When Someone Asks to Take It Off the Site

It usually arrives politely and it usually arrives early. Somebody suggests you skip the site and sort it out between yourselves. They will mention fees, and they will often offer you a little more than the listing price, which is what makes it sound like a favour rather than a proposal.

Look at what changes and who it changes for. On the site there is a record of what was agreed, a record of what was paid, and somebody other than the two of you who can look at both. Off it there is a conversation, and conversations can be remembered differently by the people who had them. If the parcel does not arrive, if the payment reverses, if the item was not what was described, you now have no third party and no evidence except your own screenshots.

Notice also that the risk is not shared evenly. You send a physical item to a real address. They send a payment that, depending on how it is made, can be pulled back weeks later with no explanation and nothing you can do about it. That is not a symmetrical arrangement, and it is worth being clear that a fair number of people making this offer know that perfectly well.

Declining is easy and does not need to be cold. Say you keep everything on the site because it protects you both, and then carry straight on about the order as though the question was ordinary, because it is. Most buyers accept it immediately. Many were only asking.

The ones who push are telling you something useful. A person who argues about the protection before you have even agreed a price is worth declining entirely, and you have lost nothing, because that sale was never going to be the easy part.

And do it consistently. A rule you apply to everybody is simple to hold. A rule you make exceptions to becomes a negotiation every time.