Spanish general goods marketplace Wallapop has removed the “contraoferta” (counteroffer) button from its app and website, Consumidorglobal reports. This feature, which enabled users to make an offers under a seller’s listed price, had been popular with website users.
One poster in chat forum Chollometro commented, “I like the Wallapop app and feel safe making purchases through it. It bothered me, like many others, when they eliminated the ‘counteroffer’ button. It was a useful feature that made the app more attractive. I will continue to use it, but I think Wallapop has made a mistake with this change.”
A spokesperson for Wallapop told Consumidorglobal that the counteroffer function was removed to “offer a simple and direct buying and selling process that facilitates contact between buyers and sellers.” They added, “If you want to negotiate with the seller on price, you can use the chat function for this purpose. If the buyer and seller then reach an agreement, the seller should modify the price in their ad, and the buyer can then accept the agreed price.”
However, this is obviously a more complicated and time-consuming process than the counteroffer button. As Wallapop earns a commission on each transaction made through its site (with the size of the commission depending on the value of the transaction), the company may have decided that this adjustment to the app will have a positive net effect on its revenue–with the increase in the value of the commissions it earns through higher selling prices outweighing any reduction in transaction volume. If so, the company would have evaluated this hypothesis through A/B testing prior to making the change universal.