"PM sent"- should this be taken out of BST

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So, I have noticed quite a few people respond to BST threads with "PM sent". It seems innocuous enough. But what does it really do?

Normally when you are sent a PM you get notice of it by e-mail and by alert when you log on. It seems that putting "PM sent" in a thread really would be necessary only if the sellers mailbox did not accept PM's. That is an unlikely and exceptional possibility.

Also, if I (the seller) have not already noticed the e-mail notifying me of the PM or the alert when I log on then perhaps the note in the thread would have some utility. But is this theoretic utility (at best) worth anything?

Does the response "PM sent" represent an opportunity cost to the seller? In the past, when I had seen "PM sent" I thought it meant "I have agreed to your terms and I am ready to start closing".

I have come to find out that many times "PM sent" really means "I have sent you an offer, lets negotiate". That is fair. But I recognize this now after a number of years this forum. For many years I have seen "PM sent" and thought, no need to consider this knife any longer it is wrapped up. So I forget about that specimen and the seller does not get my offer.

So the question I have is, does the "PM sent" have the effect of diminishing the sellers chance of getting his best offer? I now know that if I want something I will send an offer anyway despite seeing a post in a BST thread of "PM sent". But I have been here a number of years. The question is Does writing "PM sent" in a BST thread potentially hurt the sellers chances of an optimal deal. What about the new guys looking to build their collection? Does "PM sent" put then off? and thereby hurt the seller?

If it is even a possibility; then "PM sent" should be banned from BST threads.

Please discuss...
 
I suspect that "PM sent" is posted at least some of the time to discourage other people from making enquiries. Why else would person B tell the entire forum that he/she has sent a PM to person S? (B could just send the PM without telling the entire forum about it.)

Why would I care whether person B has sent a PM to person S?

If I don't want the knife, I definitely don't care. It's just noise.
If I do want the knife, the "PM sent" tells me that someone else is interested, too. How that might affect me is up to me. I can take it as "oh well, someone else came first, no point in asking now, it's too late." Or I can take it as "if I want it, I had better make an offer quickly." Or, if I want the knife really badly, I can take it as "I had better put in a really good offer, otherwise I'll miss out."

As to banning such messages, I don't see a need. I can send my message to person S regardless.
 
It's there to discourage other buyers for sure, but at the same time BST isn't an auction site, the sale price is listed. And some knives receive a lot of attention and might result in unnecessary spam for the seller so maybe it has a place...

If someone posts 'PM sent' and you really want the knife, well you can offer more than the listed price. I personally don't mind it.
 
Been buying and selling on a variety of forums and hobbies over the years. Universally “Sold .. check your mail” meant “I accept your advertised terms in an email (or PM) which has already been sent to you. Typically the posted item has a price or terms which constitutes an offer to sale. The “Sold ... check your mail” signified unqualified acceptance of those terms. Apart from exchanging cash, the deal was done. “Check your mail” meant an offer had been sent which differed from the posted terms but the item was seriously in play. An offer had been sent and was available for acceptance.

I used those words with that meaning for awhile on BST, until someone objected saying that despite accepting the advertised offer the OP had the right to sell to anyone regardless of posting and the term “Sold” in the response was offensive. I accepted that this was a case of “when in Rome ... so I stopped doing that”. I used “check your mail” ... the equivalent of “PM sent”. The thought being that OP’s check their posts often ... perhaps more often than they check their email and are thereby alerted to the existence of the offer.

I don’t see “PM sent” as being a bad thing. It may trigger me to send a backup offer or I may simply move on. In this modern PC world anything can be considered offensive to someone so I’ll probably stop sending such posts on BST.
 
As a seller point of view, I have noticed that the pm send can mean anything: the pm gets never send, offer, questions, taking the deal as it is etc. I don't see any harm putting pm send to the bst thread but if I were another possible buyer interested in the knife/item I would still send pm straight to the seller.
 
Don't mean to derail thread but i think it fits here. When you guys sell a hot ticket item that gets multiple offers almost simultaneously, do you folks tend to do first come first serve or do you choose someone in the community that you know is going to either use it or keep it in the community?
 
