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I think I have been trading stuff for about a year now and ti seems that gamers do not like to barter. I like to haggle to go back and forth over the worth of an item and get the best deal I could. Yet whenever I ahve the opportunity to do so everyone just replies, "not interested, that is way too much for me".

Of course it is too much I need to start high so I have room to maneuver, you need to start low so that you have ceiling space. Or vice verse depending. While you are at throw in some anecdotes or talk about the real value of what you are buying. e.g. "That paint job is going to clash with what I have I am going to have to strip it to use it."

All of the discussion is important to find out if it is an actual good deal for the buyer and the seller. So what if it doesn't sell or get bought at least you spent the time to figure out if it wasn't worth it.

I like to sell at 50% off but sometimes I haggle and sell for less and other times I can get more. Each time (which has been rare) I feel better when I walk away because I tried to get the better deal.

When the other party just walks a way immediately I feel that was a waste of time. Why even pm if you were not serious about the purchase, or it is even offensive when they want to buy it for nothing and then walk away saying that I am charging to much. What? We didn't even get to a real price.

What do you guys think? Is the age of haggling dead, am I being crazy to even think it is possible?

I think that most members of a consumer-driven society accept the price/value that an item has been assigned and simply believe it to be a static number, regardless of the conditions of the sale.

I'm with you, though. I like to reach an agreement and if I shoot high on my estimated price, I expect a counter offer. Especially if we're trading rather than buying/selling. Value is very relative!

I prefer not to waste my time trying to guess over the course of several days for the pm/mails to go back to figure out how good of a deal I can get for a deal. You tell me what you want, if I feel that they are worth it for me at that price, I pay it. Simple. Fast. No BS.

That way you get what you want to get, I get what I want to pay, and everyone is happy. I don't want to replicate buying a used car every time I want to buy a $3 miniature.


(Note that I am a Taurus, have O+ blood, and was born in the year of the Ox) so according to all the astronomical experts, I'm hard headed and very no nonsense)

Psychic premonition: Some people in this thread will love to barter, some will hate to barter. Few will be middle ground.

My amazing psychic prowess aside, I really think this is just something that is entirely based on your character. Some love to haggle, whilst others detest it. I personally like a little haggling in this kind of a situation but would hate it if I were buying from a regular shop.

htj wrote:Psychic premonition: Some people in this thread will love to barter, some will hate to barter. Few will be middle ground.[\quote]

You are amazing.... can you read palms?

Ya I actually think most people prefer no nonesense, but I do enjoy a good haggle though. Especially with miniatures, it is not so serious nad you actually know what you are talking about.

The general thoughts I have is that their figures in particular are worth their weight in gold. I've always done value for value or dollar for dollar. If it's current does your boxed set equal the value of mine? Done deal, fair exchange. Is it just a bunch of bits? This is where we get down to the nitty gritty. Some bits are worth more single due to demand then their other items. (i.e. Tyranid bits) At this point it comes down to haggling. The other thing I keep in mind is if I truly need that item. There will be times where you want to flush out, say, your Space Marines in general, but don't need Scouts. One of the replies you'll get can be, "Hey, I have 20 Space Marine Scouts I'd like to trade." I didn't even ask for them in my thread, so I tend to ignore people that simply can not read.

All in all each side is attempting to get the most bang for their buck. If you hit them w/ something that is current edition and don't take at LEAST 20% of the price, don't even bother messaging as I can buy it brand new for that, easily.

-J.

Keep in mind that haggling and bartering are two entirely different things that do not have to be associated.

You can haggle the price of your new dishwasher at Home Depot. They will not, however, barter with you for it.

Haggling is the back & forth between that involved parties, where bartering is just an exchange of items/goods/services/etc.

I love to barter, but am not always in the mood to haggle. To be quite honest, Pael, I do not like to haggle with people who take the p.o.v. that you seem to have. Of course, the buyer starts low and the seller starts high. I find it distasteful, however, to try to start TOO low or TOO high to give yourself a huge amount of room to maneuver. It just seems too unfriendly to me.
Your post read to me as if you think starting your prices ridiculously low or high is the right way to go about it. If so, this would explain why so many people walk away from you. If I know my best price is X, and you're VERY far away from X in your initial offer, I'm not even going to presume we'll make a deal, as the "meeting point" of any given haggle tends towards the center, typically.

