Lowball offers are like gnats, they are tiny, they are annoying, and one too many might leave you exhausted from swatting away. 

I, like many of you, have dealt with low offers. I’ve received everything from the laughable $3 offer on new Nike shorts that retail for $35 to the $80 offer on a gently used Tory Burch bag worth at least $200. So what is it that makes low balling so common and even more what is a seller to do when these types of lowball offers occur?

I think why low balling even occurs in the first place is because it must be working for the prospective buyer on occasion. Someone, somewhere has accepted a RIDICULOUS low price on an item they were just trying to get rid of, ergo low ballers start to think “Hey, this actually works!”

While this is probably not the case for most of us sellers, if you think of why anyone would even attempt to submit a crazy low offer, it starts to make sense in this regard (at least to me). I figure low ballers have the mind set of “What’s there to lose?”. They put the offer out there and worse comes to worse, it’s declined and they move on.

This still doesn’t solve the issue of receiving the offer in the first place. And realistically speaking, as long as the offer button exists, low ballers will certainly exist. Since there is no getting around it, what do we do with it? I probably don’t have a ton of the answers you might be hoping I would say, but it obliges me to speak in regards to the different ways I handle low ball offers.

Engage Set Low Baller

I might engage with a low baller depending on what kind of mood I am in. On many occasion, I am actually intrigued to see what will happen. My version of engaging is if I get a low offer, I simply counter with a dollar less than my listing price. Obviously this results in a decline on the buyers end, but hey can’t knock a gal for trying.

Decline Set Low Baller

There are certain items in my closet were I know the price I have listed is MORE than fair. Items generally sell at 60% off retail according to Posh, so if I am any deeper than that, it’s a score in my eyes. Even so, sometimes I just don’t feel like entertaining the idea that my pricing is unfair or unreasonable. In these instances I don’t even dance with the low ball offer, I simply decline and move on.

Ignore Set Low Baller

Again, depending on my mood, I determine which of my low ball approaches to go with. If I am exhausted, and seriously over the lowness of offers, then chances are I won’t even honor it with a response. In these cases, I feel the buyer really would be pretty use to low offers being ignored anyway so I just let it sit there until the 24 hours runs out and it’s erased from my closet memory.

These are the 3 basic things that I do when encountering low ballers. I have never attempted to block someone who sends a lowball offer even though I have heard of several Posher’s reacting in this manner. The reason I don’t go through the trouble is they could genuinely get their act together one day and make a reasonable offer. I hold out hope for low ballers lol! And I also heavily believe that if a person wants something bad enough in my closet, they will just end up paying my listing price.

So low ballers and gnats have quite a bit in common. I guess I haven’t got to the point where I am so annoyed with them that I feel the need to even get that upset with them. They are just using a strategy that they feel will work for them. And guess what? Sellers are entitled to the same.

What about you? What do you do when someone sends a crazy low offer your way?