Why do so many sellers take offense to offers on their listings?

@dabel I’ll give you some of my stats (anecdotal). . I will have 1 - 10+ private message (PM) inquires on individual items I have for sale, call it 4 - 5 on average. Four out of 5 times the offers come over PM and not through the Audiogon "make offer" tab. Of those offers via PM, I’d say 1 in 5 turns into a sale. Half the PM offers to buy, I think, are well-meaning vacillators that back out. They almost always NEVER contact me later to say why. The other half are time-wasters. My advice to buyers: be sincere and ready to buy. I’ve never regretted not taking an offer that was low, because I don’t price anything that is out of reason. Also, I don’t have to ’make a deal’ I own everything outright and have no debt. I think the vast majority of sellers fall into the same camp. if you need back up to support your offer, use Hifishark.com. the Blue Book is dated and out of touch with current market values.

Good to know, and appreciate the heads up @saburo. The PM had me thinking though, for I’ve proposed (reasonable) offers in such a way before with no response from said sellers. These particular items I knew wouldn’t sit for long therefore I chalked them up as, “snooze you lose.” Dusted myself off and planned the next move.

As I was reading some of the responses, the sob story 'buyer' comes to mind. The 'hey, I'd like to buy it, but Hurricane Sandy took my house out to sea, we're living in a shelter and my kid was just diagnosed with rickets...would you take $250'?

I think the seller, making it clear that he feels no obligation to respond to every low ball offer is just good communication.  if the offer is close enough that he feels it's worth his time to respond then he will.  Nothing personal either way, just good communication that the seller may not deem it worthwhile to respond or counter offer.

I have a process that I follow before and during selling.This is just my opinion.

1. When pricing your item don't look at what sellers listing price.  Look for the "sold or complete" price on all websites to get your base price to list. Many sellers will list a ridiculous price and they think this is what the market pricing is. 

2. Unless the price is firm; I will accept an offer with a 15% and 20% less. This is retail sales standard practice. Some sellers believe that 10% is a great discount, but in my opinion,10% is not an exciting offer to give for items under $500.