How to Deal with Lowballers

I’m here to share with you guys how to deal with lowballers. I have been selling second-hand items for a few years now and from time to time, I do encounter some lowballers. I really don’t mind giving discounts to a customer who haggles because I know that this is part of the business. It’s a marketplace anyway, albeit being online,  and people are really expected to haggle and make their offers.

Photo by Damiano Lingauri on Unsplash

What is a Lowballer?

A lowballer is often defined as someone making an offer way lower than the listed price. The offer is so low that it often borders being an insult to the seller.

As I have mentioned earlier, I do encounter lowballers in my online selling gig, and in the past, I really felt insulted and offended by their offers.

But nowadays, I don’t really get that emotional anymore and just treat it as a normal thing in my day-to-day online selling gig.

 

How to Deal with a Lowballers in Online Selling

Personally, I do price my items very competitively and since I follow my competitors online, I often priced my items in the low-mid. And on top of the competitive price, I do give freebies in all purchases without announcing it to my customers.

I also exert money and effort in keeping my items in the best condition possible by renting a bigger space so I can have a dedicated room for my merchandise. The storage room is frequently cleaned and sanitized and at the same time, I use dehumidifiers and silica gels to keep the room dry at all times. All items are washed and steamed (cleaned and conditioned for leather items) prior to getting packed for storage.

I also exert money and effort in packaging the items individually regardless of how much the item costs. So even if the item I’m selling is posted online really cheaply, I still treat it with utmost care.

That’s why in the past, I often felt offended by lowball offers. The lowball offers are so low that it wouldn’t even suffice to meet the cost of acquiring the item, not to mention the operational cost and other variable and non-variable costs associated with running an online thrift store.

However, as time goes by, I’ve learned that lowballers are here to stay and we just have to live with it.

Here’s how I deal with lowballers in the online selling world.

Respond Politely

I do respond to all offers despite how low they are. I don’t always make counter-offers though. I used to always do it in the past but I learned that it just prolonged the ‘lowballing agony’.

I just thank them for contacting me, for making an offer and then I just politely decline.

As simple as that.

Counter-offer

In the past, I frequently do make counter-offers, but not that much anymore. However, this is still a good strategy for slow-moving merchandise or for your deadstock.

Sometimes, the reality is, as sellers, we’d rather let go of our merchandise even if we’re on the losing end especially nowadays when time’s really hard and every sales matter.

However, if you know that your item is rare, very hard to find, and worth the price that you’re targetting to sell it for, then think twice before accepting a lowball offer.

Decline Automatically

In certain online selling platforms such as eBay, there is an auto-decline function when the offer is below a certain threshold that the seller set themselves.

Unfortunately, this feature is not available on Carousell and on Instagram.

This feature should be available on all online selling platforms I think.

Block and Move On

As I was researching for this article, I browsed numerous websites and blogs on what other sellers do to deal with low-ballers and I came across posts that said that they block lowballers.

In the past, I don’t block anyone but recently, I have been checking out the profiles of everyone who liked and made offers to my merchandise and I started blocking people who have multiple negative feedback.

I do this to save my time in dealing with people who are not really considerate with the time of others. Most of the people I have blocked are only people who have multiple negative feedback about non-payment, people who did not go to the agreed meetup place (and time), people who were tagged as lowballers by multiple sellers, etc.

 

Final Thoughts

I have closed deals with some lowballers wherein we agreed to meet halfway but for most of them, it was really a no-deal. In some cases, even if we already have agreed to a certain price, they still ended up not paying for the item.

This is an exhausting, time-wasting, and opportunity-wasting event because once you reserved an item for a particular buyer, other potential buyers will not see that particular merchandise anymore in the online selling platform.

It wasn’t really the situation when I first started online selling. Almost all of my buyers in the past haggled politely and I almost did not get any joy reservers in the past.

But in the past couple of years, lowballers and joy reservers seem to be increasing and personally, I have just accepted this as a fact of life in the online selling world nowadays.

If you’re thinking of becoming an online seller, then this is one of the things that you should prepare yourself for. Just remain calm, polite, and professional at all times and you’ll do great for sure.

By the way, please be reminded that this is just an opinion based on what I have experienced in the past few years of online selling. Feel free to decide on your own and to follow your own path of course.

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How about you? Are you also an online seller? How do you deal with the lowballers that you encounter in your online shop?