Comments on: Back from Shanghai http://delackner.com/blog/2007/05/back-from-shanghai/ ideas to share with friends new and old Tue, 08 Dec 2009 14:18:07 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Seth http://delackner.com/blog/2007/05/back-from-shanghai/comment-page-1/#comment-16 Seth Tue, 22 May 2007 04:33:40 +0000 http://delackner.com/blog/2007/05/back-from-shanghai/#comment-16 Bargaining is an art, and starting with an initial crazy bid is one tactic. But imagine the fake brand bags that were sitting next to what I thought was a real ipod. For these bags, they are acutely aware of the actual retail prices, and their opening bids are always a fraction of the actual retail. Depending on the quality of the fakes, it seems their initial bid can go upwards of half of retail. But here we have someone starting out on a supposedly real good, at triple retail. This suggests to me that they actually dont even know what they are selling. Each time they returned with bizarre prices in the 2.5-2.8x range. I finally had to just say look have fun, I am sure you will sell it to someone, and I left. At that point of course they came running out and agreed. Their first bid was 3x retail. I then explained, in english and japanese, in terms that they nodded and said they understood, that the japan retail price is way lower than their initial asking price. At least three times they then said "ok ok ok ok" and then asked again for like 2.8x retail. I then repeated to explain what RETAIL is, since they clearly didn't know. They still got the last laugh, since they were selling a $1 fake. Bargaining is an art, and starting with an initial crazy bid is one tactic. But imagine the fake brand bags that were sitting next to what I thought was a real ipod.

For these bags, they are acutely aware of the actual retail prices, and their opening bids are always a fraction of the actual retail. Depending on the quality of the fakes, it seems their initial bid can go upwards of half of retail. But here we have someone starting out on a supposedly real good, at triple retail. This suggests to me that they actually dont even know what they are selling. Each time they returned with bizarre prices in the 2.5-2.8x range. I finally had to just say look have fun, I am sure you will sell it to someone, and I left. At that point of course they came running out and agreed.

Their first bid was 3x retail. I then explained, in english and japanese, in terms that they nodded and said they understood, that the japan retail price is way lower than their initial asking price. At least three times they then said “ok ok ok ok” and then asked again for like 2.8x retail. I then repeated to explain what RETAIL is, since they clearly didn’t know.

They still got the last laugh, since they were selling a $1 fake.

]]> By: Will http://delackner.com/blog/2007/05/back-from-shanghai/comment-page-1/#comment-15 Will Mon, 21 May 2007 19:54:20 +0000 http://delackner.com/blog/2007/05/back-from-shanghai/#comment-15 His initial asking price sounds pretty sane to me. He obviously faces almost no negative consequences from asking too high considering you ended up buying it anyway, instead of saying "fuck you for trying to swindle me, I'm not going to do business with you no matter what your price now" and walking away. So why not take a chance and start high? The odds of getting dumb foreigners to pay at least $150 (with the foreigners walking away patting themselves on the back for being able to negotiate the price down so far!) are high enough that it makes them a lot more in the long run. Or did you just mean insane from the point of view of the buyer? His initial asking price sounds pretty sane to me. He obviously faces almost no negative consequences from asking too high considering you ended up buying it anyway, instead of saying “fuck you for trying to swindle me, I’m not going to do business with you no matter what your price now” and walking away. So why not take a chance and start high? The odds of getting dumb foreigners to pay at least $150 (with the foreigners walking away patting themselves on the back for being able to negotiate the price down so far!) are high enough that it makes them a lot more in the long run.

Or did you just mean insane from the point of view of the buyer?

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