So I hate haggling. Some people love it. They seem to enjoy going in and seeing if they can get a better price for the thing, and they (I’m guessing) must feel like they’re being ripped off if they don’t. 
I don’t understand this. At all.

I recently sold our oldest car. We had just paid off the newer one and had been wanting to get a new car. So we decided to take the 2009 Honda Fit and put it up private party for sale, then use the money as the down payment on the new car. I had hoped to get 4k outta the Fit. It had 175k miles on it, and some light cosmetic damage, but is in great working condition. I had checked out the prices online and the others were going for minimum 6k.

So I put two different ads out: one on CarGurus for $4750 (CarGurus’ suggested price), and one on Craigslist for $4250 (my price with a touch of fat built on because I know people are going to want a bit of discount).

Predictably, from the start I’m getting guys offering 2500, 3000, etc. I HATE this.

I have friends who’ve told me that I’m doing it all wrong, and that I need to set the price higher, and play the game whether I like it or not.

But to my mind, if you have any idea what value is, and have been looking around for a this car, then you should know right away that 4K is already a great price. Asking for a discount, especially a 1k or 1.5k discount, is just plain douchebag territory. It’s asking for me to just give you all that off for nothing more.

Here’s the deal… I actually enjoy telling these guys to go stuff themselves. I think that’s part of the reason why I set the price low and then refuse to give much. I know the cheapskates are gonna come calling, and it gives me a reason to tell them off. I actually derive pleasure from doing this. It even crossed my mind yesterday that maybe I could put something up on craigslist that I didn’t want to sell, just so I could tell the cheapskates no. I don’t know what that says about me…. and I won’t do that… but it DID cross my mind for a moment, and made me start wondering why.

It might come from the last time I did sell for lower than I wanted.

I was selling a Saturn years ago for a VERY reasonable 1200. I had checked and the next lowest price was 1900. So I set mine low in order to sell it since I was looking for the money to use on the purchase of my next piece of transportation. A guy came all the way down from the central valley to LA. He was a car guy and had tools with him, did a thorough check of everything and was satisfied, then offered me 1000 rather than the 1200 I was asking. I accepted. But I wasn’t happy about it and it bugged me for a while afterwards because I knew the car as priced was a deal, HE knew the car as priced was a deal, and yet he decided to just try and take that 200 bucks from my pocket. And I let him. Had I had my wits about me, I would have recognized that he had just driven hours to check this out, it was what he wanted, and he probably wouldn’t have been willing to go back home with nothing over 200 bucks when he knew he’d have to pay 900 more than he paid for the next cheapest thing.

But live and learn, they say, right? I decided from that moment on that I wouldn’t take lowball offers just because someone proposed them. And no matter HOW ridiculous the price is, there are idiots out there who just can’t help themselves.

I moved into a place years ago that had no washer/dryer place. So I had to sell my washer and dryer.

I had them out for 100 bucks a piece, which is an absolute steal. Still, I’d get knuckleheads calling and asking if I’d take 25 for the set. These people can’t be serious. And honestly… what kind of mental disease do these people have to have to do this?? They can’t be serious in thinking they’re offering a reasonable value for the item. There’s just some mental illness that has convinced them that unless they are paying less than the asking price, they’re being ripped off.

But here’s the deal, and this is a really crude definition that would admit of many exceptions and nuances, but which nonetheless basically holds true: what’s the value of something? You are overpaying for something IF you could go someplace else and get it for cheaper. You are underpaying for something IF you would have to pay more anyplace else.

If therefore, they KNOW they would have to pay more anyplace else, and they’re still asking for more discount, then they are asking for free money. And they know it. They are asking for me to just give them the amount for nothing more than them asking.  

You might think? Well, it’s worth the try! It can’t hurt to ask.

Does that strike you as fair? Would it be worth the try to ask you to pay twice as much on an item as it’s worth?  

Yeah, I’m aware that there are many places in the world where this is, in fact, the standard. They set the prices high knowing that people are going to want to haggle down. But if the price is set high, then of course it SHOULD be haggled down…. because the price is…. wait for it…. HIGH.

But when you know the asking price is already low, and you try to get me to take even lower, that’s just taking money from my pocket for the pure pleasure of taking money from my pocket. To this I say: you deserve whatever abuse gets heaped on you.

Thank you and have a good day.