"What's Your Best Price?"

Lowballer's typically use that phrase as a water tester. "obo" encourages them and they smell blood in the water.

As a result I rarely even use "obo" any longer. 13 years ago AG once had a certain decorum and dignity among buyers and sellers. That's long gone, and some of this new breed are downright rude.

My last "obo" ad resulted in an offer to buy for 20% less than my asking price, which was already listed at 30% of retail. Of course I rejected the offer and sent the member a brief note that 70% off isn't good enough for you? That received a reply stating: "Dude, you listed it obo." I replied you're absolutely correct, and I've now fixed that, referring to the fact I removed the "obo" to the listing.

Seems like a greater percentage of buyers are looking for the "steal of a deal" than ever before. One has to be patient to locate a legitimate buyer. The rest, it's better to simply ignore them for they're not worth gettin' your blood pressure up.

Coltrane1,
I end up not caring whether I put OBO or not. Most of the things I put out for sale have no reasonable 'blue book' value, and I generally put them out at lower prices than ebay or any other seller value I can find. I ignore lowballers. I have mentioned this elsewhere but I once had a tonearm which I got super cheap and so offered it super cheap (about 70% off the recent Audiogon used price), and I included shipping. And then some guy comes along and asks for a further 25% off. I later sent him an email saying he was exactly a day early and a dollar short (I told him I sold it for a dollar more to a guy who responded a day later). I am waiting for him to offer 75%+$1 on another thing...

Nothing but sharks left in the pool.

With regard to best price you never know what is in a seller's mind or their situation regarding a piece of equipment.

As a buyer you ask if the price can be lower than the asking price and the buyer decides. If the answer is "no" then neither buyer nor seller is in any worse position than when they started.

To many people take a negotiation personally and see it as win/lose or become offended at offers or questions because they have an emotional relationship with thier audio gear.

Others become offended by "time wasters" that is buyers with questions. If you don't want to field questions and offers then make that clear in our ad but at your risk because you never know where an offer will lead.

I'd add to the "What's Your Best Price?" query these: "Is it still available", & "Why are you selling".

This may be highly non-PC here, but at least on fee-bay, items usually either sell, or they don't. People may ask legitimate questions, but you generally avoid the endless tire-kicker questions.

Also, I tend not to respond to one-sentence e-mails with no name attached.... just my 2 cents....