I posted my first trade offer this morning and shortly thereafter started conversing with someone I am likely to make the trade with. I have since received a number of responses from other interested parties. Do I respond to each individually, do I ignore and the parties will understand why, or is there a way to reply to all or make a public comment on the thread?
It can help if you write "closed" or "likely closed" once you are confident the trade will happen to help stop this. As for responding, I may be old school but personally if someone takes the time to message you about your trade offer, I think a reply is warranted. You could have a simple copy paste response like "Thanks for the interest, I already have something in the works". How hard is it to send that message to x amount of people? (likely no more than 3 or 4)? Plenty of people don't respond though, which sends the same message - except in a much less friendly way.
You definitely need to respond to someone who reached out to you about a trade offer you posted. No issue with telling someone it is done. Also, you might open the door for other possibilities.
When people make you an offer for what you're looking for, they essentially set those beers aside until you respond before moving on to another trade. It's a huge courtesy to respond and say I think I have it covered or I have something in the work and will let you know if it falls through. The sooner you do that the better, but complete silence is not acceptable for me personally. I keep track of uncourteous traders and don't contact them in the future for any trades.
I respond to everyone even it takes some extra effort when there are many. I treat others the way I want to be treated. Common courtesy.
I respond to everyone within a day. If I'm still working the trade I tell them "I have someone I'm working with but I'll keep you in mind if it doesn't go through". If I've got a trade locked down then reply to your ISO with a closed response but I still contact each person that messaged me to let them know it's closed. To me it just seems like the right thing to do & if you're on the other end waiting you would like to know if something may come of the message you sent or if you should be talking to others about the bottle(s) in question. It just lets that person out of limbo so they know where they stand
As a guy who messages a lot of people about trades, few things piss me off more than not responding. If you aren't interested in what I have to offer, just fucking say it. I'm a big boy, my feelings won't be hurt. Ignoring a message is a good way to piss people off.
While I personally always respond, if I offered up something that the trader wasn't exactly looking for, I don't expect a response. That's the only exception I make.
While I generally agree, I messaged someone a few days ago who was offering RR stuff for this, that, the other, and at the end, they said any east coast beers. I offered up Hop JuJu or Hi-Res which yielded no response. They qualify under the criteria listed and are rarer beers. No response. Well screw you too...
Oh, that's not the exception I'm talking about. If they left the trade open-ended, then they should responded. I'm talking about when they're looking for something specific and you're/I'm offering up alternatives.
Not responding to random offers is one thing. However, posting an ISO and not responding to offers for beers specifically listed in the ISO post is simply pathetic and lousy for the community. I've seen this on an increasing basis. Disappointing.
