and he thinks I am rude?

No you weren't rude. You would have been rude if you told him what I am thinking after you read his reply .. "Dear Greedy Buyer, While you are here to get a good deal... I am here to make money. The way Ebay currently bends over its honest sellers, It is very hard for me to make any money. Ebay doesn't case about its sellers, only about you, the buyer. I am sorry I couldn't lower my price, but I am offering more candy than everyone else for the same price as they are offering theirs... on top of all of this greedbay will take 8.25% of that sale from me. You probably wouldn't be happy with my shipping and handling prices and because I can't hand deliver it to your door two days before you ordered it, you will probably leave me negative feedback to which I can do NOTHING about. You will probably give me low ratings on the rest of my stars which will push me further down the list of results when people search. So you see dear sir... it is a lose-lose situation for me. Have a good day Hugs and kisses.. your disgruntled potential seller Me PS I have put you on my blocked buyer list to keep you from retaliating against my no rude letter.

no i dont think you were rude in dealing with him lilybug. i think you merely tried your best to explain why you can no longer lower your prices. but i guess, it should have been best probably if you didnt offer an explanation. gee, i dunno, maybe it is different when you are just dealing with emails and dont know the expressions. oh well i hope you get better opportunities to sell your product. take care! :)

refusing to lower the price does not mean you were rude, its on your discretion to say no to his request for a price reduction since you were the seller. any buyer of course wants the price to be lower but as a seller you have the right to refuse to have it reduced, i don't see anything rude with that.

Lilybug, I don't think that you were rude at all. I once had the unfortunateness sending the best offer to a person who had no bid and the price or best offer option. So I sent a best offer that I thought was fair after checking on various sites and on ebay for the exact same item and I got a reply telling me this aint a swap meet and to go to a flee market. I only sent a best offer that was 3.00 lower than his price. It boggles me that someone would use the this price or best offer and then be rude becuase you don't like the offer someone gave. Well guess what no one bid on the item and he never relisted it. LOL!! His loss. But if he would have said look I've already come down more than want I would and explained himself rather than being rude I would have been so upset. LOL!!!

Do you make your own toffee then? I would love to have a look. I would not worry about it, I had one today that wound me up. I have a handbag up for sale and I have put it on auction at £9.99,it is a brand new mock leather designer inspired spy bag, I have put it on at the lowest price possible to start off with but so as I am not left completely out of pocket, I had a message asking if I took postal orders, so I sent one back saying yes. So then I gets another one saying, is the price your best price or would you take a fiver for it as I think it is a bit highly priced!! I got quite cross and said very politely that given the quality and make of it there is no way I am lowering the price of it any further and that there is no way they would get this bag for a tenner in any of the shops in the high street or on ebay!!! So far I have not heard anymore!! And no you was not rude!!

I wouldn't say you were rude. I would say it is more polite to explain why you are saying no rather than just saying it.

Just ignore him hun, there is little point in worrying about it as he is obviously a time waster.

No, you were not rude. It sounds to me like you were being played. You can report the buyer to Ebay for what he did and never do anything off of Ebay when a potential buyer asks you to. Then they can report you. It is a "bait-and-play" move. It's really sad, but you have to be really careful as a seller. Be polite, but don't take any rubbish.

I would think that a reply with just a no would have been rude you were nice enough to give him a reason as to why! It seems like he is the rude one commenting back that you should have just said no. I wouldn't worry about it shrug it some people will be people.

No, you weren't really rude. But that isn't really the point. Customer service is one of the most difficult tasks any business faces. You can never please every customer, but you should take every opportunity to learn from both the complainers and the applauders. They are both telling you something if you take the time to listen. I his case, I believe he saw the preaching as a derogatory remark. I wouldn't take it as such, but you may have done better to just say, I'm offering the candy at the lowest price. Again, you can't please everyone. I would now follow that up with an apology (even though you weren't wrong, it can go a long way to keeping him from turning other customers against you).

No, you were not rude at all. He can't force you to lower the price of your toffee. If he doesn't want pay that much, then that's his problem. You did nothing wrong. You're right in saying that he should not be on Ebay buying candy. If he really is a family man, he wouldn't be doing that. To simply put it, he's the only one who is being rude.

No you are not rude. you have just done what you need to do. there is nothing rude about it

No, you are not rude. Just different people had different reaction. some people just like it when you said no. some people like long explanation. Just do what you feel right. And welcome to business world. You can never sastify every of your customer specially if you meet picky ones.

Absolutely not. If you are already selling it at what you consider to be a fair price(or it sounds like in your case, lower than fair), then do not apologize for what he cannot afford. I want a BMW, however I'm not about to go ask them to lower their price by 25%. I'd at least give them the amusement of the afternoon. I would just let this one go, I hate buyers like this where they think they can just get a discount on it by a pity story. Check his buying history. Something tells me he's bought all kids of frivolous items and it just looking for a discount. As for a discount, in your description I would put something along the lines of a bulk discount. Like 5 or 10 lbs is 10% off. 10% is not a whole lot in the scheme of things, but people see it as a discount.

I don't think you were rude at all. You were explaining your pricing structure. You are already doing something a lot of seller will not do for their buyers.