"What's Your Best Price?"

I used to respond to these requests with a reasonable discount, and in some cases offered to include shipping and paypal fees. Sadly, this never resulted in a sale, not even once.

On the other hand, in nearly every instance where someone has made an offer, I have been able to negotiate a sale.

So now, I use these two different responses to my ads to separate the serious from the non-serious. I assume the guy who emails asking for the lowest (best, rock bottom) price is goofing of at work; I no longer respond to these requests.

PS; I really love Marco's third response:

"My best price is going to be the one offer I accept. Since I haven't heard it yet, I don't know. Get back to me once I've sold it and I'll let you know."

Too funny.

Bob R.

I think Kotta gave the best answer to this question so far. Lots of ways to respond to people asking what your "best price" is: I'd suggest just telling them your best price--or saying that you'll consider reasonable offers.

I respond with, "What's your best offer?"

They usually don't reply, which is for the better, IMO. The question, "What's your best price", is seldom asked by serious buyers.

I agree w/ Tvad. The response to 'obo' should be an offer, not a 'what'll you take?' request.
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I agree with Tvad. these questions don't usually come from serious buyers. Further, my best price, until I receive an offer to consider, is the one I post in the ad. Isn't that sort of implied? I recall one time however when the correspondence I had with an interested party before he asked "the question" had me comfortable he was sincere and ready to buy. I responded with a slight discount from my asking price and sold the item to him. Net is I think you can tell from the tone of the request whther it deserves a direct reply. The only inquiries I ignore are the ones that go like this:

hey - i'll give you $nn right now you pay shipping to my home

. . . where nn is a ridiculous number below my asking price.