Inboxes and offers

[eek]

If a customer asks for a lower price on an article that was not selected as a best offer, how do we approve it so he can make the transaction? Is it enough to respond via the new message system, as in Yes, $X is fine?

It apparently didn't take long for customers to latch on to the idea of bidding through this new messaging system. We have mixed feelings. It was nice to be able to set the price and not worry about haggling. Still, it's a sale, if the price is still within range of acceptable. What do other authors think about this?

e & e
(e.e.kane)

[Ed]

I don't know if this was an unforseen effect of the new message system. I'm trying to get clarification.

[DSWaltenburg]

I think, as long as an offer is within REASON of the asking price, then why not? You always have the option to reject their bid. To prevent all buyers outright from making bids on 'unmarked' articles though, may turn away new business. I'm not saying that we have to sell ourselves short just to get sales, just that it's another alternative for everyone. I could be wrong though. I normally am :)

Probably be best NOT to advertise that it's an acceptable practice, because then EVERYONE would probably want to haggle.....oh WHO knows. Just my .005 cents.

[Ed]

We do already have the "best offer" option . . . trying to negotiate outside of this may get confusing. There may also be undue pressure to lower a price, when the "best offer" option is worded in pretty neutral language.

[Ed]

The new inbox feature is in its infant stages. Understandably, there are some kinks to work out. Jeff indicates that the "best offer" feature is still the way in which CC wants to handle offers for lower prices.

Approval and Rejection notices will soon be coming to your inbox, so Yahoo will no longer be able to swallow them. Hooray!

Ed

[DSWaltenburg]

See, told you I was wrong :P :D

[cgardener]

Could you not just write him back and explain the "best offer" procedure to him, tell him it's site policy, and that's the way it has to be done? You can then click off your "best offer" box and let him go through the system.

That's what I would do. Customers need to know you won't go outside the system.

[beconrad]

I had a buyer contact me through the messaging system about possible work for a colleague - he provided an email address and asked me to contact that colleague.

Naturally I did not contact that person - I explained that all transactions would need to go through the normal CC request system. I just wanted to let you know that this could be another unfortunate side effect of the messaging system. I'm sure CC will be watching for this kind of thing but I just wanted to give everyone a heads up.

Bonnie

[cgardener]

I feel like if someone really wants to cheat the system, they will, messaging system or not. I found it really frustrating with the Q&A system, and I think it will be an overall boon to CC to have a better system. I think the majority of us are honest, and those that aren't, well, they just aren't.

[Ed]

Thanks for letting us know, beconrad.

[KSpann]

Hi all. I'm relatively new and have a question about best offers.

I've recieved two offers from the same requestor on the same article, the second was actually higher than the first. I did notify the requestor that I had accepted the frist offer via the "Q&A" feature before they put up the second offer. It's leading me to wonder if they aren't aware I accepted their original offer? I'm not clear on how the messaging system works here on CC.

Any insight would be helpful.

Thanks! :o)

[Ed]

Eventually, this problem will be solved with all site-generated mails being filtered into members' inboxes. It's a problem staff is aware of.

Ed

[BarryDavidson]

When you accept the offer, are they going through? I ask because I've accepted two offers, but nothing seems to have happened.

[HayleyWriter]

Hi Barry,

I use this feature but with mixed results. Usually, I find that the customer who is keen and genuine in their offer buys the article as soon as my acceptance is registered (within 1 day or a few hours). I do have seven accepted offers currently sitting in my box but as I accepted some of them a couple of months ago, I am not expecting them to sell now at the offered price. These articles are still available for others to purchase though. I have had more articles sold quickly once I have accepted the offer though, so I still think it is a valid system to use. I do wish the people making the offers would always follow through and purchase (if the offers I've accepted in the past two weeks sold, I'd finally make the threshhold for this month!) but there are no guarantees with this. I know some authors don't like to use it because of this.

I find that I do better when I use it, because I have sold several articles for an agreed offer price that was a bit lower than the high price I tend to put on my articles (but often much higher than the cheap articles other authors offer and sometimes higher than I expected). I have also had articles sell straight away without people making an offer, even though it is available to them. So, I still sell at my price for some articles, and the offer system converts to sales probably about 70 to 80 per cent of the time. It is only frustrating when you accept offers and the customers do not buy after all, which does sometimes happen.

Hope this helps,

Kind regards,

Hayley