Yeah as a buyer you would hope so. And as a seller here and in other platforms I tend to do the same. I also think its super cool that some knives here have gone through the hands of multiple members. As a seller i would hope that the purchaser would contribute to the community, By eventually passing it on or sharing about it or cutting carrots with it Etc :D
 
It usually means pm sender has made low ball offer...annoying but for certain in demand knives it could give you a time stamp while allowing time to write out your pm...
 
I like that it can indicate who bought the knife, which I am sometimes curious about as an outside observer. C.f. the 20% of BST sales that go to Brian W. However, sometimes one can be misled by this, and in general I find it redundant.

As a buyer I expect first come first serve. Engaging in some other criteria would result in me ignoring the OP’s future posts.

My local Facebook group has a policy that for highly desired items, one should accept requests to purchase for 24 hrs, then pick one at random using a random number generator. Then you don’t disadvantage people who have to work lots of hours and don’t have time to continually check KKF. I’ve thought about doing this for items that I knew I was selling below value, eg things that I’d previously bought on BST for good prices. Never actually done it though.
 
Then you don’t disadvantage people who have to work lots of hours and don’t have time to continually check KKF.
I do prefer that. Surprise, surprise, seeing that it's typically 3 am here when many knives become available. I usually get up in the morning and check BST to find out what deals I missed while I was sleeping. Seems like a change in biorhythm is in order…
 
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Don't mean to derail thread but i think it fits here. When you guys sell a hot ticket item that gets multiple offers almost simultaneously, do you folks tend to do first come first serve or do you choose someone in the community that you know is going to either use it or keep it in the community?

Usually, I prefer first come first serve. If it's something I think some members I interact act with more often might want, I try to message them prior to posting in BST. However, since as a seller it's my knife until I take someone's money, I have on the rare occasion chosen a member I'm closer with over the first to respond.

As for the OP, I personally don't have a problem with Pm Sent. In reality, it doesn't really mean anything other than what it says. Whatever one might try to guess is the motivation for posting 'Pm Sent' in any given instance, folks should just assume the BST post is operating as normal until the seller states the knife is sold or SPF. I don't find it impacts my forum usage in any meaningful way and although I may be wrong, I actually feel like it used to be much more common than it is now.

In answer to your question @Matus, I'd personally answer with a strong no. Getting mods involved in something as innocuous as this seems like a rabbit hole in the making to me.
 
Seems like most agree that ‘PM sent’ is somewhere between useless and annoying.

The mod question is - is it bad enough that it should be dealt with on the ‘BST rules’ level?

Nah. That seems overbearing. I don’t know if new people actually read the rules, but if they do, maybe you could just add a line indicating that people use PM sent for all different reasons, and it does not indicate that the knife is sold.

Or maybe everyone that doesn’t like the tone of “PM sent” can just send a PM to the poster saying “PM sent :)” every time the poster posts “PM sent”. Flaming someone is the way to enact true change in this age of social media.
 
I don’t use “pm sent”, but don’t mind it either. As a seller I use the time stamps of the actual PM’s if I receive multiple.
I think the “PM sent” is a good thing though in a way. If seller’s inbox is full and unnoticed this type of post may alert them.
 
That’s a good point about full inboxes.

BST doesn’t move as fast as I remember it in the past. Probably because the prices get inflated now. When the prices are above retail I would expect more bargaining is going on behind the scenes. I initially used PM sent because I assumed it was the convention. When I realized the experienced buyers weren’t doing it when purchasing from me I stopped.
I think I would sell to anybody who has posted in this thread over someone with very few posts if the offers were similar and were received in a small time window. I prefer selling to members that I know or recognize.
 
OK ... so you walk onto a car lot and find a car with a sticker price on it that you want to buy. You find the salesman, pull out your check book and say “Sold ... I’ll take it” ... The salesman says “hold on a minute ... I’m going to wait awhile to see if my friend wants to buy it ... or ... come back next week and I’ll decide who I’m going to sell it to ... or ... I’ve decided to increase the price ... or ... I won’t sell it to you because I don’t like the looks of you!

