Would this put you off as a buyer?

[bobyoung53]

Just curious, what was the unreasonable part, I'm still missing it?

Any decent seller will attempt to accommodate a buyer. This guy seems like he wouldn't at all, could you imagine trying to return something to him if something you bought had a problem? He sounds like one of those guys who buys things very cheap and sells them high per another one of his posts, I won't deal with people like that maybe that is acceptable to him, to me? Nope. I prefer reasonable people. Sellers like that don't usually last. I guess what it boils down to is how much did he want that bass? Just remember: Buyer beware.

I had to change this post as at first I thought you were the potential buyer who had asked me that but I'm done now, I didn't realize this thing had turned into a 16 page thread.

 

[PhatBottomBass1]

I'm going out on a limb here...

But, I think that Mr. Monkey's initial example; starter drum set with either listing errors or faulty memory made the item less than was being represented all other issues being equal. Missing items, replacement parts required and general maintenance needed @ $450 IIRC.

Mr. Monkey in this situation having a budget for this acquisition sees additional capital expenditure on the horizon. Mr. Monkey makes what he feels is a reasonable offer to bring all costs into line to meet the needs of the purchase. The seller feels differently due to time on the market and declines.

Mr. Monkey is recontacted by the seller who has now taken some time, researched and reassessed the property on current market trends, availability, interest and other motivations. The offer is accepted and a sale/buy is transacted.

Mr. Monkey does a good job of refurbishing, completes the entire ensemble and has use for an extended period of time. The complete, likely well kept and potentially upgraded property is sold for more than the original acquisition purchase price in perhaps the original market.

This is good vibes...

What many are speaking to is the rake you have to put up with from the deeply uninformed, wholesale buyers looking to make any realistic profit margin and the "low baller" and his band mate "time waster."

Everyone has made an offer and completed a buy. The difference is, some feel the need for that M.O. in every situation to the point of the absurd. There are more people that don't do this making the number of those who do an ever present announce.

If I also heard correctly, the OP says "the case is gone now." I would never let a case or lack there of to determine my interest in buying the Bass!

Keep safe...!

 

[Brad Johnson]

LOL, you canNOT be serious right now.



Right, they can both walk away. That is the power they both have. Not sure how some of you are not getting this.



Nobody said anything about "looking" for a challenge. Sometimes the item you want is listed for more than you want to pay. I guess if you want to just wait theoretically forever for the "perfect" deal (not sure how that's really any different from you calling me "entitled" to a particular price, which I never claimed), then you can pass all those by, but usually I'd rather take a chance the guy will be cooperative. Some people you make a first counter offer and they jump at it. Some people don't budget. That's the nature of the beast.



I'm sorry, I didn't realize that I had to hold your hand while I stroke your hair and explicitly explain that every deal is different and you might have to adjust your approach based on the situation. Yes, buying (or selling) a Hendrix owned strat might be a bit different than picking up a used squier on craigslist. That doesn't really change anything I've said so far. There's nothing "bent" about it. I'm speaking in generalities about the bulk of everyday gear transactions. Even still, if you list a Hendrix owned strat at 20k, it will probably be snapped up tomorrow. At $10m, it might take a little longer. If someone offers you $9.5m, you might want to think about taking it, or counter at $9.75m, otherwise maybe you'll sit on it for a long time, and once the rich boomers all die out, who knows what prices on something like that will do.

Again, my whole point is to try to be courteous and flexible, so I'm really struggling to get why that's pushing so many people's buttons. Honestly it's kind of hilarious. I have people who come out of the gate insulting me, and then tell me I have a bad attitude, lol. Because I'm advocating not being an inflexible jerk. And i have Ted Kaczynski telling me I have a cabin fever. Amazing times we live in. But reading is still fundamental.

This only expands on your bumper crop of issues. You take observations as insults, which ties in nicely with your strange POV of buyers and sellers having equal power. They don't.

Unless there's only one of each, which is silly. Rant on.


Looking for a challenge by trying to get MORE THAN WHAT WAS OFFERED. At this point I get that many don't get that. I don't know why but I get that's how they are.

 

[Brad Johnson]

Any decent seller will attempt to accommodate a buyer. This guy seems like he wouldn't at all, could you imagine trying to return something to him if something you bought had a problem? He sounds like one of those guys who buys things very cheap and sells them high per another one of his posts, I won't deal with people like that maybe that is acceptable to him, to me? Nope. I prefer reasonable people. Sellers like that don't usually last. I guess what it boils down to is how much did he want that bass? Just remember: Buyer beware.

I had to change this post as at first I thought you were the potential buyer who had asked me that but I'm done now, I didn't realize this thing had turned into a 16 page thread.

"Any decent seller will attempt to accommodate a buyer".

