What are your notable stories of selling or giving away things online?
What are your notable stories of selling or giving away things online?
I just had three "very special" Craigslist experiences in a row and wondered what everyone else deals with when selling things online.
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I was selling a saw. Pretty good one, compound mitre, slider, 12" blade, and a really nice stand. I don't remember what I wad asking, but it was fair. Let's say $500 for the sake of the story. Dude gets in touch, asks a couple of questions, and says yeah, he'll take it for that price. Day comes, he shows up and checks it out. I have it set up and we cut a couple of boards to show him it's all square and good.
He says cool, here's $300.
I say, yeah, uh, we said 5. I'm selling it for 5. Not 3.
He looks at me deadpan and says this is all I brought.
I say well, I'm selling it for 5.
He looks at me and says I drove all the way from *city about an hour away on a good day with no traffic.
I look back at him and say Huh. I bet you wish you hadn't done that.
He just kind of stands there looking at his shoes while I pack the saw back up and he sort of sulks off.
This is extremely common as a sort of all-or-nothing negotiation tactic. They’re hoping that you’ll just go “ah well, I don’t want to bother with getting someone else out here. Just go ahead and take it for $300.” Basically, they’re hoping you’ll fall for the Sunk Cost fallacy, and let them have it for cheap.
Ha. He earned his 2.5 hour round trip then. And honestly, had he pulled out another, $200 I'd have told him fuck off.