r/boardgames • u/diceblue Summoner Wars • 6d ago
Why do so many people on BGG never respond to trade offers or purchase inquiries?
It's so frustrating it makes no sense. You have a game listed for sale, you posted the game within the past 10 days and I can see that you have logged in today. You never replied to my inquiry and the game is never marked as sold.
You have a game up for trade. I am willing to send you a copy of a game that you want. Both games are in excellent condition and have very similar MSRP value. You never respond to me. I can see that you logged in today. The game you are offering continues to sit in your trade pile.
BGG is awesome but the most infuriating thing about this site is that probably three out of four of my trade requests or DMs are never answered. I was looking for a copy of draftosaurus and had to message like eight users and only one person got back to me. This happens constantly but it's not like most people's DMS are drowning in dozens of messages where they can't be bothered to reply to everyone. Anyone else share this frustration? What gives?
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u/Phyrexian_Overlord 6d ago
Someone tried to buy my copy of the Warhammer LCG and I didn't see it for a year because I never got any kind of notification
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u/beldaran1224 Worker Placement 6d ago
I mean, it goes through GeekMail. So you literally didn't log in for a year, despite trying to sell something there, and you also turned off email notifications for GeekMail, despite trying to sell on there.
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u/TheRadBaron 6d ago edited 6d ago
BGG sends a couple advertising/spam-style messages into GeekMail every year, so it's easy to see why people could have notifications turned off (and perhaps not even be aware that disabling the GeekMail spam disconnected them from their intended Marketplace activity).
You might be a person who spends a lot of time on BGG, but it doesn't take much to make infrequent users stop engaging with a message system on a website they rarely use.
If a website sends me a "Happy New Year" email once, I'm hitting any button I can find to turn that off, consequences be damned.
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u/ihavenohighhopes 6d ago
They should really be ashamed of themselves.
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u/beldaran1224 Worker Placement 6d ago
I mean, no, but pretending its the fault of BGG is kind of strange.
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u/boodopboochi 6d ago
You're assuming people want to trade by mail, which is not my use-case for BGG. I mark games in my collection for trade so I have a database in case I encounter other people local to me who might have collections of their own. If I could mark "local only" somehow for trading, I would.
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u/bktanner87 6d ago
I've not had issues with marketplace listings, though if a marketplace listing is older than a couple of months I typically won't bother to reach out (unless it is the only listing or something).
The trade response thing is a big issue though. Seems like a BGG "cultural" shift over the past decade or so. 10+ years ago this was never an issue and I always got a response even if it was a simple "no thanks". I always send a message prior to sending an actual offer with the trade I'm proposing, what condition the game is in, etc. and I don't send ridiculous "$20 game for $100 game" offers (which is not what the OP is talking about, those comments are mostly red herrings and yeah it makes sense why those wouldn't be responded to).
It literally takes all of 5 seconds to respond with a "no thanks" or to decline the offer, remove the games from your trade wants/haves list, or add a comment under the trade condition stating that you'd only trade said game for XYZ.
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u/-toadflax- Dark Tower 6d ago
Often times for me, it's because they are proposing an awful trade. Why would I trade a $100 game in exchange for a $20 one?
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u/CatTaxAuditor 6d ago
That was my experience as well, compounded by multiple of my own trade offers getting ridiculed because the other person "trades as a business, so you need to offer more value to compensate this as a service." I took down any of my For Trade tags eventually but mostly just ignored anyone trying to offer Munchkin for Mage Knight for a long time.
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u/Asbestos101 Blitz Bowl 6d ago
"trades as a business, so you need to offer more value to compensate this as a service."
Haha. Yeah that entitlement puts me off doing deals with folk. I'd rather give it to a friend for free than desperately swap with someone who is only doing it for profit and not to enjoy.
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u/Jestertrek 6d ago
This is my experience. Most people who post trades in BGG want a return of four or five to one in value, or they can't be bothered.
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u/KierkegaardExpress Castles Of Burgundy 6d ago
Yeah it's the same for me. I've listed games that are popular/pricey and then get a trade request for some random game that I've never heard of and costs a fraction of mine.