Eric

MagickalMemories wrote:
I love to barter, but am not always in the mood to haggle. To be quite honest, Pael, I do not like to haggle with people who take the p.o.v. that you seem to have. Of course, the buyer starts low and the seller starts high. I find it distasteful, however, to try to start TOO low or TOO high to give yourself a huge amount of room to maneuver. It just seems too unfriendly to me.
Your post read to me as if you think starting your prices ridiculously low or high is the right way to go about it. If so, this would explain why so many people walk away from you. If I know my best price is X, and you're VERY far away from X in your initial offer, I'm not even going to presume we'll make a deal, as the "meeting point" of any given haggle tends towards the center, typically.

This is essentially how I feel (bolded the parts I especially resonate with), except that I'm almost always open to bartering and some amount of haggling.

I find Lowballers and high-pricers almost equally annoying, though I'll almost always make at least one counter offer. However, consider this example. I offer something online at 50 bucks and you offer 25. That's kind of insulting, but I'll probably counter offer with something around 40 bucks. If however, you come back with an offer of 27, I'm probably not going to continue to haggle with you. I'm not saying this is the practice of the OP, but a low/high-baller and someone who constantly comes back with anecdotes is more likely to cause me to walk away or simply say "___ is my final offer".

The fact is, that a reasonable offer is much more attractive than getting an offer where you can't tell if you are dealing with someone unreasonable or someone who just wants to get into a long and extended bout of haggling. This is even more exacerbated on the internet where it's impossilble to read body language and tone of voice of a person to tell if they're a haggling enthusiast or just a douche.

Slightly off topic, my favorite barterers are the creative folks. You can tell them because when you're working on a trade that isn't quite working out, they'll say something like "I've also got this laying around that you might be interested in...".

I understand trading in favor if their are items you just want to get rid of, however trying to barter someone out of the value for the "best deal" is not something I like to do. Why? I wouldn't want someone to do it to me. I like to be straightforward and honest. This is how I have gained the respect of the traders I have worked with. That's just my opinion, to each their own.

I like haggling/bartering, but Americans as a societal whole are not accustomed to the concept of it. We generally take the sticker price to be the price, no negotiations available, unless you're buying something like a car or a house.

I also feel like I should mention the '20% phenomenon'. A lot of people seem to have this idea that they can put used/secondhand stuff up on ebay, dakka swap shop, or even bartertown for 20% off, and thats a good deal... no, it really isn't. If I'm looking for second hand stuff, I'm not going to pay the same price I could get from a discount retailer. I'm looking to get a deal, quit trying to highball me.

It's my job to haggle, I must do it with 200+ customers a week, both buying and selling stuff. There is a skill to it, some people have it some don't. Some just hate to do it.

As far as I am concerned the seller should always state how much they are looking for. None of this "I don't know how much I want make me an offer" BS. They're your goods, your selling them, of course you know how much you want. If you go into a shop the shop will always tell you how much they want for their goods, thats what a seller does.

How much do I want to pay? Well I want to pay 50p, what thats not enough? Well tell me how much you want then douche bag.

Yeah sure you may be willing to except less then what your asking, I'm expecting that, thats why we haggle. But don't over inflate your asking price either, no chance in hell your toe nail clippings are worth £1000 don't bother asking that for them.

Once I know how much the seller wants to sell the items I will make an offer I want to pay AND that I think the seller might sell the items at. Don't do this very low hoping the seller will meet you in the middle. Make a sensible and realistic offer.

The balls back in the sellers court now, they have the power. Consider my offer, are you happy to sell at that? If so except it, if not refuse it and make a counter offer if you want.

From experience people will rarely move from this counter offer if they make one, so its up to me to decided whether to buy or not.

...

When I'm the seller obviously the whole thing works in reverse. Don't ask me how much I will except on the items or "will you sell it cheaper, I have given an asking price and that asking price is how much I will except. If your not happy to buy at that then make me an offer I can consider.

...

If in a country where haggling is the norm and the people are better at it I will do a lot more back and forth, mainly because they do set the asking price much higher then they are willing to except.

If I PM someone I expect the number they send me to be at or near their bottom line on individual pieces. Frankly I can't be bothered to haggle over small amounts of money so I'll cut off communication in disgust if individual item prices are beyond the pale.

If the individual prices are already in the right ballpark and i'm ordering a large batch, I'll shoot for a volume discount and we can haggle over that... Though most sellers will offer such a discount upfront and if it is reasonable I'll often just say "OK."

In some cultures major haggling is expected. Here in the US, however, jacking up your price by more than a marginal amount (10-15%?) specifically to give yourself room to come down is generally only found in slimy used car sales (I say as someone who works at a car dealership) or truely shady places like the eternally-going-out-of-business Persian rug places. Scum of the earth. If people ignore you after you present such an offer you should probably just be glad they don't tell you what they are really thinking.

