Plane values

Thanks for the responses

woodburnbob


>Moses, I think you are quite right about supermarkets, which I think function much like a vending machine. On the other hand, there is a healthy tradition of bargaining found in all sorts of venues, e.g., estate and flea market sales, newspaper classifieds ($100 OBO), new and used car dealerships, and so forth.

I fully understand a portion of the public avoids dickering or bargaining and pays the advertised price. While I seldom attempt to dicker with vending machines or store clerks, I don't accept the idea of a fixed sticker price when buying a car, expensive tools, machines, real estate, or anything where the markup is widely known to be in the 30% to 100% range.

Obviously, one has to be willing to ask to speak with someone with the authority to negotiate a price. My experience is that at new car dealerships you won't be speaking to that person until you've sequentially frustrated and burned out 3 levels of functionaries. I think of this as dickering by attrition.

Ian, thanks for the analysis. It prompted me to ask Wikipedia about bagaining. From there I took a look at The von Neumann-Morgenstern Expected Utility Theory. Pretty scarey.

Re: Thanks for the responses

Mark Nowicki


>Way back when I was at a market in Safi, Marocco, looking for a food stall. One persistant leather merchant would not leave me alone. To buy same peace I decided to buy a leather jacket, the quality of which could be compared to a double breasted kleenex suit.

"How much"

"$20'

"OK"

long silence...

"I have better, this one too small'

"Ok, how much?"

"$30"

"OK"

throws me out, swearing and cursing.

Last thursday went to buy a car.

"Would you like a quote?"

"I found the price on the Internet"

"Oh , that is too high, I can do better"

Seems I will actually have to talk to him.

Mark Nowicki :-((((

Thanks guys

Bob Hackett


>Thanks to all who responded.

It`s amazing how quickly things can wander off track and still be relevant in some small way.

Can someone tell me how to access the completed auctions on e-bay?I can`t seem to find anything in either the my e-bay page or the listing from a search.

At the risk of dating myself I`ll finish with a quote from Harry Belifonte "It was clear as mud but it cover de ground and de con-fusion made me brain go round"

Mainely,Bob-Who`s about ready to fetch the Parrot Bay and get on board the (short) bus.

Re: dickering

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI


>I have gotten a lot of pokes in the ribs from my wife for dickering. I have occasionally asked the cashier at the grocery store if they can't give me a better price because of ___________ (fill in the blank). I love to dicker. I actually enjoy the game. There are occasionally times when I won't dicker, generally when I am buying a tool from a friend. I did give Jim Crammond $14 for a saw that he was asking $15 for, but I honestly thought I only had $14 in my wallet at the time. He agreed to the price, so that's what I paid for it. I ended up having $2 left in my wallet, so I bought a great big Dr. Pepper on the way home. But it is not my moral obligation to give someone the top dollar of what an item is worth to me every time I buy something. It is their responsibility to tell me how much money they want to trade for the object. The other time I won't dicker is when someone gives me a price for an item I expected to pay more for, and it is worth quite a bit more to me than what they are asking. Then I just give them their asking price.

Re: completed auctions

Moses Yoder in White Pigeon, MI


>Anyone used to be able to go on ebay and search compelted auctions, which they changed a few years back. You now have to be a registered ebay user, and logged on to ebay. If you are not logged on it will bring up the log-on page when you do a search for completed auctions. If you do a search on ebay, there is a box to the right and below the box where you do the search to check when doing "completed auctions only".

That is the essence of WC

Mark Nowicki

A few years ago

Bill Houghton, Offshore Flo's back! Sebastopol, CA


>I stopped by a yard sale and bought a Porter-Cable jigsaw (apologies for the power tool content - can't help it ifI'm going to tell this story) from a guy who was kind of mentally slow, and said "yes" to everyone's first offer. I had only $25 with me, and he took that offer for a pristine saw with a whole jar full of unused blades.

After the first time I used it and discovered that it had cut a dead vertical slice through heavy plywood AND cut the end off the 2x4 on which the ply was resting without mentioning to me that it had run into heavier going, I went back and gave him another $10. It seemed to me like a fair price. I felt better; he was thrilled. He showed me some of his work (birdhouses or something similar, if I recall correctly, but nice work for what it was), I met his sweet nine-year-old daughter (I'm a sucker for cute kids), and we parted, both of us feeling very satisfied with that yard sale buy. The money was well worth it to me.

Todd Hughes, if he's reading this, probably thinks I'm crazy, and perhaps I am; but if so, I'm pleased to live with my insanity.

Way to go Bill!

Scott Burr in Ben Lomond, CA


>I love hearing stories like that. Makes it good to be alive in a somewhat dimenshing socital elements IMHO. Ahhh I won't go there... Kudo's to you!

Flow's great eh?

Scott, 76 deg. sure beats 111 deg. YEA!

Thanks Bill

Bob Hackett


>I know there`s at least one other person who gets what I`m talking about.

MB

Re: A few years ago

Todd Hughes


>Pretty good story..only thing missing is a grandmother in a wheel chair and a sick puppy.

I don't know much about prices for power jig saws but $35 strikes me as still an awful cheap price for that set up.

Can't imagine stopping by a yard sale with just $25 in my pocket ....what would you have done if you found somthing good and priced at more then that?

Is good I guess that what you offered him bothered you some so that you went back and gave him a little extra money but have to wonder since it was only $10 if your conscience was really all that big of a problim to worry about.

.....Another reason to always get the person to give you a price .... you never have to worry about such things ! ....Todd