tips to buyers, from a seller
Just sold my computer (not the nice one), using a classifieds site. In the light of my newfound experience and wisdom, here are my top bits of advice for people wanting to buy things.
1) Opening the conversation with "So, how low are you willing to go?" will get a less positive response than "You are selling for price X. I'd like to offer you price Y."
2) Acting as though you're willing to pay price X, spending over 20 minutes asking for details, photos, etc, and then smugly saying "I'll go price Y" - thereby assuming that I'm so invested, as per the sunk cost fallacy, that I'll instantly drop my price - will really get my back up.
3) No matter how reasonable you've been up to that point, suddenly starting to call me "darling" will get my creep meter on full alert, and make me determined to find someone else to sell to.
4) Offering to trade me a computer for a dirtbike is ridiculously entertaining. Even though I turned you down... keep doing that. It made my day.
5) If you are polite, straightforward, and do not fall prone to points 1-3, I'll happily drop the price a couple of hundred dollars, just because you seem nice. Well done.
The conversation's happening over at Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment there using OpenID. (
comments so far)
1) Opening the conversation with "So, how low are you willing to go?" will get a less positive response than "You are selling for price X. I'd like to offer you price Y."
2) Acting as though you're willing to pay price X, spending over 20 minutes asking for details, photos, etc, and then smugly saying "I'll go price Y" - thereby assuming that I'm so invested, as per the sunk cost fallacy, that I'll instantly drop my price - will really get my back up.
3) No matter how reasonable you've been up to that point, suddenly starting to call me "darling" will get my creep meter on full alert, and make me determined to find someone else to sell to.
4) Offering to trade me a computer for a dirtbike is ridiculously entertaining. Even though I turned you down... keep doing that. It made my day.
5) If you are polite, straightforward, and do not fall prone to points 1-3, I'll happily drop the price a couple of hundred dollars, just because you seem nice. Well done.
The conversation's happening over at Dreamwidth. Feel free to comment there using OpenID. (
comments so far)