Offer $25 and see what he saysOriginally Posted by bigbacon
Offer $25 and see what he says
Appears to be normal
If he has an offer of $18 you'd have to offer more money to get it, not less. I often get replies from people offering me a fraction of my asking prices telling me they'll pick it up today, usually I only get replies like these on stuff I have no trouble selling, the type of stuff I get multiple replies within hours of posting the ad. It just makes me want to avoid dealing with those people. They know they have to pick it up immediately or it'll get sold the next day to someone else, it's like they're trying to rip me off.
Why would I need the money today? Why can't I wait a few days or a couple of weeks? I'm not starving and I don't have a drug addiction, I see no reason to just lower the price immediately on a single item that would easily sell at full price. Would you accept getting just half of your wages on a job if you were paid at the end of each day instead of once every two weeks? Most people would just wait the two weeks.
Personally I wouldn't pay that much for Contra, I've found several copies over the years for under $5 with the cheapest price being $0.99. Still if you want something cheap you have to wait to find it priced cheap, if someone has a copy priced at what they normally sell at, I doubt you'd be able to haggle the price down to half it's value. The only way around it is in buying large bundles of games and taking your time selling off the extras.
I DO avoid these types. Also people who email asking how I do what I do and what materials/paints/etc I use (totally unrelated but equally annoying).
I get this a lot too, my only guess is people want to try to do it themselves and think you will just divulge all the information you spent a lot of money in R&D costs to figure out yourself.
Exactly.
I used to give a lot of that sort of info out all the time. But, now that I've spent TONS of time and money on these products and processes, no way. Not to mention that I have zero time to just write up a grocery list of items for everyone that wants one AND explain exactly how to use said items.
And it's not even complicated to learn, really. You can easily look it up online or otherwise go to any given community college for the basics.
I can understand keeping that stuff a trade secret, that sounds reasonable to me. The only thing that comes to mind is if someone were to ask you if you use paint on your consoles or if you dye the plastic instead. That type of question seems like a normal consumer type question, not too annoying like asking how they can do the same thing themselves.
I've seen someone dye a SNES black btw, it looked pretty good all finished. It seemed like a good way to cover up the yellowed plastic and you wouldn't have to worry about paint getting scratched off.
Because the buyer mentality on craigslist is that a lot of the people selling are people desperate for cash at the moment and are selling their stuff off only because it's a last resort kind of option, so they figure they can offer you less for it right now and be able to get it. Money for bills or drugs or whatever one needs it for at that very moment.
Not all of it, but some of it isn't as easy as you might think. For instance, designing and engineering plastic parts isn't something you can pick up on a whim. A lot the stuff that is less technical still requires a TON of practice to master. There's actually very little "dummy" work involve at this point. If I were just cutting up GBA shells and adding the new LCDs then, yes, there's very little skill involved at all. One solder point and some patience with and Xacto knife will get the job done. But that's FAR from what we do.
If we're talking about a customer or potential customer that wants to know what they're buying, then of course I will divulge that sort of info. In fact, our product descriptions generally contain all of that info. But those aren't the questions that I'm talking about.
I have a pretty thorough painting plastics FAQ on my blog. Like I said, I used to gladly offer a lot of info up, but people's laziness (as in unwilingness to look for and read through info that I've shared publicly) coupled with many folks literally wanting to know the EXACT paints and materials that I use is rather insulting. As much as I am obviously present in the community and try to help out when and where I can, I am also trying to run a business. There's a reason McDonald's didn't want people to know what was in the Big Mac secret sauce...
Last edited by wiggyx; 08-27-2013 at 07:53 AM.
The buyer mentality on craigslist when it comes to a lot probably is desperation but let's be real, if it says Nintendo, it's not desperation it's resellers either buying or selling. If they want to offer you like 1/2 your asking price for an immediate buy, they're looking for a suckerfish to reel in and abuse, probably beat down even lower with the bundle on the table in front of them so they can turn around and ask high dollar asking ebay prices back on craigslist or ebay. It's predatory. Sure a few probably are desperate and they'll price stuff legitimately low (ie: pre-hype train bullshit pricing from 2010 and back) and it'll get pounded to death with resellers and some collectors all trying to backdoor each other to get the best lowest price deal as fast as possible.
I don't bother with craigslist anymore because of it. I've when using it back west would price stuff under what the average ebay paying price was minus shipping and I'd get no fair offers. I'd get lowballs or insulting lowballs with dicks trying to treat me like i had no idea what I had trying to get a $20 item for $5 or less telling me how it wasn't worth more. I haven't tried it since returning to KY but I don't see a reason to either anymore as it's just a headache. I'll do it for non-gaming stuff though and those types are an entirely other form of person, usually honest and friendly which will use it for themselves.
Yeah but when the amount they are offering is something like $5-$20 I don't even see a point why anyone would be desperate enough to accept it. If it were more than $100 I could understand it, even then I'm not usually desperate to sell something if it's too cheap for what I have. Somebody wanted to buy a bundle of games from me for $100(my asking price), but only if I agreed to sell them a bundle of other games for $50 when they were priced more. I wouldn't even break even if I did that. I offered to swap out another game for one of them and sell those for $50(the one I swapped was actually worth more than the one listed, I just paid less for it and it wasn't listed in the ad), but he then offered me $40 so I just turned him down. This guy was just plain rude as well.
Another thing I dislike is when people tell me what they'll give me rather than actually asking if I'd be willing to accept a certain amount for something. When I hear "I'll give you $x.xx for ......." it makes me want to say no, if they actually asked "Would you accept $x.xx for .......?" I'm more willing to consider it. Sometimes I do accept offers, it just depends on what the item is and how long I've had it.
I'm sure the questions you've been getting weren't anything reasonable like that, it wouldn't surprise me if people weren't just asking what exact products/supplies you use but also where it would be cheapest to buy them.
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