Facebook marketplace (and Gumtree to a lesser degree) have given the buyer this weird desire to lowball on pricing to the point of insult. It's almost like as soon as people open Facebook, they become this extreme version of themselves, and this extends to "haggling".
I started to flat-out refuse to offer ANY discount. You should have thought about the price before coming, not try to put a psychological burden on me and force me to discount the product at the last moment.
But yes, in general selling is painful (here in Poland). I find the lack of standardized packaging and shipping prices especially annoying. I could sell lots more if somebody took care of supplying standard boxes with standardized shipping pricing.
People really love when they think they are getting a deal or somehow taking advantage of the seller so it's better to entertain them a little bit if it's going to get the sale.
I always thought that was kind of the standard way of selling things in an informal situation. I just assume everyone's going to haggle or barter so might as well just do it that way. I get the price I wanted, they feel like they got a deal and everyone's happy.
On an aside, my grandma came from travellers. She was probably the best haggler i've seen. She managed to haggle in Sears and places like that successfully. She had this story about being a poor old Scottish pensioner. They also drove across Canada years and years ago with some of her relatives and would set up a fortune telling booth where they stopped. Her sister would case the people waiting asking about their lives, then my grandma would 'tell their fortune'.
That's not how haggling works. My lowest offer is $500 until I hear yours.
Aside from that, I've had good experiences selling old video game consoles on Gumtree.
I have a simple rule. If the offer is less than 80% of the asking price, then I assume it's a lowball and simply ignore it and the offeror.
Some people list at a fair price. If that's what it is I'll not even haggle. like bought a fully CNC taig mini Mill with computer software and 4th axis for $900. Hand cash walk out. Fair price.
Other shit is obviously over priced and so you negotiate.
Sold a lathe recently for $1400. I had firm on the price. Took a year to sell. Sold firm.
It also depends on the product here. Consumer popular shit like games and cars have a lot of negotiation. Some tools. Other shit is less negotiated.
Some shit is high demand and lots of haggling like motorcycles. I just enjoy the hell out of telling people no.
"That offer is offensive and I've setup a block list for you"
I like this strategy.
This seems like inexperience on our side and naive expectation for more reasonable approach, but it really felt borderline rude.
Of course, there are cultures where haggling is the norm so, in these cases, it's best to start with an artificially high price which enables you to keep making concessions until you reach the price you wanted anyways.
That was a good day.
If you're selling things that are only of use to a few people cost more than a grand, weigh more than a couple tons and don't move on their own you'll generally only deal with people who are serious about buying.
I sent one lady an amazon link to show her she was overcharging. Didn’t help.
Took about 3 months but eventually got the price I was asking for. Had to wade through a lot of BS though.
As the seller, though, you should know that they value their time enough to at least be present, so they obviously want the item enough. You've got enough leverage to be able to tell the buyer who does that 'No'. I've said and had that said to me in those occasions.
I'd love to see it really take off here as a competitor to eBay would be great.
This makes me angry; although I have been an extremely happy Ebay user for over a decade, we badly need other options because the lack of competition is giving them too much power. Admittedly however, Ebay works well enough so far, which is why it would be really hard to compete against them.
But that's kinda been the theme for them recently, so much stuff has been broken, and they end up just pushing the sellers for it through either automatically siding with the buyer or higher fees. Their recent sales tax thing is getting really annoying for bookkeeping.
Anecdata, in the US I knew someone in college that made enough to sustain themselves by doing arbitrage of Lululemon clothing on mainly Mercari, but also poshmark and eBay. The market was active enough for an individual to maintain 50-100 items in stock consistently buying and selling.
Mercari would automatically provide a USPS label, or would give the seller the option of shipping themselves. Mercari wouldn't go so far as "ship from here on this date," but was more of a "let us know that you sent it."
I can't remember which directions, but for buyer/seller conflicts mercari support leaned heavily towards one side, poshmark the other.
In the US my only exposure to Mercari have been low budget Youtube ads that make it look like a side project from a high schooler. I guess that's marketing at work (or not at work).
You'll mostly see people selling lots of completely unrelated goods, all in "original packaging, never opened", at good prices. It's stuff stolen from people's front doors.
It's mobile 1st. Take a picture of the item you want to sell, add a price and it's on sale. They've done nearly everything possible to make things as seamless as possible. When a sale happens you get notified where and how to ship it. They partnered with the post office and the 50k+ convenience stores so you can ship from the stores. At both locations they auto print labels via QR codes and offer fixed box sizes. I think they do a little bit of escrow (not 100% sure the actual mechanics) but I believe the buyer pays immediately but the funds are not forwarded until the buyer approves the item. (really not sure about this part)
Certain things seem like it might only fit Japan. The convenience store partnership is huge since, at least in populous areas there is always multiple within 2-5 min walk. Even post offices are relatively many. I also don't know to what extent a more trustworthy populus helps.
They are hiring like crazy and hiring foreigners as well if you want a job in Japan. They're probably the #1 company for running dev meetups in Tokyo and those meetups feel like SV, all English, in rooms that might as well be at Google Mountain View including food and kitchens etc..
AFAIK they've had no luck replicating their success outside Japan