People Are Strange
Sit right back and I’ll tell you a tale, the tale of online business relations gone awry.
So I was scrolling through Craigslist yesterday, looking for various gadgets I’ve had my eye on for a while. I manage to find what I was looking for (close enough, anyway) and I send a missive asking whether it’s still available, yadda yadda. Fella writes back, it is still available. Perfect! Even more perfect, he lives near me. He has the item listed for $5 more than the sum total of cash in my wallet, so I figure, what the heck? Might as well see if he’d let it slide for that price. After all, if you’re putting something up on Craigslist, it usually means you just want rid of it. It’s basically a digital yard sale. Plus, I noticed this guy had listed the same item several times, and each time the price had gone down. It can’t be that much of a leap to suppose he might be willing to part with it for a measly $5 less, can it?
Given my cash situation, I sent off another email asking if he’d be willing to part with it for the amount of cash in my wallet, and if so, I could come over right away. I thought, there’s really only two answers in this situation – no, I’m pretty firm on that original price or sure, come get this stupid thing taking up space in my house.
He decided to create a third option, one in which his honor is offended by my offer. He wrote back ‘no thank you’. That’s it. Not ‘no, it’s the asking price or nothing’, just ‘no thank you’. I wrote back and said okay, I could swing by the bank, get the extra $5 and pick it up whenever it was convenient. Guess what? He wouldn’t reply.
Honestly, I know this is a really insignificant thing to complain about, but come on! Has this man never sold anything second-hand before? It’s not as though I was trying to be a cheapskate, I’d simply rather not drive all the way to the bank for $5 when I’m 2 minutes from him. And I do understand the frustration with people who try to get a ‘deal’ on everything. I had a garage sale recently and was forced to suppress many, many groans as I was offered the most ridiculous amounts. If a piece of furniture is marked for $75 and normally goes for $300, no, I’m not going to take $20 (yes, this actually happened).
But $5? FIVE DOLLARS? lkjslgjadk;lgjasgakslhgaskl$*(#$)ksdjfalksdj*($)@$nv
Tags: Rants, tears for fears
Haha, yeah that’s pretty strange.
That’s really odd. It would make more sense if he said ‘I’d really prefer not to drop the price any further’ instead of just telling you where to stick it. Huh. Well, anyhow, good story.
@Jeff
Yeah, that’s what I couldn’t understand. Why not simply state you won’t go any lower? Why get bent out of shape about it? It’s truly odd.
You sound like a whinging little girl… if he has asked for $5 then that’s what he wants, what is difficult about that? nothing odd about it.
Oh, I fully admit to whining, though you’re probably going to raise some eyebrows with the sexism.
At any rate, negotiation over price is the norm on Craigslist. Thus why he kept lowering the price over time, as he realized no one was biting. Really, it’s a fully accepted practice to ‘make an offer’ on used merchandise, regardless of where it’s being sold.
He eventually ended up getting back with me, so I obviously overreacted. Normally it’s not the kind of thing that would get stuck in my craw, but I think I’d had a bad day.