What would you do? What I would do is walk down the street and buy a car from a salesman who really wanted to sell it. No hard feelings except that the next time I wanted to buy a car, I wouldn’t even look at your lot. Why waste my time?

I’ve said may times that BST is full of good buys. My measure ... about six knives at any point in time. I don’t generally bargain or submit offers. If I want it I pay what the seller is asking. Because the seller is shipping to Canada I generally offer to pay a premium on the shipping cost. After the first transaction with a seller I generally use PayPal f&f. I consider every seller that I buy from to be my friend. Prove me wrong, I won’t whine or complain, I just won’t buy from you again. I don’t sell my knives ... they all become members of my family. Over the last year I’ve bought well north of a hundred knives. 40% were retail from dealers or customs from makers I trust. 30% were on the BST market. 30% were from friends who don’t want to see their knives flipped or abused in any way, or don’t want the hassle of low ball offers or interminable inane questions.

So .... the consensus is don’t say “Sold” in response to a BST post. OK ... when in Rome ... Don’t want me to say “Check your Mail” ... same thing I guess. Wait a day for the results of a lottery, or for somebody on the other side of the world to wake up, or for somebody to get home have a shower, dinner and settle down to check BST ... I don’t think so. Same thing as with the car salesman ... I’ll just move down the street and buy from a seller who really just wants to sell their knife. No hard feelings ... there are lots of places to buy knives. I’ve never had anybody that I’ve bought a knife from complain that it was unfair that they had to take my money.
 
I would sell to you every time.


Were the offers equal to what you asked for in your BST post I would hope you would sell to the first reply you received. To me that seems fair and I’ve lost several knives without complaint because someone beat me with their earlier full price, all terms accepted offer.

Of course it’s your right to sell your property to whomever you wish and that’s perfectly good with me. My opinion is just my opinion. No more ... no less.
 
I don’t use “pm sent”, but don’t mind it either. As a seller I use the time stamps of the actual PM’s if I receive multiple.
I think the “PM sent” is a good thing though in a way. If seller’s inbox is full and unnoticed this type of post may alert them.

Man, I didn’t even know that inboxes could be full.


Were the offers equal to what you asked for in your BST post I would hope you would sell to the first reply you received. To me that seems fair and I’ve lost several knives without complaint because someone beat me with their earlier full price, all terms accepted offer.

Of course it’s your right to sell your property to whomever you wish and that’s perfectly good with me. My opinion is just my opinion. No more ... no less.

@Chuckles does have a point, though. If you’re going to ostensibly do something like first come first served rather than a random choice, it’s more equitable to actually pick the first person. But most of us who are selling on BST aren’t doing enough business to be able to easily absorb a loss if something goes wrong with a given deal. I try (emphasis on try) to have a one knife in, one knife out rule, so if I don’t get paid for a knife I send, then that really sucks. Hence, if a bunch of offers come in nearly simultaneously, and one’s from @sketchyrndomdude666 with 5 posts, none with any content, and one is from you, I’ll be tempted to sell to you. That said, if both people are significantly contributing forum members, I’ll always pick the first one. Anyway, anyone can start contributing to the forum if they want, so preferring someone who’s a known quantity doesn’t necessarily scream discrimination to me.
 
OK ... so you walk onto a car lot and find a car with a sticker price on it that you want to buy. You find the salesman, pull out your check book and say “Sold ... I’ll take it” ... The salesman says “hold on a minute ... I’m going to wait awhile to see if my friend wants to buy it ... or ... come back next week and I’ll decide who I’m going to sell it to ... or ... I’ve decided to increase the price ... or ... I won’t sell it to you because I don’t like the looks of you!

What would you do? What I would do is walk down the street and buy a car from a salesman who really wanted to sell it. No hard feelings except that the next time I wanted to buy a car, I wouldn’t even look at your lot. Why waste my time?

