"What's Your Best Price?"

hi steveaudio:

the reason an item is sold , in mnay cases, is the owner doesn't like the component any more. obviously, it would be poor advretising to say that "i am selling the xyz amp because i don't like it". thus asking why an item is being sold is usually redundant, and the naswer receieved may or may not be truthful.

however, how many are curious as to the reason an item is being sold ?

Generally I only care if an item is available to buy for a price I am willing to pay. But why someone is selling can sometimes be used as leverage to make a better deal if you are mercenary in your buying.

I had a friend who infuriated me as every single time he bought something, he'd ask: "Is that the best you can do?" It didn't matter if it was a high end store, or if he was at at a swap meet. The only place he wouldn't embarrass me was at a restaurant. It was always done with direct eye contact followed by a heavy sigh. Kind of a pantomime. He would fit right in here with this discussion.

As a buyer you ask if the price can be lower than the asking price and the buyer decides. If the answer is "no" then neither buyer nor seller is in any worse position than when they started.

If the buyer's first question is something like "I don't think I can get to your asking price, would you be open to a somewhat lower offer," I imagine that most sellers would not take offense. I know I wouldn't.

The offensive opener, IMO, is asking a seller "what's your best/lowest price." That is insulting to the seller's intelligence because it presumes that the only issue that matters to the buyer is price, and it presumes that the seller is stupid enough to negotiate against himself under those circumstances. In fact, because this is such an insulting approach, it probably works very infrequently -- so the buyer is worse off b/c he likely has missed a chance to have a successful negotation.