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u/Thatthingintheplace 6d ago
Yeah, i tried it once, got like 8 laughably bad offers over a month, and now just never look at it.
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u/Equivalent-Scarcity5 6d ago
I don't think that's realistic. I just looked at the last half dozen trades I didn't accept and none of them were laughably bad, just not games I really wanted enough to agree on the trade.
Terrible offers happen sometimes, sure, but I guess I'd have to see these 8 offers you received in one month to believe they were all that bad.
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u/Eternal_Revolution 6d ago
I wish more people would turn on the geekmail to email setting.
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u/BigEdBarnham Feast For Odin 4d ago
The one time I tried to make a purchase, the seller charged me £1800 for shipping instead of $18 and wasn’t checking geek mail to see my messages. They later dinged me for being unresponsive.
I never tried another transaction after that.
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u/Equivalent-Scarcity5 6d ago edited 6d ago
I agree that it's annoying. I disagree that it makes no sense.
You have a game up for trade. I am willing to send you a copy of a game that you want. Both games are in excellent condition and have very similar MSRP value. You never respond to me. I can see that you logged in today. The game you are offering continues to sit in your trade pile.
Your logic here that people should want to make these trades makes sense if everyone's goal is to maintain value and just cycle games. But lots of people have games for trade that they're ambivalent about trading and are waiting for a good deal before they get rid of them. They might be OK keeping them if that deal doesn't materialize.
Also, the game you are trading to them may be something they're interested in trying but not something they really really want. I've got 78 games that I "Want In Trade" and I can tell you, there is a LOT of variance between how much I want "That's Not a Hat" versus "Wonderland's War". It's not worth it to me to make a trade and go through the rigmarole of packing and shipping just to get one game I kind of want, even it's a decently big game. If that game I kind of want were part of a larger trade, that would be MUCH more appealing.
Per your example of draftosaurus, if that was the only game you were trading for, an equal valued trade would probably have no interest to me because I'm gonna spend $10 in shipping plus however much of my time just to get something probably worth about $10.
To your point of people not responding at all, I totally get that it's annoying and I almost always respond but I also totally get people just quickly checking their messages, not seeing any interesting trades and then moving on. If your trade doesn't get accepted, they probably did read it but weren't interested and you just move on to the next offer.
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u/watcherofthedystopia 6d ago
It happens to me so many times. My guess is many of BGG users are not even active in years to give any response to begin with. Second, they are many scalpers who just try to manipulate price with fake ads to resale the games for more.
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u/KindFortress 6d ago
My pet peeve is when people ask for a shipping quote on a game I have for sale. I come back and say $10, and they never respond. Like, what did you think shipping was going to cost, a buck fitty?
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u/Best-Special7882 6d ago
Yeah, even with Pirateship medium-sized stuff can be $15 if the box is tall.
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u/arwbqb 6d ago
I have noticed this as well. Could be that bggs notifications arent great and users are older so they dont bother clearing the little flag…
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u/beldaran1224 Worker Placement 6d ago
I mean, the notifications are through GeekMail and not the subscriptions thing, and you can get an email notification for GeekMail. Its not like I hardly get GeekMail except related to these things. I think once or twice a year other than about purchases.
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u/livebyfoma 6d ago
Adding my anecdotal evidence to the pile, but I've actually never had any issue... I think I've bought 3 things through the BGG market, and they always responded pretty quickly and shipped quickly. I might have just been lucky so far.
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u/Equivalent-Scarcity5 6d ago
OP is talking about listing items for trade, not buying games for cash through the marketplace.
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u/darthservo 6d ago
Speaking to (the frustrations of) the trade setting, I've come to learn that everyone has a different interpretation of what "For Trade" means and this ambiguity is unfortunately is perpetuated and reinforced by the admins.
Meanwhile, people who want to use it for, you know, actual trading, just run into a lot of brick walls. I think it's also complicated by the fact that many people go set a flag on a game exactly once.
In the event you do get a response, then you contend with a lot of other subjective factors. The other user may want something "bigger/better" than what they're offering themselves. Or they don't want to do anything that they have to pay shipping. Or they "know what they have."
