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Okay, here's a situation that comes up a fair bit in the Swap Shop for me.

I post something for sale / trade without 'or best offer' on it. Multiple offers come in for that item. How do you decide which offer to take?

Sample Swap Shop verbiage from one of my threads, since I may not have been clear:

Make me an offer! (Priority flat rate would probably be $5 in the US) I'm mostly interested in $$$ (Paypal) but would entertain trades.

1) Accept the offers in the order they arrived, (i.e. First come, first serve) dismissing unreasonable offers. This could mean that an offer of say $20 that came in first would beat out an offer of $30 that came in 5 minutes afterwards.

2) Accept offers by selecting the best offer, regardless of when they arrive, but not cancelling a trade that has already gone to the negotiation / shipping step. This could mean that you end up cancelling a deal because a better offer arrives. Example: You receive an offer for $20 and start PM'ing with that individual. While you are doing so, an offer for $30 comes in. You negotiate and accept the second offer, informing the first person that the deal has fallen through.

Option C? I wait for a few days to get a few offers, and select the best one?

Be honest, if you say 'offers' and someone gives you the highest offer, you go with that.

If you say 'first come, first served' then you sell to the first contact.

If on 'offers' you want to go to the others to let them know the highest bid and see if they want to beat it, that's up to you, but you start running into the risk of deals falling through and ill will the longer you string the thing along.

The offer you accept and your reasoning is entirely up to you. Unless you are trying to dump stuff cheap ASAP, why would you open it to offers and then have a 'first come first served' policy?

I think you should wait for a few offers, and then pick one. If you've picked someone and agreed to make the sale, and then someone else appears, I think it is bad manners to then pull out on the first person. Once you've agreed a sale it is poor form to pull out, and it would be a serious no-no once money has changed hands. That's why it's best to wait until you are happy with an offer before accepting, or make a deadline clear to stop people coming along later in the process.

That said, other than being annoying to other parties, there are no serious repercussions for pulling out on a deal in the Swap Shop whatever your reasoning. Whatever you are comfortable with.

If three guys offer me $40, $50, and $60 for something, I'll take the $60 offer. If I accept the $40 offer and receive payment then get the $60 offer soon after, I'm going to honor the original $40 offer with the first seller.

Take the one that suits you best....
I've had a few potential deals that fell through because they weren't worth it in the end.

Don't be afraid to walk away from something either. We are a community of plastic/pewter addicts...chances are someone else has exactly what you're looking for.

Sekai wrote:Option C? I wait for a few days to get a few offers, and select the best one?

That's essentially option 2.


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MeanGreenStompa wrote:Be honest, if you say 'offers' and someone gives you the highest offer, you go with that.

If you say 'first come, first served' then you sell to the first contact.

If on 'offers' you want to go to the others to let them know the highest bid and see if they want to beat it, that's up to you, but you start running into the risk of deals falling through and ill will the longer you string the thing along.

What if you didn't say either?

I never say 'best offer' or 'first come, first served' in my SS threads.


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Howard A Treesong wrote:The offer you accept and your reasoning is entirely up to you. Unless you are trying to dump stuff cheap ASAP, why would you open it to offers and then have a 'first come first served' policy?

This is always the way I have done it. I place a thread in the swap shop and then handle people as they come in, taking the person who comes first (provided they don't lowball or say something crazy) as the first customer and completing that transaction before offering the same goods to someone else. I never put 'offers' in my thread though.


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Brother SRM wrote:If I accept the $40 offer and receive payment then get the $60 offer soon after, I'm going to honor the original $40 offer with the first seller.

If I receive payment, I would never go back on it in either case.


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theQuanz wrote:Take the one that suits you best....
I've had a few potential deals that fell through because they weren't worth it in the end.

Don't be afraid to walk away from something either. We are a community of plastic/pewter addicts...chances are someone else has exactly what you're looking for.

I'm not talking about lowballs. I'm talking about perfectly acceptable offers. I walk away from plenty of deals that aren't worth it.

If three guys send you messages, there's no way for guys #1 and #2 to know that #3 had the best offer. Just say someone made a better offer or got the deal first.

Be like half the other people on here and just don't reply...
Which is annoying as all hell btw....for those of you that can't simply say "Hey this deal just doesn't work for me, sorry man!"

And then for your statement there...hmmm...yeah just go for the best of the offered deals and tell the other guy you got an offer more in line with what you're looking for.

Brother SRM wrote:If three guys send you messages, there's no way for guys #1 and #2 to know that #3 had the best offer. Just say someone made a better offer or got the deal first.

I would know. I know how to accept the best offer out of multiple offers, I'm not daft. lol I'm asking what you should do, or what people do, in that situation.

In that past, I have always done FCFS.


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theQuanz wrote:Be like half the other people on here and just don't reply...
Which is annoying as all hell btw....for those of you that can't simply say "Hey this deal just doesn't work for me, sorry man!"

I always followup with people. It annoys the piss out of me when people don't.

Cheers on you for that!

I had a guy the other day ask where I am located in Canada...then nothing after I replied (this was about a week ago)
So annoying haha

theQuanz wrote:Cheers on you for that!

I had a guy the other day ask where I am located in Canada...then nothing after I replied (this was about a week ago)
So annoying haha

lol Some people have no class. In the situation above, where I get three offers and accept the first one, I try to respond to everyone to let them know the trade is off the table. Leaving people hanging sucks.


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And man, it is overwhelmingly going in the way of 'accept the best offer'.

Have I been way to nice all these years?

I've even had a situation where I got enough offers on an item to realize that I should put it on eBay to maximize the value.

I do try to tell people that it's no longer available (which is true).

It's going to sound like a YMDC thread but here it goes. Dakka (unlike bartertown) has no policy about backng out of deals. I've seen transaction report threads closed by the mods that detail sellers who have recieved their money and then gone on to trade/sell locally or to another user after refunding the amount; as long as the original party gets their money back, that doesn't meet dakka's TR rules. RAW is that you can do whatever you want if you get a better offer at any time. As for RAI, doing the above and cancelling a deal after finalization is a complete douche move. If you're still in negotiation (price, who pays/ships first, etc), I see no problem that you're taking a higher offer if it comes in as long as you haven't finalized the deal. I personally always ask the person to specifically respond when the details seem ironed out with "it's a deal!" or something similar to make it clear to both parties. After I send of that message or request it, I don't negotiate with others. It sounds like the situation that you're talkiing about fits that description. I don't think its poor etiquette to go with a higher offer if your first one isn't a finalized deal yet.