Uncommon or Unique Items, Part 2

As I mentioned in my introduction on the 23rd, good bargaining skills are required for those rare garage sale items.  It's a careful balancing act of ensuring you purchase an item you will probably never see at a sale again and still getting a good deal.

The most important factor in these situations is sizing up your seller.  As I've mentioned before, profiling your seller and simply waiting to see how receptive the seller is to other buyers' bargaining attempts are both simple.  However, note that some sellers aren't as receptive to some buyers' bargaining as they are to others'.  I watched one seller go from $5 to $0.10 on a piece of jewelry for someone else and then refuse to go from $0.50 to $0.25 on a book for me.

Offending your seller is the worst thing you can do in this situation.  If he or she doesn't want to sell it to you, you will possibly literally never get the item.  Do everything you can to get and stay on the seller's good side.  Bargain well but don't be rude.  For whatever reason, people seem to take what I would consider offensively low offers much better if you smile when making the offer.  If you desperately want the item, I suggest simply asking the seller for his or her starting price.  I do occasionally insult sellers with lowball initial offers and, once or twice, I managed to get the seller to not sell me the item for any price.  Even if he or she chooses to acknowledge you after being insulted, the seller may be unwilling to offer you as good a deal as you would have gotten otherwise.

Another way to profile a seller is to inquire about prices for items in which you have no interest.  Say, for example, there's an LCD computer monitor (not especially uncommon but it's a good example for this technique) you're interested in but for which you're unwilling to spend more than $5.  The seller, unfortunately, is of a demographic known to expect exorbitant prices for anything tech-related.  (By this I mean old people; please don't be offended, readers.  You have no idea how many older couples I've seen listing their late '80s or early '90s CRT monitors for $20 or even $40.  Goodwill won't even take those now.)  If you suspect a high price and a sensitive seller, inquire about other items you fear may be expensive and base your decision to make an offer based on the seller's response.

So ends Part 2, my discussion of various bargaining techniques for unique items.  Part 3 will discuss deciding what's a fair price for these items.