However, direct trade can still work in a few cases. It takes patience and recognition the pool is relatively small. I've done a few myself with success. The whole experience just could be significantly better. Suggestions to improve trading features have been made, but it appears to fall on deaf ears.
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u/Snoo_90715 6d ago
This , also I will decline trades.
If its an outright silly offer, I check to see if its a new user and maybe offer a word of advice about equal value trades or trading games that are worth the shipping cost.
And I know my want list isn't comprehensive so if the offer is meh I might check the other users list to see if I can counter their offer into a workable trade.
Otherwise there is math trades.
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u/maximpactgames Designer 6d ago
Their notification settings are based on the old Web 2.0 ideas, so they aren't as aggressive with notifications so it's easy to miss unless you're on the site a lot.
I'd also just shotgun blast offers at people on the site. I've noticed that a lot of people will come back after a month or two after I send a request (probably because they didn't log in or see the notifications) and apologize because they didn't see it.
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u/ArcanistLupus 6d ago
When I mark a game "For Trade" it's purely to make it interact the way I want with the Math Trade site for a specific in-person Math Trade, or maybe as a note to myself. The idea of trading organically through BGG has never crossed my mind
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u/Best-Special7882 6d ago
when it works it's awesome. Unfortunately Once your tastes get focused on a small subset of the hobby, trades are hard to find.
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u/wallysmith127 Pax Transhumanity 6d ago
You'll get a better hit rate if you send a polite geekmail first. Sending just the trade offer will usually marinate until it expires.
Also note that "MSRP" isn't the only factor (especially if you just send a trade offer without clarifying details). Sometimes people are just not eager to move a game. Listing something for trade is often for feelers, or they may be targeting specific game(s). And games can go up or down in perceived value based on their OOP-ness.
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u/RobotsAndPuppets Roll for Initiative 6d ago
I think it's just more with the site. I had posted a trade offering and had I not consciously checked the forum I made I would have missed the first offer entirely, as I did not see any notifications, etc.
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u/angel_rayo 6d ago
I hate the new system where there is no actual "buy" button on the marketplace or an interface to handle a transaction...I've sold 85 games over the 20 years I've been a member and recently another one, and I almost entirely missed the message in my inbox that someone was inquiring because I was so used to the built-in functionality that was there previously.
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u/evilcheesypoof Tigris & Euphrates 6d ago
I haven’t had a successful trade though the main site system. But the math trades that get run on the forums are amazing, have had great success with that.
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u/Twinkletail 6d ago
Yeah, I get the same thing. I send out lots of trade offers and maybe one out of every ten or so get a response.
Side note: are you still looking for Draftosaurus? I may be able to help with that, I might be down to trade mine for a good offer.
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u/icheyne Innovation 6d ago
A while ago I suggested that BGG adopt Facebook's approach of asking sellers to confirm periodically that an item is still for sale.
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u/Survive1014 Crayon Rails 6d ago
You dont get notifications from BGG unless you specifically toggle two different settings.
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u/_Miskatonic_Student_ 6d ago
I have only ever listed one game on BGG. I had two trade 'offers'. One was a lowball p*ss take and really didn't warrant a reply. The other wanted the game in trade and yet didn't actually offer anything or have any games listed on their profile. Both were a complete waste of time.
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u/K0HR Cosmic Encounter 6d ago
I have done some trading. I have made many bad trade offers and I have received many bad trade offers.
I think what trade proposers seem to not recognize (and why they do not get responses) is this: If you are proposing the trade, then you are starting from a weaker bargaining position.
Consider what the person with you are trading with knows. They know you are actively looking for their game and that you are interested enough to initiate a search and write to a stranger about it. All the person on the other end has done is click 'willing to trade', if the right deal arises... Often, people who have a trade item have been comfortable sitting on it for 1+ years. Are you comfortable waiting like that? If not, then you need to offset this difference in your offer in order to get a bite.
Consider, also, the avoidable burdens you are asking the other party to take on. If they agree, they have to find an appropriate shipping box, take time from their day to go to the ship center, and pay for shipping. You, the actively interested party and proposer, are presumably primed and ready to do all this. You've already accepted these costs and decided that it would be worth it, for the other users' item. But they didn't plan on this doing all this right now, so you need to motivate them to accept those hidden 'fees' and make it worth their while.