By offering something they don't want offer? Seriously?


This seller appears to have been asked to throw in a case from a different sale. He did not want to do that and POLITELY said so. So where the heck did the negative connotation of his simple response come from?

 

[gln1955]

The take away for the OP and many people taking his side is:

1. You don't always get what you want

2. Just because you aren't getting what you want doesn't mean the other person is jerking you over or even being at all unreasonable

3. People aren't always going to fawn all over you when they do business

4. Grow the hell up

 

[Omega Monkey]

Your comment on "looking for a challenge" implies a completely different approach of someone who is out to give sellers a hard time, which is not at all accurate or applicable to what I'm talking about. I find a listing I want, I assess the price, in some cases where it's extremely low already I just pay that asking price, otherwiseI try to engage in negotiations to arrive at a price I feel good about. But the transaction is not the goal, the GEAR is the goal. The transaction and negotiations are just part of the process. I'm not "looking for" that, any more than I'm going to the store "looking for" an excuse to tie my shoes and put on my jacket. So I'm not looking to give anyone a hard time, but I also don't want to pay anything more than I have to for something.

From a seller's perspective, if someone makes an offer (not so much via email for CL stuff, but sometimes), I usually make what I think is a good initial counter offer. Then I never hear from them again (ie they are basically no different than the seller in the OP, and exactly the same kind of inflexible people I'm talking about in general). If I've already lowered the price to the lowest I'm comfortable with, even then, instead of just saying "no, piss off", I'll respond with why I think what I'm asking is a fair price, or otherwise the lowest I'm willing to take. So that gives the buyer something to consider at least, and maybe they don't budge from their too low offer, or maybe once in a while they do. I can't control what they think, I can only try to supplement them with information they can use to make a decision. That's sales 101.

Nobody's talking about bending over backwards for obnoxious lowballers. Literally that has not been said, but that seems to be the strawman the "that's so entitled!" crowd are standing by. For the OP, the seller could have probably made just about ANY counter-offer, or justified the price, etc... and he would have had a very good chance at an immediate sale. Instead he just came back with a curt "no" and teed off maybe the only person currently interested in buying his bass. He didn't leave any kind of room for a response or a continued dialog, and that almost certainly cost him a sale (for the moment at least). "I can't do that but how about I throw in a fresh pack of strings" or "I can't change the other listing at this point, but what if I give you 50% off the shipping?" or even "I can't do that, I really feel for the condition of this bass, and the uncommon color, and what I have into it, etc... I'm not interested in going any lower than the current price at this time." Any of those types of responses and I think the OP would not have started this thread. So again, like what I started with however many pages ago, it's not so much that he was overtly rude in what he did say, it was more that he showed a complete disinterest in trying to turn a HOT LEAD into a sale. And people are saying I know nothing about sales. If you have someone on the hook, you don't slap em in the face and let em go. You keep em on the hook as long as you can to try to make the deal close.

Basically the guy lost the sale because of his own lack of effort. That seems almost undeniable at this point. I get the feeling if the OP had been given a courteous, inviting response, he probably would have gone ahead with the purchase as listed. Now he's basically decided against buying ANYTHING. The point is as a seller, you don't usually know what someone's trigger is going to be to either walk away or jump in. So it's never a bad idea to be on your best behaviour. It won't always matter and it won't always be worth it, and it's certainly fine to tell off the worst of the worst when you have to, but it's just a good practice to maintain.

This concludes today's installment of OM's For Some Reason Controversial Thoughts on Helpful Selling Practices.

 

[ajkula66]

Basically the guy lost the sale because of his own lack of effort. That seems almost undeniable at this point.

The seller has a high-end bass in a rare finish and is well-aware of its desirability. They obviously don't need to sell it ASAP accepting conditions that are not favourable to them for whatever reason. I would've done the exact same thing.

The last bass I had listed on Reverb was a pretty rare bird, listed at a fair price and I wasn't accepting offers on it.

A guy emailed me with an offer within 3 hours of the bass being listed.

I ignored him.

He emailed me another offer two hours later.

I ignored him again.

Three hours after that he bought the bass for the full price listed.

My point being: if one is selling a fairly priced item - especially a rare and/or desirable one - they know that they don't have to haggle or accept anyone else's terms regardless of how that "someone else" feels about it . We all need just one buyer per item.

 

[Jeff Scott]

Axioms:

What goes up, must come down.

- Isaac Newton

Starting at 00:14>

 

[PhatBottomBass1]

Here is a horror story from the Reverb crypt..

A very good friend who has worked at a major boutique music store (Alembic dealer) who has to deal with selling to all of the you know who...