Again... I don't think anyone has an issue with massaging prices a bit to make a deal; It's a matter of degree and intent.

Bangbangboom wrote:As far as I am concerned the seller should always state how much they are looking for. None of this "I don't know how much I want make me an offer" BS. They're your goods, your selling them, of course you know how much you want. If you go into a shop the shop will always tell you how much they want for their goods, thats what a seller does.

I totally agree with this. Admittedly, I sometimes forget to put a price on something but, if someone shows interest, I will not hesitate to put my offer out there. More often that not, though, lately, I've been looking for quick sales. So, I' have been giving my best price and saying so up front.
The seller should ALWAYS be willing to lead negotiations with their asking price. failure to do so just stinks of opportunism to me.

Bangbangboom wrote:Yeah sure you may be willing to except less then what your asking, I'm expecting that, thats why we haggle. But don't over inflate your asking price either, no chance in hell your toe nail clippings are worth £1000 don't bother asking that for them.

I will make you a MUCH better off than that on my toe nail clippings!

Eric

I think part of the bartering process is the seller should already know the guidelines, or rather the value of assembled (used) minis. As I understand, it's around 50% of retail unless it's been painted to almost Golden Demon level. Too many sellers expect full price, some goofballs even expect more than full price.

I can't remember the exact post but one seller stated his army was approximately 200% of retail due to it being assembled and painted, therefore making it "easier" for the consumer to not have to assemble and paint. Yeah... riiiight.

Maxstreel wrote:I think part of the bartering process is the seller should already know the guidelines, or rather the value of assembled (used) minis. As I understand, it's around 50% of retail unless it's been painted to almost Golden Demon level. Too many sellers expect full price, some goofballs even expect more than full price.

I can't remember the exact post but one seller stated his army was approximately 200% of retail due to it being assembled and painted, therefore making it "easier" for the consumer to not have to assemble and paint. Yeah... riiiight.

There are situations where fully painted units would be worth more to me than new ones. My daemon army, for instance, presently includes 100 Bloodletters. Each unit is very slightly different paint-wise... But how much variation can one have without being silly? Blood red, chaos black, bronze or brass on the swords. If I needed a fourth Bloodletters unit I'd pay 25% more for ones with a competent paint job just to avoid the grind. Ditto pink horrors. If I could find someone with competently painted gold/silver cadians I'd buy their troops too! I could justify the 25% as paint/glue costs and reducing the chance of a spilled paint pot hurting my apartments security deposit if nothing else.

Mostly this only applies to massed infantry units though. I guess I'd pay more than retail for assembled but unpainted vehicles too... But that is just because I always seem to fail in a critical and permanent way when assembling tracked tanks and the novelty wore off half a decade ago.

At the end of the day it's all about what a consumer is willing to pay, and what a seller will sell for.

Bartering is dead...

I'm with you pael. There are certain standards that are needed to help guide us to reasonable trades, but sometimes there are other factors to be considered.
I pin and carefully file down mold lines on all my metal models, so I do hold them at a higher value than average when I trade. Nobody will have to strip off my primer and take apart my models just to get them together right, they wont have to deal with chunks of superglue or bad paint jobs.
I also value new releases that I'm trading for a bit higher than their retail cost because I know the model hasn't been clunking around in an abused shoebox for years and there is a lower supply compared to demand.

Maxstreel wrote:I think part of the bartering process is the seller should already know the guidelines, or rather the value of assembled (used) minis. As I understand, it's around 50% of retail unless it's been painted to almost Golden Demon level. Too many sellers expect full price, some goofballs even expect more than full price.

I can't remember the exact post but one seller stated his army was approximately 200% of retail due to it being assembled and painted, therefore making it "easier" for the consumer to not have to assemble and paint. Yeah... riiiight.

I've got to disagree. There are definitely situations where a painted unit is worth 200% or more of their retail price. A good paint job on a generic army (Black templar, Ultramarines, Space Wolves, etc) will fetch VERY high prices from buyers looking for those units. If not, then there wouldn't be so many professional level sellers on feebay.

Byte wrote:Bartering is dead...

Long live bartering!
lol

Eric

its not dead.

but trying to haggle a price of a model over the internet to me is something i wont spend time to do.

If im selling, i have a price in mind, pay it or ill keep it, if it doesnt sell, then i will lower it later on, i find it rude when i have an ebay auction and i get messages wanting to buy it cheaper then my min price... there is a min price for a reason.

