Because offers are cheap signals, not commitments.
Most buyers use offers as probes. They are testing price flexibility, seller responsiveness, or market range. Sending an offer costs them nothing and locks them into nothing. Walking away has no downside.
Ghosting usually happens for predictable reasons.
First, comparison shopping. Buyers often send multiple offers on similar items and wait to see who bites fastest or lowest. Once they accept one deal, the rest get ignored without explanation.
Second, emotional momentum dies. An offer made at night, on a break, or during a scroll session can feel urgent in the moment and irrelevant hours later. The buyer’s interest cooled before your response even arrived.
Third, they were never ready to buy. Many buyers use offers to anchor a price for later. If you counter or accept, they now have information without obligation.
Fourth, buyer’s remorse before purchase. Some buyers talk themselves out of the item after sending the offer, especially on non-essential purchases. Ghosting avoids the awkwardness of backing out.
This behavior is not personal and it is not a reflection of your listing quality.
What sellers get wrong is reacting emotionally or operationally.
Do not chase. Follow-ups rarely convert and train buyers to waste more time.
Do not adjust pricing based on a single ghosted offer. One data point is noise.
Do not hold inventory mentally. Until payment happens, nothing is sold.
Fast responses help only at the margin. They reduce ghosting slightly by catching buyers while interest is still warm. They do not eliminate it.
The real danger is letting ghosted offers distort your decision-making. Sellers start doubting pricing, tweaking listings, or relisting prematurely because someone vanished. That is backward.
A clean rule keeps this grounded:
Offers indicate interest, not intent.
Treat ghosted offers as market pings. Log them mentally, then move on. Inventory sells when demand is real, not when messages are active.
Buyers disappear because disappearing is easy. Your job is to stay neutral, not reactive.