Ah, OK, I’ll buy that - for 75p.
Yep, pasting table = flimsy wooden foldaway table used in the decorating trade to apply paste onto wallpaper before hanging. Picture a table, fold the legs underneath and fold the whole thing in half. There’s usually a strap where the two ends meet so you can carry the thing quite easily.
They’re ideal for car boot sales because they’re light and compact.
That’s what you get for having an ex-builder for a dad. People would often try to buy the power tools and nails/screws my dad kept in the back of the van.
Yeah, I was in a strange mood when I posted earlier. I think it was the beer.
Sorry, but I just find it annoying. It may be an accepted custom among some, but that doesn’t stop it from being patently absurd.
It strikes me as demeaning to haggle over a quarter and I won’t take part either as buyer or seller. It’s a pointless mind game, and I’m not about to punish those who don’t play it with padded prices just so someone can get a tiny thrill out of getting a “bargain.”
In that case, Lissa, I’d advise an “All prices AS MARKED” sign somewhere, since bargaining is generally considered common at garage sales.
Pointless? This is not the only item the buyer will be buying today. It is also not the only item the seller will be selling. A quarter here, a dollar there, and at the end of the day I’ve saved a substantial amount.
The point of padding prices is not to give buyers the thrill of victory. It is to maximize profit. Sellers who do not haggle are regarded as rude, snobbish, and jerkish in general. This doesn’t matter very much if you have a garage sale once a year. But if you have a table at a weekly fleamarket, or do antique and toy shows, it’s vital that the customers like you. Repeat business, word of mouth, and high ticket purchases depend on the customer liking and trusting you. Padding prices allows haggling, and creates good will. The overwhelming majority of customers know that most prices are padded and will haggle.
The fact that you’re already saving a tremendous amount of money doesn’t matter as much as wringing a few coins out of a seller? I mean, if you’re buying, say, a used TV for $35, you’re already saving a great deal of money. Wrangling for an additional five dollars off strikes me as absurd.
The average yard sale doesn’t generate a lot of “profit.” It’s getting rid of the junk you have and getting a little bit of cash in the process. I’m certainly not making any money off of selling an item for less than a third of what I paid for it new. And, like a lot of people, what I didn’t sell went to the Salvation Army. I doubt if most yardsellers have a business model in mind.
The padding of prices actually strikes me as a bit dishonest in nature. You’re asking more than what you really want, and I, as a non-haggler, will pay that price if I want the item. Do you think the guy selling the stuff is going to say, “Nah, I really only wanted a buck for it. Here, let me refund the difference to you.” No. He’s inflating his prices in order to play the mind game which allows people to feel like they’ve scored a victory in bargaining him down.
So, why mark prices at all in these situations? Why not just ask, “What’ll you pay?” when a buyer expresses interest? Cut through the bullshit.
How is trust engendered when people know the seller is asking an inflated price? I would like a seller much more if he were honest from the outset, and I would certainly trust him more if I knew that the prices marked were not padded to take advantage of those with low bargaining skills.
But why play the game? Regardless of whether the buyer thinks the price is a good one, they still need to lower it just because?
A car dealership is where you haggle, where the amount you will save justifies the action. I’m not going to go home in a glow of satisfaction because I managed to save seventy five cents over the course of an afternoon of visiting yard sales.
When I hold the periodic garage sale - about once a year on average - the point of the exercise is to get rid of crap. I usually have a lot of books on sale, and I price them at “a dollar each, 2 for 50 cents.” This usually gets a dazed look from the buyers, followed by a wry smile of understanding.
Would you take a dollar for the hose?
Sure, if you buy eight items and save a quarter on each you saved a very substantial $2. Ah the thrill of victory.
What you’ve just described is a mind game. Intentionally padding prices in order to haggle down to what you wanted to sell them for. If someone simply marks them at what they want to sell them for it saves both the seller and the buyer some time. Yet , you are correct, some buyers will still consider that seller a bit of a jerk if they won’t haggle prices that are already very good. Yep, that’s a mind game all right. A relatively harmless one but a game none the less.
BTW , we *are * talking about the occasional yard sale. A weekly table at a flea market is a part time business and a different matter.
Just to clarify. I don’t think haggling is rude or improper. The point is when stuff is already dirt cheap it does seem a little extreme to haggle for a quarter. What really irks me are the few who will openly treat a seller as if they are being a jerk when the seller won’t haggle over what is already a real bargain.
If I decide I’ll sell my books for 50 cents each or donate them it’s my choice. If you want to haggle over a quarter then be polite about it or fuck off and go save a quarter someplace else. There are hagglers to whom the game of haggling is more important than the purchase and saving money. I’ve had customers at the store confess it and others who walk out on a great buy simply because we won’t throw something in. It’s a weird compulsion that I find pretty unattractive.
I do agree that haggling at yard sales is the accepted tradition so if I choose to avoid it and not pad prices then a sign saying so is the way to go. I’m not being a snob or jerkish to do so.
As a veteran of several garage sales, I calmly look the early birds in the eye and say “Right now it is a Garage Event. Everything is $200. We’re having a Garage Sale later - prices will be impressively discounted starting at 9am.”
It gets better when you keep the threat up and someone grabs some books from the pile and you calmly tell them “Let’s see - 3 books. $600. Would you like a bag?”
They get pissy at that point.
A friend of ours had a parent that passed away, so they decided to have a yard sale prior to the sale of the house. I agreed to give them a hand on the morning of the event, since it was fairly large. One guy walks up to me with a working soldering iron, and asks me “how much?” (I guess the tag had fallen off). My reply was “I dunno, how about two dollars.” He then has the gall to say: “Come on, you know better than that”.
