Can we get an "Are You Kidding Me? Take a Hike" button?

[nichewriter]

I use the best offer option on most of my articles, not all. Personally, I like having the choice whether or not to use it. Based on my sales in the last few months, my articles have sold at my asking price, and my usual buyers rarely use the best offer option at all even if I put it there. And when they do put in a best offer, they are reasonable (e.g., 10% to 20% less than my fullrights asking price) so I have no problem accepting their offer. And this is why I will continue to use the best offer option for some of my articles.

As for those lowballers, I'm sure those buyers don't mean to be insulting (thankfully, there doesn't seem to be too many of them on C-C right now). But offering $1 to $5 for content that has passed Ed's scrutiny? :-) I have a feeling the lowballers are used to using other services like GAF where you can find hundreds of "writers" willing to write 500-word or so articles for $1. I like getting (reasonable) offers from buyers, and when I do get those low offers, I just hit the Reject button and move on...business as usual.

Like Celeste, I'm not concerned with adjusting my prices -- sometimes I do, but my main focus is to write as many articles as I can and get them up there. I don't mind waiting for the right buyer, even if it takes a year or more than that even :-)

[Lysis]

I use it because I'm not above negotiating. When I click it, I think 10% or even 20% cheaper, but when some dude sends me an $8 offer when my usage price is $15, I kinda think he's taking me for a suckah. I don't even want to calculate how much the price is per word $8-CCfees is on a 1000 word article.

[HayleyWriter]

I use the best offer system for most of my articles, but will not use it on some articles, such as requests (as many requesting customers often want a very low price anyway) and I love being able to select which articles to offer it on. I too find that the majority of articles will sell at the full price, without any offer being made. I reject the low offers immediately, but have sometimes found an offer is reasonable and worth accepting. I think some customers particularly appreciate this function and I would not like to see it disappear completely.

I check in regularly in case an offer has been made. Surprisingly, I have accepted some offers only to have the customer never return to purchase. Perhaps, the customer has purchased other articles instead of waiting for me to accept the offer - the time difference could be against me in those cases. Others are using the offer system to get a lower price that suits the recession budget, and that's ok too as long as the offer is still reasonable. Authors still deserve a decent return on an article, even if it is a recession. I figure using the best offer system gives the best of both worlds - a chance for customers to negotiate for a lower price if price is the issue and the choice of the customer to purchase the article straight away without negotiating. Most choose the latter. It means if I have an article that is just out of someone's budget, the customer can make an offer, without me having to run around and adjust my prices because an article is not selling.

I too do not get upset about the low offers either, just laugh, reject the offer, remind myself I write for fun, and move on.
Overall, the feature works well for those who want to use it. Either way, the majority of sales are from customers who do not need to negotiate. CC offers the best quality articles and customers recognise the quality when purchasing the articles.
Hayley

[Celeste Stewart]

Remember that you have a choice in accepting offers. Know your bottom line and prepare to accept/reject offers based on this information.

I recently listed my convertible mustang for sale. No loan, plus I had two other cars. Didn't need the money. Just drove it on the weekends for fun. Lowball offers came in. I asked over $10K, but regularly received offers of $5k. Flattered? Hell no! Are you kidding? This car was cherry, gorgeous, fun, and worth far more than my asking price! Did I accept lowball offers? No. Did a buyer come along willing to pay a fair price? Eventually. Bargain hunters are out there but I knew my bottom line. It's more fun to drive a convertible to the beach than having unsold articles, but it's important to know the value of your item for sale.

Many new writers who are excited that someone actually wants to buy their articles tend to say, "Flattered, but should I accept this low offer?" CC veterans will advise against accepting lowball offers, but only the individual can answer that question.

Do you know your bottom line? If offered $5, is that acceptable to you? Does that figure meet your predetermined bottom line? If so, go for it. If not, click the "Take a Hike" button. Know how much time you put in, how much you are willing to accept, how long you can afford to wait for a better offer, and how much you can get elsewhere. When you know what your article is really worth, you can accept or reject articles with confidence. Until then you're at the mercy of the offers coming in.

Of course, if your financial situation is dreary and your family is hungry, that's a different story. Assuming you're not starving, use a spreadsheet and figure out exactly what each article is worth to you and determine your bottom line. Once you know it, you are in a good position to set your "no haggle" price or negotiate using best offer.

[Celeste Stewart]

Negotiating requires that each party starts out with an opening position. In our case, our asking price. If I'm asking $100 for a full rights/best offer, than my opening position is $100. In addition, I would need to know my settlement and "walk away" prices.

The customer's opening position would be whatever he offers. Let's says $50. Normally, both parties understand that they have to give and take to work toward an agreeable price. Hopefully the final deal will land somewhere in between both parties' opening positions, such as $75.

What if my opening position is $100 and the customer offers $10? Even with the shortcomings of the best offer system (not being able to say, "Thanks but no thanks, but I might consider $75"), is this negotiation worth entering into? If my opening position is $100 and I want to settle at $75, how likely would the customer and I meet here? Not likely! More importantly, what is my walk away price? I may be willing to settle for $75, so I'd probably *talk* to someone offering $50, right? But would I entertain an offer of $25? Let's say my walk away price is $45. That is, if someone opens at $50, I might start talking. But what if the person offered $25? Nope. That's below my walk away price. Come back when you're serious, Dude.

What about an offer of $10 in this example? No brainer - walk away. If someone at least opens at the walk away price, then you can consider talking to them and counter offering.

So, even if we had a mechanism where we really could negotiate, you have to understand at which point you would even enter into a conversation and at which point you would walk away. And that requires fully understanding what your article is worth and what you are willing to settle for in a competitive environment. Right now, we have an accept or walk away button. Know your positions and click accordingly.

[Elizabeth Ann West]

I agree Celeste. My only concern was that I personally don't care to haggle my prices on the majority of my articles. I'm just putting out a different perspective. There are other sites for that. Plus, I believe making the bidding system more robust might encourage more buyers to use it, and from experience there will be a great deal of wasted time and effort on the parts of both buyers and authors in haggling, which could be spent writing.

Also, C-C benefits more from encouraging those full priced, not bargain priced sales, as 35% is $35 on $100, only $17.50 on $50. But at the end of the day, it's the SAME article. It took the same amount of time for Ed to review it, for the system to upload it, for the writer to write it etc.

My recent price adjustments have been because I personally don't see 1,000 word articles selling as high as they used to just 5 months ago. What would take about 3-4 weeks to sell at $85-$120 is now taking almost twice as long to sell at $45-$85. I think our system here is very good, and if authors are concerned about their prices, they can always go in an adjust them. In fact, if you have a decent following on your blog or something, you could even advertise you are reducing your articles for sale this weekend and link to your C-C portfolio. Writers can especially use this the middle weekends of the month where it seems sales are slowest.

We all run a business here, albeit like an art gallery where we are the artists. I don't want to take away the Best Offer feature, as I know some of my fellow artists use it very well in their selling strategy. I just don't want to see more of a focus placed on it or like a whole new bidding system unveiled. The comment might be okay, but even that makes me slightly nervous since buyers could always send the author a private request.

[evie]

I agree about the 'middle weekends seem the slowest' comment. Seems nothing much (and nothing of mine) has sold this week really. Is it always like this then at this time of the month? I hate seeing all those articles of mine just sat there.

[DUrsu]

To go slightly off topic, I just signed up for Constant Content. I've been writing flat-fee and revenue share articles for other companies, so the price per article was set before I wrote. Can anyone give me some ballpark figures of what is fair for a well-written article? What about usage versus full rights?