Point 3 more or less ensures that someone will offer $300 and then show up with less just to see it burn.
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Here’s how I haggle (at least on FB Messenger):
ME: For Sale: One thing $100
First Up: “I’ll give you $60!”
ME: For you? $140
First Up: “What? That’s not how this works”
ME: I set the price because it is my stuff
First Up: “But that’s not fair, you wanted $100”
ME: Sorry, but while you were dicking around, someone just bought it for $100.
end scene
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This all gets a little “seller doth protest too much”.
Flakes universally do not read any of your auction or listing specifications.
Those seats probably aren’t worth $300 and will be up on CL for months or years where the guy will continue adding specifications and curses and unintentionally explain why he’s only getting flakes responding to his listings.
Listing at reasonable prices, I never get too brought down by the lowballers because more others respond, because people actually want to buy the things I sell at least close to the price I’m asking.
If your prices are at the top end that nobody wants (skipping out on what, sales tax?) you’ll select for offers that are “unreasonable” for what you want.
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Anyone who sells items online through listings where offers are possible (through message or design of the ecosystem) deals with lowballers in some form, but the performativity of these screeds is really not about the potential audience.
As a buyer the flake factor works both ways, and the more inflexible a seller proudly states they are, the more potential trouble I tend to have in completing the transaction in general. Do they actually want to sell it? Usually there’s more drive to work with others and get something confirmed in the books.
The worst with me as a seller is always when I had “free” stuff for the taking, I end up putting a $5 price and then when the person comes by to pick it up, I handwave away the payment. Assigning value to the item makes it more likely for the person to come by instead of exchanging emails, then texts to schedule my time and THEN flaking out.
I guess it all comes down to the friction on either side of a transaction. If you want whatever, you’ll work to make it easy to buy or sell it. The more obstinance thrown into coordination the less successful you’ll be in the end.
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I absolutely fucking detest haggling. I can deal with one round of offer/counteroffer, but that’s it.
If someone is going to stand there and argue with me, I’d rather just throw the thing out that sell it to them. Whatever they’re paying me isn’t worth dealing with them.
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If you have people offering more than the list price, why are you even wasting time talking to hagglers?
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The poster clearly didn’t think this through.
If I email them to negotiate price they will have to throw the stools out and sell them to someone else for that price…
They are exhibiting classic games theory cut off nose to spite face behavior, where the poster would rather have nothing than let someone else gain anything.
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I am so stealing that for next time. Comedy Gold.
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“First person who actually shows up, cash in hand” prioritization?
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For me negotiators are not the problem, it’s people who say they want to pay full price and for you to ship to them as part of an over payment scam where they send you too much money by fraudulent check or credit card and ask you to refund the extra via some non-reversible means like cash app, western union, gift cards or some such,
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My dad was a shopkeeper in the 60s, he often haggled in stores and frequently got a better price. I adopted the habit, though this only worked in owner-run shops, not chains, so don’t do it anymore (in stores).
An exception is brand-name consumer electronics, since dealers are often required to put an official “MAP” price on gear in ads but are often happy to sell for less.
A couple of years ago I haggled with a Chinese merchant on aliexpress over a rather expensive purchase. Lots of back-and-forth in the middle of the night my time. It was kind of satisfying (for both of us, I think), and it was also a way I could confirm that the seller was legitimate, as she wouldn’t have bothered had she been scamming.
And the assumption that the seller is doing this is why people offer less. If you don’t do this, just put “price firm” in the listing, it removes that assumption and the asking price should then be respected.
One thing I don’t understand is people who put “or best offer” on listings then don’t accept offers. What’s the point?
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Those are super easy to spot in CL, at least.
Always “is this still available” with an excerpt from poetry or lyrics scrolled paragraphs down from procedurally generated email, unrelated name, “please email procedurally generated email with unrelated name because I do not check this account”.
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ah, good question.
That circumstance usually happens only when they come to pick up the item and THEN try to haggle the price down, at which point they get all:
“Hey, I’m already here and whatcha gonna do I got cash in hand and hey what do you mean I have to leave I drove an hour to get here and ok ok I’ll pay the asking price already, geez…”
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she grabbed the ashtray from him and threw it on the driveway, where it shattered. “Now you can’t ever have it,” she said.
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I’m convinced that people who choose to sell on CL versus other methods are the same kind of people who love to one-up “What are ya in for” conversations in the doctor’s waiting room.
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1: The item is not really For Sale, they are testing to see what today’s “market price” is.
2: The item is For Sale but they are treating it like an Auction. Except you don’t get to see the other Bids. After they get a bunch of “offers” they get back to the person who actually seemed like they would pay the most and tell them “someone offered more but I’d rather sell it to you for that price” or something similar.
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- The timesink of eBay isn’t great for cheaper items (and having less knowledgeable buyers.)
- I like Reverb (and sell most of my stuff there) but prefer to not spend the time packaging for shipment and losing money on fees.
- OfferUp is just CL with shitty FB integration and a weird UI
- FB Groups are good for some items but also a lot of work
What am I missing with any scale and without other tradeoffs 
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The problem with putting OBO in the listing is it tells people that the listed price is not the price and encourages people to offer you less. So to see what the market will bear you have to leave the listing up to see what people will offer. As johnson notes, it’s treating the listing like an auction, a very inefficient auction.
I think, instead, many people don’t say OBO because that will reduce the price of offers, but will accept a best offer if they have to. And knowing that, people will make offers on listings that don’t say OBO. But maybe I’m over thinking it?
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