When a Buyer Wants to Take It Off the Platform

Sooner or later somebody will ask you to carry the conversation on somewhere else. It is usually put warmly, and it usually arrives early, before they have bought anything at all.

Some of them mean it innocently

Plenty of buyers simply prefer an app they already have open, and say so with no agenda whatsoever. That is worth holding on to, because treating every request as an attack will cost you real customers. The problem is not the asking. It is what the move quietly takes away.

What you lose the moment you leave

Here there is an order, a record of what was agreed, and somebody to go to if it goes wrong. Somewhere else there is a conversation and a promise. If the money never arrives, or arrives and is pulled back afterwards, there is nothing to point at and nobody to ask.

The tell is the timing

A regular who has bought from you three times and would rather chat elsewhere is a different thing entirely from a stranger who opens with it. When the request comes before any money has ever changed hands, that is the one to slow down on.

A short answer is enough

You do not owe anybody an explanation or an apology. I keep everything on here is a complete reply, and you can send it exactly like that. Someone genuine will shrug and carry on buying. Someone who pushes after that has just told you something useful about themselves.

Decide it once rather than every time

Make it a rule you already hold instead of a judgement you make while somebody is being charming at you. It is far easier to say no to a stranger when you are not deciding your policy and your answer in the same breath.