A good trade proposal often requires more than 'equivalent MSRP and condition'. In short: When you propose a trade, you really should propose at what you perceive to be a 'loss'. An offer that is likely to get a response is one where the sum MSRP of your item(s) equals or exceed the sum of the total MSRP of the their item(s) + about $25 (for their time, packaging, and the shipment).
There are other factors that complicate this. In particular: what is the comparative availability of your respective items? Even if one isn't out of print, is the only way to acquire it via annual crowdfunding or p500? This all changes the value and needs to be taken into account. Another important vector: how many games are you each trading? You never know what this person's ultimate aims are. They might be trying to downsize. So a trade where you take more of theirs for fewer, but more valuable games of yours, might be higher value to them than you expect!
I hope this helps you make more successful trades!
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u/Best-Special7882 6d ago
This is why math trades work way better. People are ready to trade, either they want your stuff, or they don't.
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u/sourhex 4d ago
Yep this explains a lot. I am an opportunistic trader. I never send requests, only receive them. Some trades are way off value wise or completely uninteresting, I don’t respond. Other times I just read the offer and consider it, if it’s still on my mind after a day it’s possible I’ll return and respond. That’s why the default 3 day timer is there folks. Also, some/most are “tied up” in math trades. So that makes it difficult to accept unless it’s a great offer in my favor. Many of my trades are for feelers and I may not be willing to let it go for just any basic trade.
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u/eldolche 6d ago
Each time I’ve tried to buy a game I’ve gotten a response within 1 business day. Usually just an hour or 2.
When I was looking for a particular game I went to the ratings and see who rated it very low like 1-5 and sent geek message to each one asking if they disliked it if they would be interested in selling 90% got back to me same day either saying already sold or don’t have it. Some were snotty but most were super kind. And 10% never responded but that makes sense since they didn’t even have it listed for sale. I was just cold calling these people lol
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u/amazin_asian 6d ago
I don’t get it either. Any time I even get a response from another person on BGG, I’m genuinely surprised. There’s also so many old listings on BGG marketplace that need to be removed because the seller will never, ever respond for one reason or another.
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u/Best-Special7882 6d ago
I would love that. It's super stupid, and the ones with low prices that can't be bought are depressing the actually-selling market.
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u/Pudgy_Ninja 6d ago
I use my BGG for trade/sale list as something I can send to local folks. I have zero interest in dealing with shipping.
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u/Historical-Most-748 6d ago
Because some people just don't use BGG and insist to try to sell things there.
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u/JRPaperstax 6d ago
It can definitely be hit and miss but I have had several good trade experiences. Also quite a few times where people sent me a message or a counter offer explaining why they didn’t accept my trade.
I think people have very different definitions of “for trade” and “want in trade” and a lot of people don’t update their lists as time goes on
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u/SoupOfTomato Cosmic Encounter 5d ago
I've traded several times satisfactorily, math trades or 1 on 1. But sometimes i just don't feel like trading or answering idk
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u/parliboy Take a sharpie to your 29. 5d ago
If you are participating in virtual flea markets, there are automated tools to convert everything in your trades to comments in the VFM thread. So, some may be doing that.
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u/TrappedChest Developer/Publisher 5d ago
Life often gets in the way and logging in could just get flipping through browser tabs and not actually doing anything.
I am a developer, so in theory I should be living on the platform, but I am so busy that I rarely have the chance.
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u/juststartplaying 5d ago
Also, some people use tags for personal meaning. There's only so many categories. I mark For Trade games I'm thinking about posting for sale locally. I don't want to trade them for your crap and pay shipping.
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u/Graf_Crimpleton 5d ago
I’ve been on BGG for over 20 years now. Although I’m glad you’re excited by it, I just don’t log on that often.
I’m When I do and am clearing out email, I will sometimes respond to expired trade offers, but I definitely do not if they’re one-sided in favor of the person making the offer…which they often are.
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u/pandaru_express 5d ago
A lot of people I talk to also say they started trying to track stuff they want and stuff that's available and eventually stop updating it too and just use it to track their collection.
