You list something at a fair price, take decent photographs, write an honest description, and the first message that arrives offers you about half. It is one of the most reliably irritating moments in selling anything secondhand, and it happens to everyone, in every category, in every country.
Most sellers do one of two things at that point. They reply with something sharp and lose a buyer who might have paid more, or they cave immediately and lose money they did not need to lose. Both come from treating the offer as a verdict on the item rather than as an opening move in a very short conversation.
It is worth getting good at this, because negotiation is where the last ten or twenty percent of your money lives. The listing brings people in; the reply is what turns them into a sale. This is how to handle the low offer calmly, quickly and in a way that leaves you better off.
A low offer is information, not an insult
The first thing to fix is the reaction. A stranger typing a number into a message box has no idea what the item meant to you, what you paid, or how long you have been staring at it in the hallway. They are not making a judgement about you. They are testing where the floor is, which is exactly what you would do if you were on their side of the conversation.
Read the offer as data instead. Someone who offers is someone who wants the item; people who are not interested simply scroll past. A low number tells you that you have a live buyer, that they are price sensitive, and that they are willing to start a conversation. All three of those are useful, and none of them are reasons to be annoyed.
Decide your floor before you post
The single biggest cause of bad negotiating is not knowing your own number. If you work out your minimum only after an offer lands, you will decide it emotionally, in the moment, against a stranger who has already anchored you low. Work it out beforehand, write it down somewhere, and treat it as settled while the listing is live.
Your floor is not what you paid and not what you wish it was worth. It is the number below which you would genuinely rather keep the item, donate it, or wait another month. Set it honestly, and set the asking price a sensible distance above it so there is room to move. Our guide to pricing used items that actually sell covers how to find both numbers.
There are three kinds of low offer
The first is the scattergun. This buyer sends the same lowball to twenty listings and takes whatever sticks, usually with no greeting and no question about the item. The second is the cautious buyer, who genuinely wants your thing but has a smaller budget than your price and is embarrassed to say so. The third is the informed buyer, who has spotted something real: a missing accessory, a newer model, a fault you underplayed.
They need different replies. The scattergun deserves one short line and no further effort. The cautious buyer usually closes if you meet them a little way, because they are not really haggling, they are asking permission. The informed buyer is worth listening to closely, because they are telling you something about your listing that you will otherwise hear again from the next ten people.
Answer fast, and answer short
Speed is worth more than cleverness in these exchanges. Buyers messaging about secondhand goods are almost always messaging several sellers at once, and the one who replies within the hour is the one who gets the collection slot. A quick, friendly, unbothered reply also signals that you are not desperate, which does more for your position than any argument about value.
Keep it to two or three sentences. Thank them, give your number, add one concrete reason it is fair, and end with a practical next step such as when they could collect. Long replies that justify the price at length read as anxious, and anxious sellers get pushed further. The tone that works is the tone of someone who would be equally happy to sell it next week.
Counter, but never counter with a round-down
When you counter, avoid simply splitting the difference, because it teaches the buyer that your prices are soft and invites another round. Move a smaller distance than they did, and make the new number look considered rather than random. A price that has clearly been thought about is much harder to argue with than one that was obviously plucked out of the air.
It also helps to counter with a condition rather than just a number. A slightly lower price if they collect today, or if they take two items together, or if they pay in a way that suits you, keeps you in control of the trade. You are no longer defending a price; you are offering a deal, and the conversation moves from what it costs to when they can come.
Make the price feel earned
Buyers do not argue with prices they understand. Most of the resistance you meet comes from a listing that left the reader guessing, and the fastest way to reduce offers is to make the value visible before anyone messages you. Say what the item is, what condition it is in, what comes with it, and why it is worth what you are asking, in plain words.
That means model names, ages, what has been replaced or serviced, whether you have the box and the accessories, and honest detail about wear. A listing that answers those questions gets fewer lowballs than one that does not, in every category. Our guides to posting ads that get replies and writing better classified listings both come back to the same point.
