When is a lowball offer insulting?

HoneyTree

HoneyTree

New Member
So... I've been quietly working on a precious metals auction marketplace for the past few weeks and one of the features I've been thinking about coding into the system is an automated flag on users that make ridiculous offers. The "lowballer flag".

My question is what do you think the threshold is between a simple "low offers" and when it's what I call insultingly low and unreasonable?
 
Being insulted is mostly a measure of how desperate you are to sell. If you don’t need to sell then you just don’t care.
On the other hand if you are desperate but want a good price you will most definitely feel insulted.

Disappointment is in proportion to expectations.
 
If it's purely "Auction" based, then ridiculous offers will get stomped out almost instantly.

Otherwise, if your going to also have a "For sale / Make an offer section", then I think that's going to be hard to code / control in a fair manner .

Think of it this way. Look at the recent price movement in Silver. If someone lists something when the spot is say $24 (AUD) , and it then plummets overnight, what constitutes a fair offer then?

Just my 2c, and good luck :)
 
Hi HoneyTree :)
Seems that you are a bit disgruntled.
After going back through your posts, (See below) it would seem you are having difficulty determining a price for your metal.
The market often moves against what the seller thinks his "metal" is worth, some think they are entitled to buy metal at spot, some think it's un-fair for people to add large premiums to their metal but this is just
how it is.
*On SilverStackers, we know the price of just about all modern day coins and bars, we know how much people paid for coins 10 years ago and longer, we know when the market moves and how that movement
effects buyers and sellers.
*We understand the cost of postage, ebay fees, Paypal fees and what bullion dealer prices are and the general expenses of owning a bullion business.
*Some of us spend all day, trying to buy metal when it comes available, we might have to sit and refresh our trading platform thousands of times per day and then, if we are lucky, get what we paid for in a week or two or longer.
*We have to factor in the postage, for example, to send a parcel of metal from the West Coast to the East Coast is very expensive ($170 is common) . A coin might be available for $880 but when a bloke factors in, time, postage, Taxes etc, he's not going to sell you the coin for $880, he
would be a fool to sell it under $1200 and, if it's a sort after coin (wanted badly) he will up the price because on some trades he may have lost money on the deal or the item has been lost by the postal service, he has to cover that loss.
*So although folk often think they should get a good deal or that some how, they think someone should sell cheap to them, that's not what happens; having said that, it's everyone's right to ask for a low price.
*Here on the forum, especially in the Private Members section, if folk ask too much for metal, the ignore function gets used, conversely, if they provide a reasonable price, buyers will jump when they list. They will also be seen
as a bit silly, if they sell an expensive coin cheaply (Remembering, we have many very generous people on this forum, they are indeed, well respected and often out of the goodness of their heart will provide amazing deals).

I hope you can sell your ounces; if you are unsure of what price to put on your metal, ask the forum.
In the end, it's up to you to figure out a price that suits you.

Take care. :D

  1. When is a lowball offer insulting?

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It is the PROS and CONS of auction marketing, otherwise put a threshold control limit,
self activated time delay principle by automatically overriding the low bid price.

In auction marketing, purchaser always exploiting chances regardless of moral principle or even unimaginable market value.
It is a betting and out-betting mind sport until highest price realization will be achieve.
This is much appropriate in high numismatic or collectible piece not in regular precious metal.
Many low bidders are among the highest bidders as well or vice versa :)
 
low ballers are those who offer below spot on pure bullion . IMO , But On some types of scrap that maybe a different story as people have to take into account refining costs with scrap metals, So may not be worth paying spot and many Scrap sellers offer under spot when they sell it, Obviously that depends on the item being sold as scrap .

But Pure bullion you would have tobe a douche to offer less than spot to a seller.

If you were going todo anything to stop low ballers, maybe the lsiting on the marketplace can automatically decline offers under spot price if the seller chooses that option. Eg if the item is 1ounce pure silver or gold, the seller checks a box saying auto decline offers under spot price. and the seller is never even notified of those stupid bids?
 
HoneyTree said:
So... I've been quietly working on a precious metals auction marketplace for the past few weeks and one of the features I've been thinking about coding into the system is an automated flag on users that make ridiculous offers. The "lowballer flag".

