Response to ads

Most of the ads I see have some method of contact included - whether it be a phone number, email address, instructions to PM...or, at least, a link to a website which has contact info. Looking through the classifieds here (in addition to what I have seen in my own ads), I am amazed by the number of people that post things like contact me, call me, email me, or PM me, in response to an ad. Are people that lazy that they can't initiate that small effort to get the information or animal they want? It's gotten to the point that I'll rank it with trying to dicker or cut deals within the ad. It's bad enough that half the people are going to make a lowball offer, now we are expected to do backflips to give them the opportunity? JnJ's ads are a perfect example. Just for giggles, I scrolled through their "Gravids" ad, and it was just case after case of this. Better them than me, I guess, because I know I couldn't do it. I put Contact me via PM, or email me directly at ____ in all my ads....so when the response is (in essence) No, you email me I often don't bother.
Yeah, I know - if I want to sell something badly enough, I would...but that's just it, I DON'T. I want to sell it just badly enough to post the ad, and to respond to those that are interested enough to contact me.

I know exactly what you mean Bro....

I see this behavior with my 14 year old son and it irritates the crap out of me! Stop being lazy and do you part!!!! If you want to buy a snake, email me or whatever but dont ask me to contact you....

I know exactly where you are coming from Harald. I noticed LONG ago that 99% of those people have zero intentions of buying. They are the window shoppers of the herp world. I honestly cant remember the last time I contacted one of them.

People that are truly interested in buying do just that, they buy. They contact you, get their questions out of the way and then make an offer. Often all in the originating phone conversation.

The worst part of it is when you get a reply that says " send me more info" ...

That leaves you with the question of what do they want to know? There are 100's of things someone can ask, and your left to try to read their mind.
That is the main reason we do not advertise lower end animals on here as by the time you reply to all the contact me request and try to guess their questions you spend more time chasing the sale than you do on a higher end animal...

Or the common reply we get from k.s " I am interested "

I do not remember ever selling a animal to anyone who sends the " I am interested " email.

Its almost to the point you want to lock your adds, but we dont as I think a lot of information can be spread by the discussions that commonly overtake adds on here.


Its a no win situation sometimes, not bitching about it, but it is what it is....

My peeve are people who clutter up sale threads by asking 'how much is shipping to________'
That's not a general interest question. PM the seller.
Even worse are people who negotiate price in public on the sale thread. That's just tacky.

I notice that Ed Clark closes his threads right after posting. This must cut back on that kind of behaviour and pretty much filters some of that. I wonder if that can be a feature?

The reasons mentioned above are why I close my ads, forcing interested parties to contact me directly. This is a feature anyone can use but I am not necessarily sure it is why Ed uses it.

I am more than happy to answer additional questions about my ads but some of the questions I have seen make me wonder just how accurate the phrase "there are no dumb questions" really is. I get tired of people asking "where are you located and how far are you from...." when my location is directly under my user name and always listed in the body of the ad. If you are smart enough to post the question, I think you are more than capable of figuring out mapquest or google maps. Sorry for the brief rant.

Bart

There are some substantial pros and cons to allowing replies to posted classified ads. Some sites don't allow it at all, in which case contact is limited to the information that the seller provides. With email not being all that reliable lately with the plethora of spam blockers that abound, I felt this was not entirely a wise choice to make.

But there are some people who have nothing better to do then to rag on someone within their classified ad thread if replies are enabled. This may or may not be appropriate, depending on the circumstances. There are cases where this can be either good or bad, depending on the particular incident.

Unfortunately, there is no best way to do this if you have to choose one method or the other. So the choice I made was to allow the classified ad creator to make up his or her own mind about how that section should be used. Of course, not everyone will agree with that methodology either...

My personal pet peeve is people that try to negotiate a deal through the threads. Do they not realize everyone can see what they're saying? And that they're saying the same thing every other ad on here?