kronin323
Font of Useless Knowledge
I'm on a roll.
Kind of related, my biggest seller pet peeve is this buyer question:
'What's your best price?'
I never know how to answer it other than to say my 'best' price is already stated in the advert.
I get that it's a request for a discount. But unless I've stated 'firm' in the sale post, just make a reasonable offer. Don't leave it to me to start making lower offers to you, the buyer! If I wanna do that, I'll just lower the price in the advert for all to see.
Finally, if your offer is more than 10-15% lower than asking price, it's probably better not to PM in the first place. (Unless you know for a fact that the seller is EBay pricing because he's delusional, greedy or stupid. In which case also best not to PM)
I'm done. Phew.
Exactly - as a seller, always require the buyer to make the first offer, if it's less than your asking price. "What's your best price?" is really just fishing - they have an offer in mind, but you may be willing to take less so they're giving you the "opportunity" to set a price even better than what they're considering offering. And even if it's not, your "best price" will have to be closer to the offer they have in mind, giving them less of a range they have to compromise on. Most negotiations, if successful, meet somewhere in the middle, and they're basically trying to skip a turn.
In general in any negotiation you always want the other party to make the first offer. You could consider that the forum exchange requirement that you must list a price forces a seller to make the first offer but not really - with most things there's already a publicly perceived value, which you could consider the list price, and the negotiations don't start until an offer is made. By the buyer.
All this IS a lot easier if sellers just list reasonable prices and if buyers just make full-price offers...
But if "ifs" and "buts" were candies and nuts we'd all have a Merry Christmas...