Hello - Vinted is the platform that works best. Lots of visitors but also far too many buyers who want everything for nothing. Nobody buys at the asking price anymore. I tend to ask for the lowest price I could accept, but it never works out.
Example: I’m selling a book for 12 euros (the same one on Amazon for 22 euros). I’m offered 7.20, the maximum discount allowed. I accept (to clear out and declutter my home). No purchase. I ask why, and they tell me the shipping costs are too high!! They claim shipping is paid by the buyer, but most of the time, due to negotiations, it’s the seller who ends up paying for shipping.
Yes, shipping costs to Ireland or Portugal might be high, but in that case, why buy from abroad??
What do you think of these endless negotiations? It’s become the norm, and if the requested discount is more than 40% and refused by the system, some people don’t hesitate to send a message. I’m fed up.
You’ve encountered tourists, it happens. When someone asks for a 40% discount, curiously, it’s because they don’t want to buy but are looking for an excuse to think about something else – namely, that the seller refuses to lower the price.
That said, I’m going to change my method. Until now, I’ve always responded to offers, even the lowest ones, with a counter-offer. I will now flatly refuse offers at -40%.
I love this argument (among others). Well yes, it’s expensive, but they can just buy in Ireland or Portugal, and if they can’t find it at home, well yes, it has a price. But it’s not up to the seller to compensate for their difficulty in sourcing locally.
on vinted now I raise the price from 2 to 4€ to be able to lower it later! it’s stupid but that’s how it is, otherwise I don’t sell because I refuse the reduction and the poor little buyer is frustrated by a refusal (even if it’s justified!). The customer is king, we must refuse him nothing!!!
it’s unfortunately not just on vinted, on leboncoin I sold a luxury sedan, you can be offered 10 to 15,000 € less even before asking any questions!! and same for real estate…
people no longer want to buy anything at the displayed price in « second hand », they are « spoiled children » who have access to a huge Christmas catalog, but either don’t have the means, or are stingy and always want more for less expensive
This is our current life… people buy prices… they (over)consume but ultimately no longer know how to please themselves (I’ve been on vinted for 8 years and it has changed a lot but not for the better!)
So, for offers made by message that are below the 40% discount allowed by Vinted, I delete the message without replying. Especially since, very often, the offer is made without even a hello, or even a sentence: « 5 euros ».
For those who go through the offer system but ask for the minimum price without bothering to say hello, I make a counter-offer by reducing my original price by 1 cent.
An offer of 12 euros on an item listed for 20, I make a counter-offer of 19.99. This avoids the series of proposals from 13, 14 until exhaustion, which tends to annoy me.
Offers at 60% of the displayed price, without even a hello, close all negotiation: if the person wants my item, they will buy it at the displayed price (minus 1 cent!)
Hello, I’m in the same situation as you. Vinted is starting to tire me out too. Vinted is a good platform that works well. As you say, many buyers want everything for nothing these days. Just 2 years ago, I enjoyed selling cheaply even nice products or quality clothes (e.g., a Guess dress, paid €150, sold in very good condition for €12) to clear out my closet. To give our items a second life and also please buyers, which is very nice. Now, systematic negotiations at very low prices, €7.50 in this case, or others… I feel like giving up. It’s a real shame.
Hello - I have lost many opportunities with these endless negotiations. I have always refused all offers below 40%. If it were 40% off the new price for an impeccable item, why not, but 40% off an item whose price is already heavily reduced, I consider that insulting.
at least 90% of my sales are made without offers and negotiations, so it’s possible to do without. On the other hand, I work on my arrivals by making sure I can be competitive while having a guaranteed minimum margin (basically, being sure to be at least in line with tax and Urssaf scales).
Hello!
From memory, you don’t sell the same things (toys for one, and books for the other if I’m not mistaken @Faune?) and I think that also plays a big part.
Does the tendency to negotiate depend on the category, or rather on the platform? I couldn’t say.
In any case, on Rakuten, negotiations are possible but very rare. On Leboncoin, on the other hand, it is common. For the same items offered at roughly the same price.
I think the starting price also plays a role. Let’s say it’s easier to say the price is firm when you’re already in the low end, or even the lowest. I prefer to save time by making direct sales without a lot of talk, so I don’t use strategies like factoring negotiation into my price.
I also sometimes sell a few books (depending on what I get in), but they stay within my pop culture niche, and I manage to sell them without negotiation. I even had access to a small stock of complete collections of a famous comic book, and they sold for more than the original retail price (but I was the cheapest online). However, I only deal with items that fit with the rest of my shop, so often they are special editions. And it remains a very, very secondary activity (it’s mostly a matter of opportunity).
I agree with @Gametoysretro’s approach. The problem is that prices fluctuate, so if 10 euros is the lowest price on the day I post the ad, that’s not necessarily the case weeks later.
Moreover, a Recyclelivres scans prices daily to adjust its own pricing, lowering the price to the minimum if there’s competition or increasing it directly to over 500 euros as soon as the tool detects there’s no other offer on the web.
The problem is amplified on Vinted, which doesn’t provide a simple and quick way to see the prices of identical items. We inevitably guess a bit.
PS: comic books are certainly the books that sell best. It’s no surprise that you sold the ones you got your hands on.
Yes, there are price fluctuations, that exists. I can have it on video games, less so on toys. Then you also have to be careful about very specific drops when an announcement is made or someone drastically reduces the price (out of ignorance, to sell it very quickly). I don’t match those and prefer to wait for them to sell, and good for whoever got a great deal.
Yes, special edition comic books sell very well when I have them. A few months ago, I also had a small stock of Third’s Edition books on cinema, manga, or video games, and they also sold quite well.
Indeed, as Lucille says, it depends a lot on the categories. We can’t really compare clothing with other products. In textiles, prices are very disparate, competition is enormous, and some items sell a lot. So, even if we set a very low price, we often find ourselves with resellers who still try to negotiate to lower it further… and in the end, we gain nothing. Whereas in your field (toys, new products), it’s more structured and sells differently.
I admit I wonder how the pros manage to navigate the clothing market between individuals selling at bargain prices and discount Chinese platforms. Unless you’re really focused on something very specific. Even I, in the end, have never bought clothes from a professional on Vinted, and not necessarily by trying to avoid it.
And you point out a phenomenon that is quite annoying: resellers who try. I don’t blame them for trying, but that they would have hope with professional accounts is beyond me The worst being those who manage to lecture in the messaging and do worse in their own closet.
This summer I had one who complained about the price of a figurine, something quite difficult to find and that holds its value well (but that’s not my fault) and when I went to her closet she was selling items identical to mine, except that even used, she was more expensive than my new ones. You really have to have no shame.
It’s simple, to be in line with the 12.3% contributions and the 71% tax deduction from the tax authorities, you need to make at least 1.71, so I round up to 2 with the various ancillary costs. But if I can make 5, I’ll make 5.
Afterwards, I try to reason on the overall. It can happen that I « accept » a not very high margin but because the product will bring visibility and can lead to lots (like when it’s a figurine of which I already have other models from the same range).
Then there are things where I could easily increase my margin if some of my « Pro » colleagues did their job by looking for the prices rather than multiplying by 2 without looking any further
The worst being those who manage to lecture in the messaging and do worse in their own closet.