The art of dickering, and haggling. The good the bad The ugly.

[cosmosdan]

Originally Posted by iamthewalrus(:3=

Almost all the haggling I do is for things sold on craigslist. I don't mind, although it's pretty funny how bad some people are at haggling. I saw an ad the other day that said "I want $200 but I'll take $150". Way to negotiate yourself down, buddy.

I also routinely get emails immediately after I post something asking me what I'll drop the price to. I always just say "I'll consider your offer if you'd like to make one". I'm not going to drop my price for the first guy to read my ad and respond.

The only time haggling bugs me is when we make a deal, then people try to change the deal. Nope, sorry. Unless there's new information (like maybe the condition was worse than I described), I'm not budging.

We have a couple of ebay stores, and comstantly get offers on things we list without "best offer" Many of them are ridiculous, but , it's the ole, "nothing ventured" I guess. But I agree, people emailing to ask "what's your bottom dollar" get "I expect to get the price I listed it for. If you'd like to make a reasonable offer, I'll consider it. There's that sense of satisfaction when someone tries to low ball you on what you know is a good price , and then, after it sells for the asking price, they email you to see if it's still avialable.

I had a question today " MAy I offer XXX on this item" The amount was about 40% off the asking price. I considered my choices in responses

"No you may not offer that"

" Yes, you can offer XXX, you just can't buy it"

"LOL!! good one"

and very briefly , really,

"May offer you my rump to kiss?"

[Lionne]

Originally Posted by kayaker

In Jaimaca I was interested in purchasing a bag of locally grown produce from a young gentleman. He told me two hundred American dollars was his asking price. In the US I would have happily paid $500 for similar produce, but I knew he was asking for an inflated amount.

Took me a while to figure out exactly what local produce you were thinking of.
"mangos? Nah...pineapple? At $500 hell no! What grows in Jamaica? Some weird, exotic....ohhhh!"

[iamthewalrus(:3=]

Originally Posted by cosmosdan

We have a couple of ebay stores, and comstantly get offers on things we list without "best offer" Many of them are ridiculous, but , it's the ole, "nothing ventured" I guess. But I agree, people emailing to ask "what's your bottom dollar" get "I expect to get the price I listed it for. If you'd like to make a reasonable offer, I'll consider it. There's that sense of satisfaction when someone tries to low ball you on what you know is a good price , and then, after it sells for the asking price, they email you to see if it's still avialable.

Even if someone makes a totally unreasonable offer, I'll probably come down. If I'm asking $100, and someone offers $20, I'll probably counter with $90. But that's probably it unless it's been a long time with no interest. I always ask for more than I think I can really get on craigslist. Once I was pleasantly surprised and got my full asking price, but usually people expect to haggle, so I might as well use price-anchoring to my advantage.

[cosmosdan]

Originally Posted by iamthewalrus(:3=

Even if someone makes a totally unreasonable offer, I'll probably come down. If I'm asking $100, and someone offers $20, I'll probably counter with $90. But that's probably it unless it's been a long time with no interest. I always ask for more than I think I can really get on craigslist. Once I was pleasantly surprised and got my full asking price, but usually people expect to haggle, so I might as well use price-anchoring to my advantage.

That's the polite way to deal with it. I've sent emails saying "Can't do , X but I can do X" Sometimes the offer is so ridiculous that it seems like a waste of time to respond at all. Either they only want it at some unreasonable pirce , or, if they are really interested they'll come back with a better offer.

If I put "MAke an Offer" on the listing I will politely respond to all offers with a counteroffer. When I get ridiculous offers on items with no "Make an Offer" I feel no need to respond to foolish offers.

[kayaker]

Originally Posted by Lionne

Took me a while to figure out exactly what local produce you were thinking of.
"mangos? Nah...pineapple? At $500 hell no! What grows in Jamaica? Some weird, exotic....ohhhh!"

A couple years ago, in St Martin, I watched as my gf indiscreetly traded cash for a bag.

When I scolded her for the open transaction, she showed me the bag of vanilla beans she scored. Weeks later, eating her Creme Brûlée, I realized we could have gotten in trouble bringing them back to the US.

[Tess]

Years ago my parents were casually looking for a used car. My mother was out running errands and noticed a garage sale with a car for sale in the yard. She stopped by and chatted with the owner for a few minutes. Somehow they figured out Mom was the nurse who delivered the seller's grandson.
Before calling Dad to tell him about the car Mom decided to make a slight attempt to haggle.
"How much are you asking for it?"
"$550"
"Would you take $450?"
"How about $400?"
Mom came back with, "How about $475?"
"How about $375?"
"How ab-you know, I don't think we're doing this right."

[jtgain]

I hate haggling. It has no place in the information age. Put the bottom line price on the item and I can compare it with bottom line prices from other vendors and pick the lowest price, or the store that offers the best service or other such thing. Haggling is a source of pride for any man, but the consumer will always lose. The car salesman or other merchant does this many times per day. The consumer does it once every few years. He has superior information about the product. These guys that love to haggle need to put away their swinging dick and realize that they are losing these battles.

The only exception in my mind is for unique items like real estate, rare art, or a piece of jewelry: things which don't have a fixed market value because they are intrinsically unique and there can be a legitimate difference of opinion over value because there is no substitute.

[Dogzilla]

Update from my previous post.

So. Those fabulous cheetah print shoes at Famous Footwear? Still there as of Saturday afternoon. Walking around the store, while wearing them, I made one last-ditch attempt at getting the manager to drop the price just a little bit. Remember, those are priced at $80 on clearance. Manager still says he's not allowed to dicker; corporate policy. He tells me the company that makes that particular pair of shoes also owns the store, so Corporate wants to make as much money as possible on those shoes. I reminded him that the shoes had been on the clearance rack for 6-8 months and as long as they are overpriced to not sell, the store isn't making any money at all.

So then, right in front of him, I whipped out my phone, scanned the bar code on the box and found the exact same pair of shoes at ShoeMetro and at Amazon for $30. I showed him my search results, and because I'm an Amazon Prime member, I hit the "purchase with one click" button right in front of him. My fabulous cheetah print shoes are on their way!

And I totally would have paid $45 for them in the store. I hope he sends that message right back up the corporate ladder. With the availability of so many products on the interwebz, it seems like a really archaic and short-sighted policy to refuse to discount items that are not moving from the brick-and-mortar stores.

Side note: I found a fantastic dress at Old Navy that matches perfectly, but they were out of my size in the store. Again, I whipped out my phone, found the correct size on the ON app, applied the discount code that had just been emailed to me, and got a $25 dress for $12. And then I wondered why I'd bothered to leave my house to go shopping.