If im buying, if somone lists an item or posts one thats to high, i just pass it over, as ill just go buy new if i dont find it at the right price with less effort.

I barter alot (70 plus here on Dakka) and have gained a bit of wisdom on bartering.

Barter what makes you feel comfortable. If you set your standards too high on what you get in return, you'll barter few and far in between.

If you also keep your options open, bartering occurs more often.

And sometimes you need to simply step back and not barter with someone. Just don't be an ass. Be polite and explain why.

The OP makes me think of this chap...

You think it can be a pain with minis...you want to deal with the tidal wave of BS that comes with buying a house!

My annoyance is with sellers on Ebay who use terms that sometimes translate as:

Pro-Painted: the pro involved here might be a professional golfer, wrestler or dwarf-tosser, but not a professional painter of minis

OPP: GW aren't making them right now, but they were yesterday and might be again next week

RARE: something isn't rare when GW churned them out for two decades before they stopped, there are tons of minis from the 90's out there, stop trying to make out they're as exciting and important as an undiscovered Shakesperian sonnett

@Ketara that is exactly my point!!! LOL That is what I need a huge bouncer to force people into haggling.


Ok here is an example of the exact thoughts I had about haggling. A lot of posters assumed that I was offering extremly high etc,etc but I don't.

What is for sale: Dark Elf Metal War Hydra, 30 Corsairs 20 plastic 10 metal.
MSRP would be: 57.75 Hydra, 10 Metal 39.99, 20 plastics 49.50 Total $147.24

Now there is no way I would charge a full 40 for the metal I personally cut it down to 20 since you can get the plastics for 25 and I feel those are superior to the metal exept for nostalgia. Brings what I consider "trade" value to $127.24. (Trade value is what I would expect to get in miniatures of equal value.)

The customer asked what I wanted, Ideally I like to get 50% trade value cash. I feel that is fair because I want to give a good deal at the same time walk away with a good chunk of cash. So 50% would be $64, now is where the haggle come in. I asked for $75 a bit above 50%. What I would like to expect from my erstwhile customer would be an offer of $50 or so. I would then be able to counter offer and off we go to getting a fair deal between the two of us.

Now with offering a higher cost than what I want I may occasionally may get the customer that immediatly accepts because to them they may be seeing the value of the item higher than I do for other reasons than my own. In this example the guy has been looking for a hydra and this is the cheapest he has seen one and 75 dollars is a steal. Also on occasion I may let items go for the lower of the bids because of my own reasons... I have been sitting on this for a year and it is the last of my army to go....OK I will take the fifty etc. etc.

p.s. This is an actual trade I did, we settled on 60 after a few pm's back and forth and he picked up the nominal shipping costs.

Pael wrote:
Ok here is an example of the exact thoughts I had about haggling. A lot of posters assumed that I was offering extremly high etc,etc but I don't.

What is for sale: Dark Elf Metal War Hydra, 30 Corsairs 20 plastic 10 metal.
MSRP would be: 57.75 Hydra, 10 Metal 39.99, 20 plastics 49.50 Total $147.24

Is this actually how you listed the items? If you're only looking to trade, then it's ok, but if you're looking to sell or sell-or-trade, you should either list an actual asking price (many sites require this), or put a header over your list saying what percentage-of-retail you're looking for. Based on your narrative above, if you're post didn't list a percent-of-retail you should have listed the $75 you mentioned as your asking price. That would be a fair starting point for a haggle. You are of course welcome to price them higher, but you need to put an asking price.

If I was really needing what you have, I might make an offer, but otherwise, without an asking price or percent-of-retail I'm going to look for other sellers first. I suspect many others feel the same

Sorry, I should've been clearer in my original post. The virtue of a painted model does not mean "worth more." Painted very well does. It all depends on the paint job.

There are many examples of what folks call "tabletop" that are crap. But there are also examples of very well painted minis that are amazing and definitely worth what the seller is asking.

I hate haggling. If someone tells me a price that I'm not willing to pay, I'm not interested. I'm also not that dead-set on getting the best deal possible, because if you get a good deal, usually the other guy is giving up something.
I've had people try to pressure me into deals I did not want to do, and I refuse to do it to others.
I've even traded down, money wise, just because it was what both parties wanted. I got rid of most of my O&G in a trade for a bunch of GK. My O&G were worth a little more, but I was happy to trade them for stuff that I REALLY wanted.

I think the only issue with haggling is that sometimes people only respond once a day. So a difference of like $5 can drag out for a week or so.

Just for the record it aggravates me too when people just say "pass" as opposed to offering a counter.