So, it probably goes without saying that it is polite email etiquette to at least make some effort to reply to emails when conducting business deals. If I've got an animal up for sale and someone inquires, even if it's an offer I'm not even remotely interested in, I make an effort to at least reply with a simple "No thank you." My only exception is if the person says, "Please call me if interested," and doesn't seem to expect an email reply, and I'm not interested -- that, to me, seems implicit.

I'm sure I've screwed up and forgotten a message or two here or there, but I do try to make the effort not to.

I've also noticed that it seems fairly standard for many people NOT to do the above. Many people are great and will take the time to fire off that "No thank you," (or "It's sold" or "No I don't have any females,") but for many people the lack of reply seems to be their way of conveying "Not interested." (Or, "No, I don't have that in stock," or "It's sold," or etc..)

In the same vein, I've noticed that lots of larger businesses don't reply to inquiries too well. I can understand that as the larger the business, the more animals and exposure, the more email volume they have to deal with and some will slip through the cracks. That could even happen with a smaller time person who gets overwhelmed or has a bad day or whose spam filter is being overzealous.

So, I'm curious -- does everyone on here automatically take that lack of reply to mean, "No" ? Or will you persist in contacting (maybe not go crazy, but perhaps a followup email) if you don't receive any reply to an inquiry -- on the off-chance that yours slipped through the cracks the first time around?

Do you personally use no reply to mean "No" and would you be irritated at a subsequent inquiry from the same person?