Photographs do half of the negotiating
Pictures settle arguments before they start. When a buyer can see the condition clearly, from every angle, with the flaws shown deliberately rather than hidden, they have far less room to invent a reason the item should be cheaper. Vague photographs invite low offers because they leave the buyer to assume the worst, and buyers always assume the worst.
Shoot in daylight, fill the frame, photograph the item switched on or in use where that applies, and include the accessories in shot so nobody has to ask. Our guide to taking listing photos that sell covers the shots that matter, and these examples of high-converting listings show what the finished result looks like.
Trade something other than money
Price is only one of the things you can move. Collection timing, delivery, holding an item for a day, including a cable or a spare part, bundling a second item, throwing in the original packaging - all of these are worth something to a buyer and cost you little or nothing. Every one you offer is a way to close the gap without lowering the number.
Bundling is the strongest of these by a distance. If a buyer wants your desk at less than you are asking, offering the chair alongside it at a fair combined price often ends the conversation immediately, and clears two things from your hallway. It works especially well in furniture sold with local pickup and in clothing, as our note on selling clothes and shoes secondhand explains.
When a low offer is really a scam
A small share of unusual offers are not negotiation at all. Watch for the buyer who offers your full price without asking a single question, the one who wants to send a courier and pay a fee in advance, the one who pushes the conversation off the site immediately, and the one who sends a screenshot of a payment that never arrives in your account.
An overpayment offer deserves more suspicion than a lowball one. Nobody who genuinely wants a used wardrobe offers more than it is listed for. Our buyer and seller safety checklist and our roundup of marketplace scams to watch right now cover the patterns worth recognising before money is involved.
When you should just say yes
Holding firm is not always the smart move. If the item is bulky, seasonal, dropping in value, or has been listed for weeks with plenty of views and no other offers, the buyer in front of you may be the best one you get. Furniture and large appliances in particular are worth less every week they occupy your hallway, and the storage cost is real even when it is invisible.
Electronics have their own clock, because a model that is current now will be superseded, and the price curve only points one way. If an offer is close to your floor and the person can collect this week, taking it is often better arithmetic than waiting for a hypothetical buyer. Our guide to selling electronics for more money explains where that curve bends.
How to say no and leave the door open
Most negotiations that fail do so because the seller closed the door too hard. A buyer who is told the price is firm in a curt sentence will not come back a week later when they have not found anything better - and quite often they would have. The goal of a no is to end this round of the conversation without ending the relationship.
Something as simple as saying the price is right for now, that you are happy to keep them in mind if it is still available in a couple of weeks, and thanking them for the offer, does that. It costs you nothing and it produces a surprising number of sales at full price a fortnight later, particularly on items where the buyer has fewer alternatives than they think.
If everybody lowballs you, the listing is the problem
One low offer is a buyer. A steady stream of them is feedback. When every message that arrives is well under your number, the market is telling you either that the price is out of line with what similar items are actually selling for, or that the listing is not showing enough to justify it. Both are fixable and neither is worth being annoyed about.
Work through it in order: check what comparable items have actually sold for rather than what they are listed at, then improve the first photograph, then the title, then the description, and only then the price. Our guide on reviving a listing that didn't sell gives that order in detail, and these tactics to boost listing visibility fast help when the listing is fine and simply buried.
A short script you can reuse
Keep three replies saved somewhere and you will never have to think about this again. For the scattergun: a single friendly line saying the price is as listed, and that you will let them know if that changes. For the cautious buyer: a small counter tied to collecting soon. For the informed buyer: an honest acknowledgement, a modest adjustment, and a thank you for pointing it out.
None of it needs to be adversarial. The best outcome in almost every one of these conversations is a quick, polite deal that both sides feel fine about, because that is the one that ends with the item collected and the money in your account. On a marketplace like Advertigo, where posting an ad is free, you can afford to hold your number, relist, and wait for the right buyer - but most of the time, a two-sentence reply is all it takes to find them today.