My question is what do you think the threshold is between a simple "low offers" and when it's what I call insultingly low and unreasonable?
Click to expand...

I believe my threshold is comparing the offer to a market leaders buyback offer. Ie In Western Australia that would be the Perth Mint buyback price quoted daily. Any offer more than 10 % lower I would consider unreasonable

Realistically I have three options to consider accept, decline or make a counter offer.

. I would try not to take offence and be insulted by any offer as I have experienced circumstances when there are no offers ( in real assets including metals). Very hard to do business without any offers as you are unable to make counter offers!

I regularly bid on numerous auction items outside of pm’s every month. Often bidding against a vendor bidder or their agent. In my opinion online auctions encourage vendor bidding. Possibly something to consider while working an auction market place!
 
Last edited:
HoneyTree said:
So... I've been quietly working on a precious metals auction marketplace for the past few weeks and one of the features I've been thinking about coding into the system is an automated flag on users that make ridiculous offers. The "lowballer flag".

My question is what do you think the threshold is between a simple "low offers" and when it's what I call insultingly low and unreasonable?
Click to expand...

I'm Australian born, Honey Tree; but lived for years in Asia: lots of culture here! Hard-core bargaining hardly exists here. Bargaining is un-British. But in Asia
, if you didn't 'low ball,' you'll be fleeced like a sheep on an hourly basis.
 
Nothing "disgruntled" about it but your take on it is very interesting.

Holdfast said:
Hi HoneyTree :)
Seems that you are a bit disgruntled.
After going back through your posts, (See below) it would seem you are having difficulty determining a price for your metal.
The market often moves against what the seller thinks his "metal" is worth, some think they are entitled to buy metal at spot, some think it's un-fair for people to add large premiums to their metal but this is just
how it is.
*On SilverStackers, we know the price of just about all modern day coins and bars, we know how much people paid for coins 10 years ago and longer, we know when the market moves and how that movement
effects buyers and sellers.
*We understand the cost of postage, ebay fees, Paypal fees and what bullion dealer prices are and the general expenses of owning a bullion business.
*Some of us spend all day, trying to buy metal when it comes available, we might have to sit and refresh our trading platform thousands of times per day and then, if we are lucky, get what we paid for in a week or two or longer.
*We have to factor in the postage, for example, to send a parcel of metal from the West Coast to the East Coast is very expensive ($170 is common) . A coin might be available for $880 but when a bloke factors in, time, postage, Taxes etc, he's not going to sell you the coin for $880, he
would be a fool to sell it under $1200 and, if it's a sort after coin (wanted badly) he will up the price because on some trades he may have lost money on the deal or the item has been lost by the postal service, he has to cover that loss.
*So although folk often think they should get a good deal or that some how, they think someone should sell cheap to them, that's not what happens; having said that, it's everyone's right to ask for a low price.
*Here on the forum, especially in the Private Members section, if folk ask too much for metal, the ignore function gets used, conversely, if they provide a reasonable price, buyers will jump when they list. They will also be seen
as a bit silly, if they sell an expensive coin cheaply (Remembering, we have many very generous people on this forum, they are indeed, well respected and often out of the goodness of their heart will provide amazing deals).

I hope you can sell your ounces; if you are unsure of what price to put on your metal, ask the forum.
In the end, it's up to you to figure out a price that suits you.

Take care. :D

  1. When is a lowball offer insulting?

    Looking to buy AG

    I'm new! :)

    I'm new! :)

    Advice for Selling on Ebay?

    Why are Silver Stackers selling silver for more than dealers?

    Advice for Selling on Ebay?

    Why are Silver Stackers selling silver for more than dealers?

    Has anyone on SS backed up the truck?

    Determining Physical Silver Price

    Determining Physical Silver Price

    Determining Physical Silver Price

    Determining Physical Silver Price

    Determining Physical Silver Price
Click to expand...
 
inmizu said:
I'm Australian born, Honey Tree; but lived for years in Asia: lots of culture here! Hard-core bargaining hardly exists here. Bargaining is un-British. But in Asia
, if you didn't 'low ball,' you'll be fleeced like a sheep on an hourly basis.
Click to expand...
Good point, I'm a social psychologist and it strikes me that there are lots of cultural differences in bargaining behavior, even in the US since there are many cultures here. Whenever I would sell to Russians on Craigslist in the US, they'd try to change the terms when they picked up the items, furniture and so forth. They'd want a lower price, thinking that their physical arrival and right-now presence would make me want to avoid the hassle of making a deal with someone else. (Nope...)