I guess I had reached the end of my rope with the friggin sad-ass yard sale sifters at that point, because I almost bit his head off. “Much to your surprise, I don’t spend 5 hours every Saturday at these things. I most certainly don’t know ‘better’, so if you want to name me a price, then go for it. Otherwise, I’d appreciate it if you would knock off the insults.”
Pisses me off every time I think of it.
What the seller paid for the item is irrelevant.
Again, the goal is not to give the buyer the thrill of victory. The goal is profit. Even for a once a year garage sale, refusal to haggle results in decreased sales.
Because somebody has to state an initial figure, otherwise people spend all day sizing eachother up.
Good will is generated by a seller who is willing to haggle. Good will results in trust.
The prices are not padded to take advantage of poor hagglers. They are padded to allow for haggling, which is cusomary and expected, and creates good will, and thus trust.
Play the game because it is the custom.
If in a morning of garage saling you only save seventy five cents, you either bought very few items, or truly do not know how to haggle.
Oh god, Route 11.
I’d blocked my memory of that highway.
Here’s the crux–it’s the custom in some places, perhaps. It’s emphatically NOT the custom in at least one series of small towns in west-central PA, and perhaps it’s just not as universal as you seem to think it is?
I’ve had garage sales in a number of different communities, where haggling definitely was not the accepted custom. If any haggling was to happen, it would be later in the day when people were a little more anxious to get rid of their stuff that hadn’t moved yet. But I know that when I’ve held a garage sale, I’ve priced things low enough that people are generally quite happy with the prices as marked, and although someone as a buyer might regard as insulting my refusal to haggle when I’ve just opened the doors, as a seller I regard it as insulting when a buyer tries to get something that’s already marked at an incredibly deep discount for even less with the intimation that I’ve deliberately overpriced stuff. I generally mark things at least 25% below the going garage sale price for similar stuff in my area, so I’m definitely not artifically inflating prices just to give buyers the joy of haggling; I’m pricing stuff to move. And it usually does, quite well.
It’s really not safe to assume that haggling is the accepted practice everywhere, because in some places it really is not. On the other hand, even if it’s not an accepted practice, most people will start marking stuff down later in the day just to get rid of it. But someone who rudely insists I should haggle first thing? Not gonna happen, at least with me.
And that’s why I’ve stopped garage saleing and stick to freecycling these days. A lot less aggravation all the way around.
That may be, but you’re getting a TV for $35. That’s a great price. There’s no need to haggle to get a bargain-- you’re already getting a bargain if you pay the price on the sticker.
I sold the majority of the items at my sale without haggling. The majority of people paid the price on the sticker and left.
Not in my book. I’m not going to trust a person who intentionally overprices his merchandise to give “room” for haggling.
I see. Please answer my question-- would the seller refund the difference if I didn’t haggle, saying, “Oh, I really only wanted five dollars for it”? If not, they are, indeed, taking advantage of people who don’t haggle.
As others have already expressed, perhaps this custom is not as widespread as you believe. The majority of the people at my yard sale paid the price I asked without comment, and upon further reflexion, I haven’t seen much haggling when I’ve gone to yardsales as a buyer. It’s infrequent enough to stick out in my mind, anyway.
I’m already saving a hell of a lot of money buy paying what’s on the sticker. Last time I went to a yardsale, I bought an antique beer tray for ten dollars and a pretty dried flower arrangement for five. I looked online later, and saw the same beer tray for twenty five dollars, and I’m certain I would have paid at least forty dollars for the same flower arrangement at a florist. I saved nearly fifty dollars, and didn’t have to haggle one bit.
I suppose I could have dickered with the guy selling the stuff and got the tray for seven, or the flowers for four, saving me three dollars, but it’s simply not worth the hassle, especially when I’m already getting nice things for dirt-cheap prices. Really, what’s the point in spending ten minutes trying to weasle a measly three bucks out of the seller, when I could be spending that time doing something else?
Indeed they are. You either aggravate hagglers, or end up taking advantage of the non-hagglers.
OTTOMH, I’ve seen it in VA, PA, NJ, MD, FL, and I think GA and SC
If you know how to haggle, and the seller does as well, it shouldn’t take nearly that long.
I don’t see it as weasling, Neither do plenty of other people.
Measly? Three hundred pennies is measly? Twelve quarters? Thirty dimes? Measly?
Doc, in the extraordinary circumstance I were ever to have a yard sale, you would leave empty handed. I do not haggle, at all, for anything. Ever. That includes cars.
Not necessarily, I haggle either because my gut (nigh infallible when dealing with garage sales, antiques, or collectibles) tells me a better deal can be had, or because I am genuinely unsure if I want to buy the item for the marked price. After some internal dialogue, I often decide that it is better to risk overpaying for something I’ll find cheaper elsewhere than to lose my chance to buy an item.
Did I post the hat story? Or did I delete it before posting?
The last time my mother bought a car, she got the price she wanted, the options she wanted, and the hat the saleman was wearing at the time. During negotiations, my father mentioned what a nice hat it was, and asked where he could get one like it. Mom got the man to throw it in. The thought of buying a car without haggling terrifies me.
Clarification
When I buy at a garage sale, I am generally interested only in paying as little as possible. But, there are exceptions. When griefstricken parents are holding a garage sale to get rid of the possessions of a beloved son killed in a car accident, and those possessions turn out to be extremely valuable Star Trek items, I do my best to prevent anybody from buying everything and keep the parents from being ripped off.
When selling, at a garage sale, spot at a weekly market, or toy show, I am not trying to rip anybody off. I have marked items with prices I can be happy with, and I want buyers to be happy as well. I have no problems letting non-hagglers pay more, as long as they are happy with the price. When buying multiple items, people are subject to spontaneous discounts anyway.