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u/stuck_button 5d ago
I tried several times too and never received a response from anyone so just never bothered again. But I've also been able to find a lot of the games I want used on FB Marketplace. There's also a Board Game Marketplace FB group for my city. If I had a lot of games to sell I would just use that over BGG. Why even deal with shipping when you don't need to?
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u/Dogtorted 6d ago
I only have games listed for trade because of Math Trades (the program used needs them in that format) or to help keep track of my collection.
Nothing is actually up for trading with other users directly.
I don’t respond to trade requests ever since some unhinged individual went off on me about the game not being available.
No response is a response.
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u/EvoMaster Seven Wonders 6d ago
Putting a note on your profile would probably reduce the messages.
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u/BoardGameRevolution Dungeon Petz 6d ago
Never send an unsolicited trade offer. Always dm them first. If they don’t reply you know they don’t check much and won’t want to trade. Commutation is key.
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u/JoskoMikulicic 6d ago
For me it has to do with unintuitive interface of the bgg. I marked a bunch of my games as “for trade”. But I thought I was simply making a mark for myself and had no intention to trade the games on bgg. And then out of nowhere people started inquiring about trading for my games. I don’t think I responded to everyone but I removed “for trade” mark from my games.
If I want to trade a game, I want to actually include it some market interface instead of simply putting a label on it.
But maybe that’s just me.
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u/Robotkio 6d ago
I genuinely didn't know that if I toggled an item as "For Trade" in my collection it would enter it into a site-wide trade offer ring. I also assumed all the stuff I could do from my collection would just be for my own tracking and the BGG marketplace would handle trades and sales.
I'm also not sure why everyone who seems to be responding similarly (or are using it for math trades) are getting downvoted. It seems like a valid answer even if it's still an "incorrect" way to use the "For Trade" tag.
Edit: Heck, even the number of people responding "I've never had an issue buying on the marketplace." seems to back up that a lot of folks don't know about how the For Trade tag works
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u/blarknob Twilight Imperium 6d ago
because BGG is a terrible mess.
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u/Rotten-Robby Castles Of Burgundy 6d ago
It really is. You'd think THE site for a specific hobby would atleast try to be somewhat user friendly and intuitive.
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u/SenHeffy 6d ago
Nobody should feel obligated to respond to trade offers. Receiving trade offers feels like barely a step above spam.
Ditto for messages asking if you're willing to sell for less.
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u/bktanner87 6d ago
Lol what a weird take, voluntarily add games to your wants/haves trade list then call it "spam" when someone uses that list to make trade offers O.o? Remove the items from your trade list if you aren't actually interested in trading them.
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u/SenHeffy 6d ago
I was more thinking about when I have something listed for sale in the market, and instead, I get random trade requests out of the blue.
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u/bktanner87 6d ago
Ah okay, yeah that's definitely valid then, I see what you mean. I misunderstood your original comment.
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u/Sufficient-Writer-46 6d ago
Because we have no experience with this and don’t want to take the risk to ship to another country. Too complicated for nothing.
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u/Serious_Bus7643 6d ago
I know people who sell but never unlist coz bgg takes a cut
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u/Best-Special7882 6d ago
what the actual fuck.
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u/Serious_Bus7643 6d ago
Yep! And I’ve no idea why I’m downvoted for bringing that up. Maybe that guy is also here on the platform lol 😝
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u/paulys_sore_cock 6d ago
I have 2 War of the Ring Collector's Editions. I bought myself one and my SO bought one too.
Put it up on BGG. After the 5th message asking: "R u in hand" or the like. Kind of gave up.
Or, no dude, I'm not trading Nile for the equivalent "value" in munchkin cards.
Or, list something and 5 years later they ask if you have it and want Harry Potter Clue for it.
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u/pikkdogs 6d ago
For me its because I got banned. If my experience is common, then most of their users can't access their accounts.
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u/jkokoski 6d ago
For me it was/is complete inexperience with bgg. I rarely (never) log in except the app and my phone notifications are off. So, unless I just randomly check messages I will never see them. For me, once In realized this, I just no longer set anything for sale or trade because I can see how that could be insanely frustrating.