What is the proper etiquette for selling items?

[deldd]

I recently sold a 9800 Pro, but I ran into some difficulty that I was not prepared for. I needed money right away, so I lowered the price quite a bit (See my for sale thread in my sig), hoping that it would sell in a couple of hours. Well sell it did, I got 5 pms back to back, so I contacted the sellers in the order I received their pm's. Well I screwed it all up and ended up pissing a few people off, because I sold it to the first person that responded to the continuation of the offer. Well I missed read one pm and so I refunded the guys money and told them all to hold off until the first person that pm'd me could get a crack at it. Well upon speaking with said person, he went offline, so I sent him another pm, he didn't respond so I sold it to the next person in line.

Is their a proper way to handle these things, should I just post no dibs or how does it work? I normally would just do what I felt was right, but I'm confused and have a few upset traders. Help me out, so I won't get into this kind of situation ever again.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Well, in a situation like this, you should have sold it to the first person that sent you a PM. IMHO, you were right to sell it to the first person that responded to the continuation of the offer.

Did someone call dibs on it, but didn't sent a PM?

How long did you wait for the guy that went offline to respond? Typically, it's best to give individuals a little time, even if they go offline. In this case, I would have given the first person a day or two to respond, and told the next guy in line that a deal was pending.

 

[deldd]

I did not give him enough time maybe an hour, but the other guys ket seding me pm's. I think next time I will only answer the first persons pm. Then if he doesn't respond after about a day, I'll answer the others. I messed up big time with this one.

 

[BlueWeasel]

I wouldn't sweat it. You've got a good Heatware record, so just consider it a learning experience.

Unless it's just a huge amount of messages, I always try to respond to every PM when dealing. If you're the seller, you've still got potential buyers on the other end of those messages, so don't burn the bridge. Just tell the other guys that a deal is pending, and you'll let them know if it falls through.

Remember...you're the seller, and can set the rules as you want (within reason). If you don't like people calling dibs, and would prefer to deal with PM's only, just make that clear up front.

 

[deldd]

Thanks a bunch. I appreciate your time and your advice. Thanks again.

 

[Turkish]

You did the right thing. I hate people that PMs you for a sale and doesn't respond back in time. If you are interested in something, sit on your ass for an hour or so. This is a consumer 2 consumer trading forum afterall.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: XietyCOM
You did the right thing. I hate people that PMs you for a sale and doesn't respond back in time. If you are interested in something, sit on your ass for an hour or so. This is a consumer 2 consumer trading forum afterall.

Thing is though, what exactly is "in time"? Sometimes I'll send off a quick PM to someone, and then I have to get to bed because I work that night. I can't sit around for a message that might not come in the next few seconds. How I usually do it is, the first person to PM me that they are interested gets dibs. I'll keep everyone else updated on what's going on, either by PM's, or by thread updates. How fast they respond shouldn't be the deciding factor - maybe the power went out or maybe they had to do something other than sit at the computer.
And sometimes it can be difficult with "dibs" - someone might simply need one piece of information that will determine their interest. "How fast does it overclock?" for instance. Maybe they don't care; they're just curious before they buy. I will usually give that priority. If someone else definitely wants to buy, then they should be able to wait a little longer, until the first person responds with or without intent to buy.

So yeah, maybe the OP got something mixed up. It happens; the PM's sorting system (when viewing All Messages anyway), based on when the person was last online doesn't help either. But it happens; the OP seems to regret the mistake that was made.

 

[dnuggett]

No dibs, first to pay is first to play. Thats how I do it, and I haven't had a problem yet. Just make sure you declare that in your OP.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: dnuggett
No dibs, first to pay is first to play. Thats how I do it, and I haven't had a problem yet. Just make sure you declare that in your OP.

Unless there are conditions, like shipping options, combined shipping, etc. And sometimes, even though you state "Will not ship to X Country", someone from X Country will say "I'll buy it, money's on the way!!!" :roll:
So do declare your conditions in the post I guess, as you say.
Of course, I do that, but if you have more than one condition, and it has more than 3 words, people decide that it'll take too long to read. For instance, if I give a very thorough description of something, and it includes "item may or may not work" - guess what the most asked question I get is...."Does this item work?" Or, "For pickup only", yields, "will you ship this?"

In the immortal words of Butthead, "Some people are dumb."
And some just have unbelievably short attention spans. I just realized too, I can freely badmouth those people now, since they already read the first few words in the first sentence, formed an opinion, and hit Reply.