Here’s a secret: sellers aren’t stupid. Well, actually, they frequently are, but any seller who has any idea what he or she is doing does one thing: inflate prices.
Say you’re having a garage sale. You have a decent, working item, say a microwave oven. You look on Craigslist and, what do you know, the going rate is $15 (an accurate value as of September, at least for Southern California). How do you price it so you get $15?
The wrong answer is to tell people it’s $15. Why? The Second Rule of Bargaining: always make an offer. When you tell them $15, they’re going to counter with $10, $5, or even $2. So what do you do? Inflate your price! Start at $30, but tell people it was $40 (“I was asking $40 but you can have it for $30″). This way when they offer $15 you can counter with $20 or $22. When they offer $10 you can offer $17. Be sure to stick to your minimum. Buyers will be much more agreeable when you are willing to bargain and if you settle for higher than your minimum, great. Free money.
Price inflation is a simple technique used at almost every sale. People expect you to counter and so they raise their prices accordingly. Only incredibly naive sellers demand their initial price so always bargain.
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