Right now, inquiries are totally free-form. I’m thinking about a feature to try to avoid buyers low-balling and offering 50% of the list price.
What do you think about sellers optionally configuring ads to require inquiries to make an offer. “I’m considering an offer of X” – and you cannot submit the form unless the value is within range of what the seller configures, ie 25% less. This does not obligate the seller to sell for this amount, it just doesn’t let them offer less.
A couple challenges I see to this…
The buyer may have more questions before knowing that they’d be willing to offer
Shipping hasn’t yet been computed, so it still gives the seller a chance to come back and add cost back into the shipping price.
Could also include “offer a trade” (which would be disabled if trades are not being accepted).
All of this should make it more clear what the seller is open to.
I like the idea, though I can see this causing arguments if it is not stated somewhere clearly that “this is not a guarantee the seller will sell for this price”.
Third thing to take in consideration is payment plan they might offer a certain amount which would be accepted straight pay but refused if a payment plan is done. (So you may have to add option will require payment plan or straight pay)
Personally as a breeder I prefer communication over a simple push button make an offer, sometime it’s not always about the offer but how it is asked, however I can understand some may like the idea.
If something like that is implemented I hope to see an option to opt out as well.
I like the idea as well but Deb does makes a good point so maybe something that meets in the middle as far as options that seller can put for inquiry options.
I’ve made offers on multiple snakes off one post,. I’ve made offers to include shipping in the cost or when shipping isn’t included in the price offer a little higher than asking and ask for it to be included in the price. Sometimes I just offer what they ask. I like the freedom as a buyer.
Cheap people are part of sales if you can’t handle difficult people then go do something where you don’t have to deal with them. I’m not sure if there’s something like this now but I’d be happy with a block feature where if someone is being ridiculous I could not hear from them again. I don’t think I would use it often but Is there anything like that now?
Personally as a buyer and maybe someday seller I would like of the buyer writes out tha inquiry. Like what @stewart_reptiles said, I would still like for it to be an optional
Also agree, and I’d probably even go further and require an opt-in instead. Like if you wanted to make a $X or-best-offer kind of a listing, then the button could be there to help that process. I would worry that making it the default will just encourage that kind of lowballing to become the normal practice on everyone’s ads.
I think that would be a good option as long as the buyer can’t see the % discount the seller is willing to give so they can’t just offer the lowest possible price.
I agree, because if it becomes standard practice to be able to make offers below asking price, it essentially makes asking price meaningless and turns MM into ebay. It essentially encourages lowballing
I like that inquiries are freeform, as it allows me to communicate with my buyers. If someone lowballs me there’s nothing preventing me from replying, “Sorry, I’m not interested.” Being able to block people who are disrespectful would be a nice bonus.
That said, I dislike haggling and I’m usually firm on price. So this feature probably isn’t intended for people like me.
Would it replace “Will Consider” under Negotiation when creating an add? A long as I can still select “Firm Price” I don’t really care what other options there are.