Lowball offers are probably more offensive to white Americans than they are to various other groups in the US. In any event, an online marketplace might make lowballing more common because it's at a distance, the lowballer's reputation isn't at stake and they might well be anonymous, and in general it doesn't cost anything to lowball. Of course, the feature under discussion would change some of that dynamic.

If you go with it, I wouldn't make the threshold "under spot". That won't work given that there are many conflicting sources of spot price at any given instant in time (SilverPrice.org, GoldPrice.org, Kitco, Bloomberg, Investing.com, and none of the dealer-quoted spot prices agree with each other...) And spot price can change in seconds, so an "under spot" algo is going to ensnare lots of people offering what they thought was spot price. If you do this, I would make it a good 10% below spot or thereabouts, and use SilverPrice.org.

I also recommend that you make this a bitchin' fast, performant site. Tree-shake the JS and CSS, and inline it in the head like Google's AMP pages do. The caching argument for separate CSS and JS files fails any actual performance comparison test, especially on first visit. And almost all websites are significantly slower than they should be because they shove a metric ton of unused CSS and JS down users' throats. It's a common antipattern. If you use popular libraries without tree-shaking, your site will be needlessly slow.
 
When I've put some things up on the trading forum I've had some very 'snakey' PM's of people not only low balling but going on about how they are more trust-worthy than the person who buzzed or that they are helping out in some other way. Disgusting.
 
Alloy said:
Good point, I'm a social psychologist and it strikes me that there are lots of cultural differences in bargaining behavior, even in the US since there are many cultures here. Whenever I would sell to Russians on Craigslist in the US, they'd try to change the terms when they picked up the items, furniture and so forth. They'd want a lower price, thinking that their physical arrival and right-now presence would make me want to avoid the hassle of making a deal with someone else. (Nope...)

Lowball offers are probably more offensive to white Americans than they are to various other groups in the US. In any event, an online marketplace might make lowballing more common because it's at a distance, the lowballer's reputation isn't at stake and they might well be anonymous, and in general it doesn't cost anything to lowball. Of course, the feature under discussion would change some of that dynamic.

If you go with it, I wouldn't make the threshold "under spot". That won't work given that there are many conflicting sources of spot price at any given instant in time (SilverPrice.org, GoldPrice.org, Kitco, Bloomberg, Investing.com, and none of the dealer-quoted spot prices agree with each other...) And spot price can change in seconds, so an "under spot" algo is going to ensnare lots of people offering what they thought was spot price. If you do this, I would make it a good 10% below spot or thereabouts, and use SilverPrice.org.

I also recommend that you make this a bitchin' fast, performant site. Tree-shake the JS and CSS, and inline it in the head like Google's AMP pages do. The caching argument for separate CSS and JS files fails any actual performance comparison test, especially on first visit. And almost all websites are significantly slower than they should be because they shove a metric ton of unused CSS and JS down users' throats. It's a common antipattern. If you use popular libraries without tree-shaking, your site will be needlessly slow.
Click to expand...


I've seen Indian shoppers at markets allow the merchant to meticulously wrap all their goods before asking for a price reduction and threatening to walk away. The most SAVAGE thing I've ever seen at a farmer's market lol!!
 
I met two U.S. backpackers in central Java just when the first ever Lonely Planet guide was in vogue. That book kept the innocent on the straight and (more expensive) narrow. So I was a wondrous creature to them: wandering about in a sarong and sandals, learning Bahasa straight out of a dictionary.

They'd been living on white-bread toast and fried eggs the whole time, in fear of eating anywhere not deemed safe by The Book. And they nearly blew a gasket when I told them what I ate and how little I paid for it. So we formed an expedition, and climbed the local volcano. Cost us probably ten bucks all up.
 

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