When a Buyer Asks to Meet in Person

It is not a common message, but it is common enough that most sellers who have been trading for a while have had it at least once. A buyer, usually somebody who has bought before and seems entirely genuine, asks whether you would meet in person, hand something over, or arrange delivery outside the platform some other way.

The request itself is rarely malicious. Most of the time it comes from someone who simply has not thought through what they are asking, or who is trying to save on postage, or who genuinely means it as a friendly gesture. That does not change the answer, and the answer is the same whatever the intention behind it: no, kept short, kept polite, and kept exactly the same every time rather than judged case by case.

The reason it needs a fixed answer rather than a judgement call is that judgement calls get harder the nicer the person asking seems. A stranger with an odd request is easy to decline. A regular who has bought from you four times and seems perfectly pleasant is not, and that is precisely the situation where having decided the answer beforehand protects you, because you are not negotiating with yourself in the moment.

You do not owe anyone a long explanation. "I only sell and ship through the platform, sorry" closes it cleanly without accusing anybody of anything, and a genuine buyer accepts it without a second thought. Anyone who pushes after that has told you something useful about themselves, and it is the pushing, not the original question, that is the actual signal worth paying attention to.

Decide this answer now, before the message arrives, and keep it identical every single time it does.