Price negotiation

[GTRMAN]

it's all negotiation, who and wherever you're buying from.
generally pick what YOU think the item is worth, what it's advertised for, and go 100% again down, to start negotiations. ie if you think it's worth 175$, it's advo'd at 200, you start negotiations at 150$.

Advertised price - $200
Your perceived value - $175 (87.5% of the advertised price)
Start offer - $150 (75% of the advertised price)

If Johnny has 1 apple and you give him another, his total number of apples has gone up by 100%. If he then eats half an apple his total number of apples has decreased by 25% You forget that percentages are a ratio, not an absolute.


something is only worth what the seller is willing to sell it for.
a lathe might be bought for 2k$, but to an engineer that's his livelihood, so it's worht infinitely more. a boat at 16k$, but again, a fishmonger's livelihood.


anything you can pay cash for should be 15% straight off, especially if they're offering "finance"

i've known people ot walk out of car yards with <50% off stickered price (the salesman was nearly crying). just walk around the car and point to every dent, scratch, uneven tyre wear etc etc etc.

consider that most stores have ~100% markup (profit margin), and can generally afford to go a lot lower than you'd think. but you wont know until you ask.

The text in bold is close captioned for the thinking impaired.

[Coldrider]

The text in bold is close captioned for the thinking impaired.

Thanks for the sanity, i was thinking integers, floats and long longs, but had never considered randoms.

[onearmedbandit]

The text in bold is close captioned for the thinking impaired.

I think you're missing what he's trying to say.

Advertised price is $200.
He thinks it's worth $175 ergo $25 less.
Take this 'less' figure, add 100% of its value to it (ie double it).
Gives you a starting figure of $150.

[Robert Taylor]

The text in bold is close captioned for the thinking impaired.

Of course the main impairment is the naive assumption that there is huge margin in selling motorcycles. Its ( cynically ) a perverse game when the buyer not only wants the lowest possible price but also'' wants retail'' for his trade. Or so it often seems.

[Crasherfromwayback]

a perverse game when the buyer not only wants the lowest possible price but also'' wants retail'' for his trade.

Welcome to my world.

[onearmedbandit]

Welcome to my world.

And mine...

[Maha]

Of course the main impairment is the naive assumption that there is huge margin in selling motorcycles. Its ( cynically ) a perverse game when the buyer not only wants the lowest possible price but also'' wants retail'' for his trade. Or so it often seems.

Welcome to my world.

And mine...

.......and never will a buyer ever get that result.

I once went to the North Shore looking to trade my sprint on a daytona ...salesman offered me (what I thought was) $2K under what I would have been happy with, as a trade..
$6k for my sprint... (Daytona was on the floor @ $14.495)
I said ''make it $7K (was looking for 8K) and we'll do the paper work''.
He told me to sell it privately and come back and see him.

My thought was...if I sell it privately, I wont be coming back.
Bike was sold on TM for $9K a few weeks later.
The CB was purchased soon after........brand new, from a local shop.

Moral here is...if some wants to make a deal happen...make it work, for both party's.

[Akzle]

Frosty had every right to challenge your naive assertions and you cannot justify your indignance at him doing so in citing that posts that immediately followed yours clarified how abysmal margins actually are. ...
All businesses have the right to make a fair and reasonable profit and to pay their staff well.

i can justify MY indignation any way I want thank YOU very much.

that asides. some dick who follows me around the internet then disagrees with my post without reading further on, where i qualify my statement and am then proven otherwise by people more knowledgable than me... well, that guy's a dick.

i'm not questioning any businesses' "rights", nor staff's pay.

[DMNTD:Me]

Welcome to my world.

And mine...

Yerp...and mine too
I used to get a bit pissed off but now I simply say no and offer our best price.
I expect people to have a crack/haggle but sometimes it really is just a joke what people expect.

[nzspokes]

Welcome to my world.

But you Motorcycle shop workers are all loaded, you must get paid well!!!!!

I do have to say there are some really crap salespeople out there. Not aimed at you at all Pete. Some shops I went to I had to beg to talk to a salesman.

[Robert Taylor]

.......and never will a buyer ever get that result.

I once went to the North Shore looking to trade my sprint on a daytona ...salesman offered me (what I thought was) $2K under what I would have been happy with, as a trade..
$6k for my sprint... (Daytona was on the floor @ $14.495)
I said ''make it $7K (was looking for 8K) and we'll do the paper work''.
He told me to sell it privately and come back and see him.

My thought was...if I sell it privately, I wont be coming back.
Bike was sold on TM for $9K a few weeks later.
The CB was purchased soon after........brand new, from a local shop.

Moral here is...if some wants to make a deal happen...make it work, for both party's.

It sounds like the salesman could have made better word choices and been more diplomatic perhaps? And to the effect ''if we dont have to trade your bike we can sharpen the pencil a little on the new one''. Thats a good price you got for the bike you otherwise would have traded and perhaps this happened in a market that is way more ''fluid'' than it is now? But conversely many times erstwhile purchasers have gone off to try and privately sell their motorcycles to find that it isnt so easy to get the price they expected, or to even get any solid interest beyond ''tyre kickers''.
The part I really like is you ended up buying off your local.

[Robert Taylor]

i can justify MY indignation any way I want thank YOU very much.

that asides. some dick who follows me around the internet then disagrees with my post without reading further on, where i qualify my statement and am then proven otherwise by people more knowledgable than me... well, that guy's a dick.

i'm not questioning any businesses' "rights", nor staff's pay.

I stand resolutely by what I said on the basis of what you first said, that made your statements look like the word choice you used to describe Frosty. And no amount of later qualification will alter what over the years I and many others have evidenced from buyers who dont care one iota whether your business can survive. Many who play this game in asking for ridiculous and unsustainable discounts are in fact ( technically ) insulting.
( Cynically ) what you in effect hear is ''Id like to assist you on your path to bankruptcy by beating you down to a price that is commercially unsustainable and if you are stupid enough to accept that. I also want a crazy price for my trade that doesnt take into account that there are not so obvious faults with it that I havent disclosed to you and your overdraft interest is going to kill you in carrying it on the floor in a market oversubscribed by competing dealers''. There are plenty of dodgy dealers out there BUT also there are plenty of dodgy customers.
The reality is there is always haggling about end price in any industry, my business is no different and we sharpen the pencil on many deals, but there must always be a line in the sand that is commercially sensible. Also its not always about the best price, its about value and (where required ) solid and knowledgable backup.

[Akzle]

I stand resolutely by what I said on the basis of what you first said,

i irresolutely stand by what i said, on the basis of what you said after i said what i said then you said what you said and that other guy said what he said without reading what else you and i had said...

we sharpen the pencil

does that hurt?

[jasonu]

[COLOR="#139922"]


does that hurt?

It will if he stabs you in the leg with it because you tried to jew him too much...

[FROSTY:Me]

you need to read a bit further through the thread. that question has been answered.

"at in a senior role is the last 5 years or so?".... you should also do a "does it make sense" check before charging off on your pretentious high horse.

DOOFUS-you diddn't answer your STATEMENT OF FACT. You tried to qualify it with a whole bunch of rubbish. Ohh cars/bikes have huge margins on em yet you have NO substance to back it up.
Ohh and YES I do have substance to back up my statement that you are talking utter rubbish.