I’ve said may times that BST is full of good buys. My measure ... about six knives at any point in time. I don’t generally bargain or submit offers. If I want it I pay what the seller is asking. Because the seller is shipping to Canada I generally offer to pay a premium on the shipping cost. After the first transaction with a seller I generally use PayPal f&f. I consider every seller that I buy from to be my friend. Prove me wrong, I won’t whine or complain, I just won’t buy from you again. I don’t sell my knives ... they all become members of my family. Over the last year I’ve bought well north of a hundred knives. 40% were retail from dealers or customs from makers I trust. 30% were on the BST market. 30% were from friends who don’t want to see their knives flipped or abused in any way, or don’t want the hassle of low ball offers or interminable inane questions.

So .... the consensus is don’t say “Sold” in response to a BST post. OK ... when in Rome ... Don’t want me to say “Check your Mail” ... same thing I guess. Wait a day for the results of a lottery, or for somebody on the other side of the world to wake up, or for somebody to get home have a shower, dinner and settle down to check BST ... I don’t think so. Same thing as with the car salesman ... I’ll just move down the street and buy from a seller who really just wants to sell their knife. No hard feelings ... there are lots of places to buy knives. I’ve never had anybody that I’ve bought a knife from complain that it was unfair that they had to take my money.

I understand your point of view, which is entirely valid. I think in a normal market I'd agree with you, but I don't think KKF is necessarily comparable. My main reasoning is that a car salesman is a business, operating on profit, paying business taxes, insurance, and all that accompanying jazz, whereas 99.9% of members here are not running a business.

For instance, I'm just a guy who occasionally sells knives and stones. For me, someone who has a knife hobby but also a job and real world problems to tackle, a KKF sale isn't all important and the prospective customer isn't always right. I'm not worried about repeat customers in the traditional sense because this isn't in any way my livelihood and it could very well be that I won't sell another item on KKF ever (haha, well, this may be somewhat unrealistic...). Unlike a car salesman to whom a car is a car and money is money, some knives are special to me and some knives maybe not so much, which means money isn't always the ultimate motivating factor. I've sold knives below my asking price to some members because I preferred to recoup less funds and see it go to someone for whom I knew it would be a special or meaningful possession. That's certainly something a car salesman would never do.

As for what people post in my sales threads I don't really care what people say, as long as it isn't disinformation, and I don't really mind people making offers via messages, since I can always say negotiate or just no thanks, no hard feelings. I don't discriminate based on any of these things and they wouldn't stop me selling to anyone. However, people expecting say next-day shipping or business levels of customer service and attention do sort of annoy me because, again, this is a hobby, not a business.

All things being equal, I like to be as equitable as possible, but it isn't always the deciding factor.
 
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I like the car lot analogy, but I would like to expand on that. For no real reason other than I’m just enjoying this topic, and I’m not working a brunch shift today.

Say mr salesman is sitting at his desk, and he’s the only salesman on the clock at the moment because of social distancing etc. It’s very slow business, and he only has one car left in inventory to sell before he can close up and go home with a smile knowing “that deal is done”. He goes out back for a break, and upon his return he sees multiple people all looking at that one car. One person he recognizes as a repeat customer who may or may not have a cool trade in, but is again a valued repeat customer. The others may be together as on group, but the way they stand in divided groups maintaining Social D, he suspects not.
When he walks towards them they all look up and are eager to be the first to strike a conversation over said car. Which one do you think he engages first? Sure, let’s throw in some supermodels in the other groups of various gender. Still, whom do you think he engages first? Let’s keep in mind that Mr Salesman just wants to sell the car on go home.

If I’m selling a knife here, I generally go with the first request to buy, unless that person appears to be an unknown. But if I open my inbox and see multiple messages I might lean towards a person whom I’ve had multiple successful exchanges with in the past. Why? Because that person may have my unicorn Buckeye Burl Billipp in their possession and might perhaps one day let it go. Or I know it’ll be a quick and easy deal as it has been in previous deals.

Ramble ramble ramble
 
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