Anyone pay 1st price, Even if it's fair ? Poll

NCsercs, what if you look at an item that is priced at $400. Yet the audiogon average is $200. Is $220 a lowball offer? "Lowball offer" is a vague and useless statement. Perhaps people should say: "I'm going to ignore emails where I determine the offer is too low." What do you think?

Plinko, you're right in that respect, but some of the offers I've gotten have been a joke. I do try to price for a little wiggle room but some people want it all. I've gotten more for some of my stuff on eBay even with the fees. Weird.

Since I just sold four items, I feel I can now contribute to this thread. I put all up for auction. 3 started a $1.00, the minimun I was willing to accept for the item. 1 bid would have meant each item went for a buck, but all three went for about what I thought they would.

The fourth went for what I set the minimun bid for, which was the minimum I was willing to accept. I could have just posted an ad, but let's face it, an auction benefits the seller. So if you are not in a hurry, why not?

Funny thing about that fourth one, my Supratek. As soon as it closed, I had about 15 emails asking to sell it over the ending prce, one was $700 over. Most I ignored, but I tried to explain to a couple of them that high bid = sale to the high bidder. Even the high bidder asked early in the auction if I would end the auction early for more than he ended up paying. He was very nice about it, but I suggested he might be able to get it cheaper if he waited, and he saved about $130.

The bad thing here is on the Supratek, I had about 20 emails in the last 10 minutes of the auction, most asking inane questions. It was quite a PITA.

Where I'm going with this is this: I would rather do an auction than just post an ad. You can set a reserve, or just a start price that you can live with. Not to much worry about lowballers, but almost any ad will have some emails dealing with offers or dumb questions.

And I strongly disagree about Paypal. Why should I eat the costs? It's a buyer's convienience more so than the seller.

I don't understand these comments about Paypal. Since it costs money to use, shouldn't the person who *wants* to use Paypal pay the fees? Please help.

If the price is fair AND you really want it, you better jump on it and buy immediately. In the past, my tendancy is to always try to get a little better of a price BUT that has backfired many times. A realistic price from a verifiable source is going to be viewed by unknown thousands of buyers and it will get sold. Most people that come here to shop know there aren't any free rides... you can't by a highly regarded piece of gear for pennies on the dollar. Meanwhile, while your busy waiting and/or emailing trying to haggle the item may slip out from under you and be gone. Of course their will always be another in most cases but a good price is what you'd eventually pay for it anyway so why wait... get it home and enjoy it that much sooner. I'd even suggest if you have questions about the item and want an answer before deciding to buy just include them with your offer, based on a positive response about your question. Like if they don't list the faceplate color or something like that. Because by the time a seller gets back to you and then receives back your answer, it may be too late as somebody already got it. DO YOUR HOMEWORK FIRST AND KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, that way when it comes up, you can act swifty and get it.