selling fish and nagotiability!

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jerzyperson

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Jul 23, 2008
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Indiana
so i am selling most my stock off, but my asking price was a bit to high so i lowered my prices and had an offer a while back at 300 for the lot. wll the lot was worth 600 so i refused, so he offered again when i dropped the price to 500 for the lot. yet again, 300. so i refused that too. so i dropped my prices and sold a tank so my asking price was 350 for the lost. i offered to sell it all to him for 300, he counter offered with 250, now dropped his offer to 200 even. would you accept this offer? the lot is

2x30 gallon tanks
1x20 tall
4 gymno's
2 catfish
2 jd's
2 angels
1 payara scomb

im stumped cause if i don't accept then i can't get my rays, if i do i just cheated myself outta 150 bucks? im asking all who have delt with this and im just wondering if the sacrifice is worth it, if im over exagerating or what. and feedback is needed. im lost!

here is my craigslist add. don't mind the 400 for it all at the end, i forgot to change that when i changed the prices. http://wyoming.craigslist.org/for/1884411558.html all my gymno's are F1 and F0 from ken davis.
 
I'd say it comes to what does $150 mean to you.

Personally, I'd be willing to pay an extra $150 no problem for rays, because they're pretty cool fish.

If you don't need the money especially, I'd almost say for what your asking, just keep your tanks along side your ray tank.


If $300 is a lot to you, err, $150, then you need to position your item to be worth what your asking. Include pictures. Also, shoot from low, wide angles. It can make something seem bigger. Unless of course you have an amazing front-on shot.

Try selling it a complete kit, a way into the hobby of fish keeping =).

There is your few lines of marketing crash course :) If you want more, it comes down to patience, and demand. If nobody wants a 100g tank in your area (it'd never happen, but hypothetically), you could even have a hard time giving it away.

Oh, one more tip from the marketing side of me - fake demand :)

It may turn away a few people to say "I've got someone else willing to pay XYZ", and depending on how comfortable you are with a bit of lying, it may be a bad idea, but it also has a chance in resulting in them taking it at full price.

Say something along the lines of "I have no interest in facilitating a bidding war via email, I am extremely busy, so the first person to take it at full price will get it."
 
interesting.. i have resorted to a little bit of lying, but nothing to that extent, the difference between 200 and 350 to me is 1 ray. im getting rays and 200 i can get them, because of my own money, but it would be nice to have some left over or the choice to get 1 extra or not. i have thought about that, and its really not to late. but this guy is pretty stuborn so im kinda pushing my bounds with him. i fear if i tell him i just had an offer for 300 for the whole shibang then i would end up losing his interest. but again i could sell each tank as a kit typ deal with alotted fish and maybe even make a bit more profit as such. im not very business savy as you can tell, and its pretty difficult to be reasonable while still getting half of what you paid for them.
 
really? i might ship if i can get the supplies to do it. i'd probably more likely then not get more off this website then locally. but i thought i would share the splendors of the mfk comunity around. unfortunatly nobody wants it.. oh well
 
If it's a tank I can see selling it at half price. If it's a fish that isn't old or beat up, I'm gonna want at least 3/4 of what I paid for it or full price. You housed and fed the fish for the time you had them. I'd get as much as possible.

I've tried the lying bit with hagglers on craigslist and lost the sale before. I've even told the truth and lost the sale lol. I'd ask for whatever it is the fish cost you as asking price, and give a little bit on each price.
 
well its tanks and fish so thats where im at a loss. the tanks im very nagotiable, but my fish im pretty firm about.
 
Make a photo album on imageshack or somewhere else and just insert links into ad. Get more pictures in there. Put your 4 best pictures in the slots provided, extra pictures always help.

It seems my deals on Craigslist were always based on timing, if you want to dump something fast you're going to take a hit. I lay out a timeframe on how soon I want to sell something and adjust the price accordingly, with a big drop at the end. You just have to catch demand at the right time.

I've had dipsh#ts do the same thing and agree to the low ball offer and they still don't show. One guy showed up with $50 less than the low ball offer and said that was all he could scrounge up. People will always try to screw you if you let them.

Again, your ad is pretty worthless without pictures on there. :nilly:
 
Cookie*420;4371152; said:
If it's a tank I can see selling it at half price. If it's a fish that isn't old or beat up, I'm gonna want at least 3/4 of what I paid for it or full price. You housed and fed the fish for the time you had them. I'd get as much as possible.

I've tried the lying bit with hagglers on craigslist and lost the sale before. I've even told the truth and lost the sale lol. I'd ask for whatever it is the fish cost you as asking price, and give a little bit on each price.
Click to expand...


I've actually never dealt with craigslist, or any similar sites. I wouldn't bother with $150 myself, in fact, I'd just keep up the extra tank for what its worth.

That aside, I'm a biz consultant and web marketing/development guy, and several quite large companies do this. I don't like the idea personally, but it works, at least on the larger scale. It comes accross in different ways. For example, sony/nintendo/microsoft, they will produce less consoles than they plan to sell, and make them seem more in demand. That way, they can get away with charging more. The same happens with chain stores understocking or rarely having an item in stock. It means as soon as they do stock up, the item will sell near instantly.



Anyways, rays are pretty sweet, so I'm guessing you'd probably really like that extra ray.



@bearbear, just hold out and tell them to f*** off. If you haggle once, you'll be known to haggle. In fact, I won't even touch my prices. If someone offers me $200, for a $300 item, I'll say no. That said, if it doesn't sell at $300, I'd consider dropping the price to $200, and letting the person know that the price has dropped. The key is to make them know that you are in charge. Its almost like walmart, or mcdonalds, its well known that they won't negotiate their prices, but if nobody buys at the higher price, their prices will drop.


I would reply to the guy something along the lines of...


I'm not interested in selling this at any less than my asking price. My prices are not negotiable. The item you are interested in is already priced to sell, at a great discount from what you'd pay at any retail store. If you are still interested, please let me know. The price of $XYZ is final. I really do hope to do business with you, but I'm not interested in negotiating.

Thanks for your interest, and I look forward to doing business,
YOUR NAME





I encourage you to go for full price, those rays are awesome, if I had the space in my house, I would have a tank to get one.
 
ok so i haven't checked my mail today to see if he responded to my message. what i did was kinda lied such as the first message kinda referred me to. i told him i had an offer for 250 without a 30 gallon tank, asking him if he was really interested that if he beats that he could take the lot, and that i just had another fish go up for sale. a rejected female parachromis sp. la ceiba yellow head. so i kinda countered his offer and kinda nagotiated another fish into the deal if he accepts. im tempted to change on my craigslist add, first reasonable offer takes it all! what is your opinion on this?
 
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