He asked if I would help him with a private sale of a somewhat uncommon '87 USA Kramer Forum One carved top NT in a custom color, with Hazlab preamp, EMG and Spector bridge, as Kramer made Spector then. The original list price was $100 less than an NS-2. It was the least played of the eight Basses that live in his closet.

The Bass was no modifications, 98%, with only a few small chips along the bottom edge shown and advised in the listing. Well set up, new strings with logoed OHSC.

My friend set the price that was reasonable for as discribed.

The first guy wanted it for the price of a Korean import Forum Four flat top bolt on because "he knew that's what it was worth, because, "he saw one sell once for that amount!"

My friend passed thanked him and I attempted to educate him. Talked about the Bass, more pics and a thanks again.

Fast forward 120 days and a bunch of traffic, watchers and questions, and four other offers that were at least within the realm of reality that were declined. The next offer that came in my friend asked what I wanted to do. I told him "it's not my Bass!" We both decided to counter between asking and offer. I spoke with the guy and everything was groovy...

My friend shipped through the store, as professional a packing job as you could hope for shipping to Boston in January from south Texas with full disclosure of risks of a nitro finish.

It arrives and he emails it's great, looks and plays great. I reply so glad you like it...

About 10 days later he's bitching about the small chips along the bottom that were pictured and discussed in their system. He used my pics to point out to Reverb the chips he is now complaining about. lol

He had no reason to bitch, was clearly advised and was a bit crazy to use the ad pics to complain. Reverb told him sorry on that, no return and no refund.

So don't let that stop a crazy buyer...lets get your buddy the "tech" to go over it with an electron microscope and talk about the need for a set up and fret level ($200).

Me and my friend told him to go pi** up a rope. He went wild wanting his $200 Bass tune up. (I think every Bass could likely use a fret leveling, don't you?) Threatening me, calling Pay Pal, which is why I don't care for Pay Pal, and cried so hard to Reverb that they took care of it...!

This was the same guy who made the first declined offer and now wanted to get the Bass for his original offer that was $200 less than he ended up paying 120 days later...

That guy almost put me off ever selling again and I've got industry cred!!

Crazy buyers and their mania know no bounds, believe me...!

 

[Brad Johnson]

So now we're in a world where this:

OP: He replied with one sentence that he " wouldn't be willing to do that "

equals this:

Omega Monkey: Instead he just came back with a curt "no" and teed off maybe the only person currently interested in buying his bass.

And he's dead serious.


Maybe the only person currently
interested in the bass? Based on yet another assumption?

 

[Brad Johnson]

This thread is great in that it really highlights some of the rationale at play when buying/selling gear. Kind of scary, actually. Particularly the leaps in logic and reading between the lines, along with refusing to look back.

I've actually been told a couple of times that I was a hard seller to negotiate with, simply because I wouldn't budge on an already low price. I'll wait, as is my right to do. Fortunately the vast majority of my sales don't include this. Check my feedback. I don't play games, I don't string people along. If you want this, here is what you'll need to do to get it. What could be simpler? Besides rolling over of course.


When I asked if my price was more than reasonable here come the "Yeah, but"'s. These kinds of people miss out on deals but are amazed when others don't. The problem must be the seller. No self-awareness to be found.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

With a lot of the "offers" you get, pull out shipping, pull out listing cost, you might as well take it to Guitar Center.

 

[Brad Johnson]

I sold a very high end combo amp a while back because I had two of them. Packed the heck out of it (double boxed IIRC) and it arrived without incident. Then I was contacted and told there was a buzzing sound. Like a bad driver. The buyer hadn't removed anything to try to find the problem. Went through troubleshooting the issue, I never heard anything over the phone but agreed to take it back anyway. I then mentioned that I had high resolution pics of every angle of the piece including the orientation of every screw. That's the way I expected it to come back.


I received the amp back and wouldn't you know it, it fixed itself

 

[PhatBottomBass1]

I sold a very high end combo amp a while back because I had two of them. Packed the heck out of it (double boxed IIRC) and it arrived without incident. Then I was contacted and told there was a buzzing sound. Like a bad driver. The buyer hadn't removed anything to try to find the problem. Went through troubleshooting the issue, I never heard anything over the phone but agreed to take it back anyway. I then mentioned that I had high resolution pics of every angle of the piece including the orientation of every screw. That's the way I expected it to come back.


I received the amp back and wouldn't you know it, it fixed itself

....I blame the GC unlimited return policy on unchecked used equipment that allows you to take anything you want, pawn your bank roll with them, then comeback and return the item and pickup your money!

 

[Brad Johnson]

....I blame the GC unlimited return policy on unchecked used equipment that allows you to take anything you want, pawn your bank roll with them, then comeback and return the item and pickup your money!

True, that does propel the "free rentals" market. But some people are just jerks.