Absolutely hate haggling, hate the practice of marking your stuff up 10% of market at a card show and I have to request the actual price, which most sellers always accept. Hate walking up to a booth and the cards arenât priced, I usually walk away.
Tell me the price youâre charging for your goods and Iâll buy them at that price. Pretty simple imo.
Alternatively, also hate people who set their item up for âor best offerâ and then never accept or reject your offers.
As few words as possible would be my entirely Pokemon-specific approach, unless I know who Iâm dealing with. Especially when using the best offer function as some sellers become quite talkative then. Itâs been a while though.
We probably havenât reached the stage yet where âhelloâ and âbest regardsâ do more harm than good (on average) so Iâd include those in a potential introductory message.
This. Donât come to the table saying âlowestâ; throw a number out since Iâve already thrown a number out in my listing
As a seller, I detest buyers who waste my time. I tend to price my cards with the assumption that some discount will be applied. If I priced my cards accurately (at the lowest amount that I would accept), I will get incessant messages to further lower the price. By listing the price higher, I will almost always end up where I wanted.
There are ways to tactfully negotiate with sellers. It requires respect for their time, a clear offer, and an ability to follow through on your word when you make an offer. Almost always, the problem lies in one of these three areas - disrespectful messages, unclear offers that require the seller to counter against themself, and not sending an offer once itâs been agreed upon.
As a buyer, I almost never send messages. If I disagree with the list price, I send my best offer or close to it. When I do send a message, I try to be very straightforward and thankful for their consideration and time.
name a better duo than [few-letters]_[random_numbers] usernames and asking âlowest price?â
I only have like 100 things listed, I canât imagine what the dudes with 500+ listings inboxes look like 
If you are selling something and itâs listed as âor best offerâ, that is the haggling mechanism, not a message just asking me to bid against myself. What incentive does a seller have to sell as low as possible? Strategy-wise, asking for the lowest price is just a stupid move to play as a buyer (who supposedly actually wants the card), unless you as a seller have leveraged yourself so poorly youâre forced to sell because you need the money.
I have used âbest offerâ as a way to judge interest. Sometimes I want to know more about what potential buyers may be willing to pay because of various nuance.
In the past, I had more success and did more messaging with haggling. As things have become more optimized, itâs become less productive, and even less necessary.
I really like this because itâs true, not JUST for bidding/negotiating. =)
I too hate haggling, but if I vend I find that most people do not give a lot about last solds or market price. They just want to feel like they got a deal, which people âgetâ if they offer 10 percent of asking. People would rather walk away if they get the same price without haggling as opposed to the same price 10 percent of asking. Some psychology is going on there
Honestly at card shows i always try to get the price down a little bit haha. On ebay i would never message though, just making offers if its available.
I usually have best offer on my listings. If someone doesnât like the price they can send an offer.
also I once had someone offer a very low price on my card and I had to show him the last solds and that I was still lower than that. Once he saw my price was a good deal and reasonable he was happy to pay it lol
Yeah I did experience this psychology when I went to Collect a Con, there was a vendor who effectively demanded some amount off my asking price, and $20 off a $1000 sale was enough for them to feel like they âgot somethingâ.
Honestly I have regretted that negotiation for 6 months now. My price was fair, low even.
I view Pokemon cards as a collectorâs hobby. Merchants and greedy people disguts me in life, in general. Like physically. I entered a watch/jewellery store recently and felt like I met true greed personified, felt dizzy and dirty just from talking and looking at the owner ; how can this person lie and try to scam others without the slightest sense of shame or guilt ? is he human even ? I donât try to maximize profit on every trade. When i buy or sell with someone, i get more satisfaction when i feel like the other person is happy to get the card he wanted and doesnât feel ripped off or have a sour taste about the deal, that would make me unhappy as a person, so I have a strong tendency to avoid squeezing juice kind of deals. Truely, itâs not that iâm some kind of nice person or a benevolent charity act. Itâs selfishness : i feel bad if there is deceit or greed involved so i will avoid that. Money is not everything to me. I mean, itâs important of course. But itâs even better when you build a path to future trades, extend your social circle sometimes even make friends. When buying i usually donât negotiate because i hate that and offer a price i estimate is the fair deal. Often times i will face a merchant, not a collector, and the feeling of buying from someone who has no love for the cards and is greedy is often times enough for me to walk away, even if the price is good and they have the cards i want. Actually missed a lot of deals because of this and kind of regret it.
Pokemon in itâs primitive eden state would be about trading cards between passionnated collectors, it seems to me. Maybe iâm wrong, i didnât give much thought about this. Each time greed and selfishness drives a trade, it makes the hobby worse as a whole, further attracting the wrong kind of people. To escape this prisonerâs dilemna where everyone is incentivized to profit on others is not hard. Itâs actually incredibly powerful when you show to others youâre not especially looking to maximize your own interest.
Iâm tempted to doxx myself to ebay just to sell and hopefully do this exact thing. Holy moley that is funny.
I built my âbattle-damaged charizardâ collection largely by haggling with the sellers. They were often honest sellers who did not know what they had. Kept it respectful, but informative, and they often came back after a bit with a fair offer, unlike what they wanted, but considerate of my tone and position. But that was in the before timesâŚ
Received a âWhatâs yur best price?â message, and I trhought, you know,
You know what else is fair game? Sending an offer.
I donât understand why people think eBay should be different than anywhere else. Itâs a store.
Iâm willing to bet they wouldnât do this in a store because of some perceived social pressures, or nerves, etc.
I simply donât engage when people (I wonât even call them âbuyersâ or âcustomersâ because theyâre really not) send those types of messages. It never, ever, EVER results in a sale.
In fact, since I started selling on eBay in 2017, I can count on one hand (if that) how many times people have bought things from me after sending a message about anything beforehand. Serious buyers typically donât send messages. They just click âBuy It Nowâ (or they make a legitimate offer).
Asking for âbest price,â asking for more pictures, asking basically anything results in nothing 99.999 percent of the time.
