3's in particular, as I mentioned, have grades-within-grades that people will pay a premium for (a gorgeous 1.5 is currently at 3k on Heritage, but is graded that low only because of minor paper loss on the back and SGC is unreasonable about paper loss regardless of where it is). Vcp is only instructive if you compare apples to apples and not just look at grades.
I know the market well on this card. I can tell you that it isn't more than a $1500 card. But it is at $3,750 obo! So is $1500 a low-ball if it is what I know the market price to be? The crazy thing is that he may well accept $1200, but we won't know unless we try. On the flip-side, he may be insulted at a 1,500 offer because it is so much lower than his obo price, despite the fact that it is fair market. I am advising my buddy against this card, but I thought it was a good example of the issues we have discussed here today.
The eBay card and the heritage card are pictured below. The fact that these 2 cards are a half grade apart is an indictment of the whole grading system in my opinion, but that is for another post.

If you accept a buyers offer, even if its lower than you had hoped for, always add the message to the invoice just like Tom Cruise said, "Sometimes you gotta say WTF". :D

Agreed..

What are you disagreeing with?

I wouldn't even call it a guideline, as it is a caveat and terrible explanation of not locking others out of contention for your item.

My interpretation of what they are getting at with that statement is, "just because you made an offer, it doesn't mean someone else can't buy the item out from under you while you are negotiating, so if you want the item just put in your best offer and hopefully you will win it".

That said, it is definitely written there though, which is what I was skeptical of. Connotation is everything.

I have made an offer on a card at roughly 50 percent. It was a 300 dollar card at asking price. The seller dropped the price almost down to my best price but wouldn't budge on 15 bucks roughly. About 2 months went by and some new precedence on pricing was set, albeit, not by much and I offered a lower amount that was accepted.

I think that the one thing we can all agree on is that regardless what the obo price is, if you offer somewhere in the vcp range, you are not being a jerk. And if the seller thinks your fair market offer is an insult, then he is being unreasonable.

my thoughts with the "or best offer" ordeal:

For example, card is listed at @ $2599.99 or best offer

If you don't want to accept an offer below a certain price, then I'm fine with getting the automatic denial of my offer.


But when I put in a fair offer ($2150) for what the card has sold for and then some and the offer goes through to the seller with the option to counter. seller counters with a minimal reduction ($2449) from asking price stating that this is my bottom price.

Why did the offer even go through to the seller if it was about $300 less than what seller actually wanted.

man even when my store is packed, the MAO's take me a grand total of 5 MAYBE 10 minutes a day.

And that 5 to 10 minutes are valuable to me. That's almost an hour of my week if I have to deal with that every day. No thanks.

I'll just set my threshold on every item when I list it and laugh at the stupid offers that get auto-denied once I do actually check to see what's been offered.

but then you will be wasting your time. :)

Yes but of that 35 -70 minutes a week 75% of it is legit business. to me sacrificing less than 20 minutes a week to some unnecessary offers is no biggie. That's also a high estimate. I just got offered $8 on a 1971 Nolan Ryan it took me well under a minute to read it and reject it.

On a happier note, the gentleman who was made an example of earlier in this thread has now bought a dozen T206's from me.

Would you take $99 on the Kidney?

LOL, OK I've got one. Had a bunch of items closing last night. I love the guys who make an offer less than 5 minutes before an item closes. Yup, I'm sitting there with my fingers crossed as my items end hoping for some last minute action.