Asking prices should be a rule. Triple stamp it, no quitsies, no erasies.
I’m on plenty of other forums where this is the case and it makes infinitely more sense. In fact, I’m on some forums where it’s against the rules to even remove your price after the item has sold. Three advantages.
It gives you an idea of where your offer should be
Removes the “you’re not getting this” and “offer huge” stuff that clutters the BST.
Leaving the prices up in the old ads establishes a record of the market price for future sales of similar items.
But what about the BST where I say “NO TRADES PLEASE” - and I get three offers immediately to trade. Is it rude to ignore them? Do I have to spend the time responding to an offer that I obviously do not want? Do I reply and engage in more email?
The problem is that some people are just stupid.
“Oh, I know you said no trades - but you haven’t seen MY yoyo!” …Yeah; right.
Different facts justify a different response. I agree that if you post that you do not want trades or “trades only,” any potential buyer still PMing about the matter otherwise, is being rude. You respond to someone who is rude, the same way you would in person. Ignore or respond in kind. There are instances it is justified to ignore, but a person who is offering in counter to an asking price, is a different situation. A person asking a question not made clear in the post, is different too. If someone is rude to me in person, I may respond in kind or ignore depending on my mood. But, I just think some people choose to “ignore” out of laziness, not because someone has been legitimately rude first. I have in excess of 600 transactions on my auction accounts combined, and I do not receive a lot of private messages. I believe people who get asked a lot of questions about items for sale, have that problem because the description of the item was lacking. I see MOST BST threads where they don’t describe the response, the bearing in the throw, hardly anything a buyer might want to know. Then, when a buyer inquires, sellers act like they are wasting time. If the seller posts were more thorough, there would be less PMs. I believe there is an element of immaturity and stupidity on the BST, but there are ways to minimize their opportunities to annoy. That’s my take on it.
I work a job, and do work at home, watch T.V., post here, sell on the auction, email and text friends 100 times a day. No one sending me a message will stress me out. I will reply to all messages I get no matter what. Typing about yo-yos I’m trying to sell would never stress me out or annoy me to that extent. I have had more happen in life. Also, etiquette dictates you can respond in 24 hours. You can even write a standard polite rejection note to copy and paste so you don’t write something new to each person. If they write again, copy and paste again. At the end of the note, put a standard “while I appreciate your offer, there will be no more consideration in that regard, thank you.” After you sent that, any response can be ignored. There should always be a first response though in my opinion, unless you covered that ground in the original post. Counter offers on asking prices are never rude in my opinion. Questions about the item are never rude, unless there was undoubted clarity in the post.