A warning about customers’ offers

[chrissponias]

Hi!

I’m writing this message to tell you that you must be careful when you accept offers from various customers believing that they will buy many articles at the same time.

A few weeks ago a customer made a low offer for purchasing 2 articles from my portfolio. I accepted this offer for both articles because I mainly wanted to sell one of them. It was an old article and nobody was purchasing it. I decided to sacrifice the second article believing that the customer would purchase both articles the same day. He/she didn’t purchase them.

Two days later, he purchased only the second article, paying a lower price, while I wanted to have sold mainly the first article, but he didn’t buy it in the end. I had left the offer open, with the lower price accepted for both.

Last Saturday a customer made a low offer for purchasing 4 articles from my portfolio. I accepted selling 2 articles for a lower price but I refused selling the next 2 articles he chose. He didn’t purchase any of them.

I immediately refused selling the second article I accepted selling for a lower price because again, I basically wanted to sell the first one, which was old… Therefore, the offer remained open only for the article I really wanted to sell, without caring about its price. It was an old article, and nobody was deciding to finally purchase it.

Only today this customer decided to purchase the only article I accepted selling for a lower price.

Moral lesson: don’t assume that your customers will purchase all your articles the same day when they make you offers, and don’t sacrifice good articles, selling them for lower prices.

Accept low offers only when you want to get rid of an article that is not attracting customers, or that gets many clicks but nobody purchases, etc.

Or, accept low offers when you are not selling your articles, so that you may present a better image to your potential customers. If you have already written 30 articles for example, but you have sold only 2 articles, you don’t seem to be an author who is really helping the public with your work. On the other hand, if you have already written 30 articles and you have already sold at least 15 articles, you seem to be a successful author.

If you are not selling your articles, accept a few offers and sell them for lower prices, so that you may show to your potential customers that many people like your work. However, don’t sell good articles for lower prices for believing that you’ll sell many articles the same day…

All the best!

[BarryDavidson]

There is no guarantee a customer will buy anything, and they are under no obligation. It's just like a grocery store. You may pick up that fillet mingion, but you put it back because you can only afford hamburger. You don't have to buy the fillet just because you touched it. It is sometimes frustrating to accept an offer, only to have it sit there for months. Every time you go to the received Offers page you see it there. Hell, I've got one from June of last year that I refused still showing there.

The point is, it's not something to get upset about. If you do, pretty soon you're not writing or submitting because you're upset. When you do write, emotions will allow little mistakes to pop up in your work resulting in more rejections. Trust me and let it go.

[Judith]

Another option for some older articles is to change the name, refresh the article with updated information and give them a brand new look! A great rainy day activity

[chrissponias]

I like customers’ offers. I was just showing to other authors that many times the customers play with us, trying to make us accept their low offers for pretending that they will purchase many articles, while they will merely purchase one of them, and only much later, if we’ll leave the offer open. Therefore, we should not let them purchase very good articles for a lower price for believing that we’ll sell many articles the same day.

However, customers’ offers give us a good opportunity to sell articles we want to get rid of because they are old (and they contain information that might not be useful if they will be sold only later).

It’s also a good opportunity to sell a few articles (even though without receiving as much as we had the intention to) and show to our potential customers that we are selling our articles (instead of having too many articles for sale that nobody decides to purchase).