Has haggling died?

[MoKelly]

People haggle - but maybe differently than in the past.

I have folks come to the tennis club desk and say - I want a beer. Ok - that’ll be $3.00. Oh, I only have $2.00.

Really?

Well, guess what? You still have $2.00 and no beer!

MoKelly

 

[YanmarFever]

People ARE crazy, 14 yrs ago I had a guy that wanted to trade a legal machine gun for my tractor, I told him to please leave my property.
I have no use for one, although it would be kinda fun at the gun range..

 

[Septemberwheat]

in the past couple years, im noticing a trend with used stuff, where the seller refuses to budge even a dollar, I bought a van over 21k used, that the sales guy even said they couldn't move for 2 years, yet only after showing up and walking out door, got 200 dollars off.

I am now actively trying to buy a tractor. this is now the 3rd tractor where the seller, doesn't even counter, its simply a NO. 14,250 on a 15k tractor was my offer.

I don't know if this is a new thing, but i have always in the past at least saw some attempt at haggling. Am i a relic?

I agree. Negotiating has definitely changed over the years. Moreover, younger people just won’t move on their price. I think it has to do with Internet classified sales. When I was a kid, you put an ad in the penny saver and hoped you could find a buyer. Today you offer your product to the entire country. You can find a good “deal” on a tractor in one part of the country and uShip it to you in another part of the country...
It’s pretty wild, but yes, sadly, haggling is dead...

 

[two_bit_score]

So, having competition from more buyers kills haggling?

that doesn’t seem likely.

But a larger, wider pool of potential buyers Increases the chance that someone will pay asking price.

 

[kantuckid]

For new items I find haggling to be 99% dead.

On common used items especially 200+ miles away unless a rare must have item I will only offer 50-70% of what I might pay a local established seller just because of unknowable risks.

I choose to disagree. Buying a vehicle has changed during covid for certain but if you walk in with that mind set you have become the next victim. Vehicle dealers have variable sales patterns with contests and huge variances in sales practices. Even parts departments vary hugely on markups to both retail and the trade. The larger issue for now is supply & demand combined with government bucks that have been flowing freely. Many dealers of any type have signs up to buy your whatever-those combined with the ever present "hiring now" signs. I'm trying to keep this both polite and mostly non-political. Many, many buyer of both tractors and vehicles are upside down to the hilt these days. They must have financing and be able to make ridiculous trades that involve high msrp prices and inflated trade-ins & deeply extended credit (or no credit) to make deals.
Conservative, tightwad buyers like me-who know how to haggle but never over step their bounds by insulting private sale buyers-unless the sellers flat out ignorant or thin-skinned, which many are in a me-too world such as we live in.
I contacted a lady on FB Marketplace about a stack of milled log cabin wall logs she had for sale. It was for several thousand LF of them still wrapped in lumber wrappers on piles and priced at retail market price but being sold as an unused so-called bargain. I told her that I could buy the exact same thing in specific quantity I needed at a lower price and even closer to my home. She asked what I'd pay and I tried to not step on her toes saying there had to be a savings or a waste of my time to make an offer. As I waited for a change of her mentality to see that see was selling too high she proceeded to accuse me of scamming her and then taunted me with having sold the logs advertised at $7,000 for only $3,800 to another nicer man. I really doubt that would have happened not so many years ago? Also it would not have occurred had she known much of anything about how to make a deal.
The 50-70% of mentioned above is far to much of a generalization to work for me? Rare is a word best used in antiques or collectables in my world.
Last Thursday I bought a hay wagon running gear 110 miles from my house of FB Marketplace. The seller had begun at $500 and had a VG wagon gear but had come down to $400 already and ad showed several weeks on the market-which is a key aspect of dealing with private sellers or dealers too! I talked directly on the phone and we settled on $350 and a fast sale. I have no idea what that equals in percentages? but it was a very commonly made deal IMO.
Yeh, I've heard some really weird trade offers. In selling dozens of cars over the years the most common stupidity is the buyer who says they have cash in hand when it's a private sale and obviously cash is the only way to buy from a private seller who's already said NO TRADES.
Web information joke I heard yesterday (Nadine on Larry's Diner TV show) was that we used to say that "information made people smarter"-BUT the internet has proved that wrong...

 

[kantuckid]

People haggle - but maybe differently than in the past.

I have folks come to the tennis club desk and say - I want a beer. Ok - that’ll be $3.00. Oh, I only have $2.00.

Really?

Well, guess what? You still have $2.00 and no beer!

MoKelly

Money has a different meaning than once was. As a kid I'd look for an hour for a 50 cent piece I'd dropped in the weeds-now a $20 bill means zilch to many folks. Even the so-called well educated...

 

[Jchonline]

I am partial to arguments…haggling is kinda boring

 

[Gale Hawkins]

I am partial to arguments…haggling is kinda boring

Well that explains a lot.

 

[kantuckid]

I wasn't arguing, I was making discussion.

 

[Jstpssng]

Money has a different meaning than once was. As a kid I'd look for an hour for a 50 cent piece I'd dropped in the weeds-now a $20 bill means zilch to many folks. Even the so-called well educated...

Many convenience stores around here have a "take a penny, leave a penny cup. It's amazing how much change people will leave in those. If the bill is $4.14, they will leave 86 cents behind. I'm cheap, I save my change until I have enough to buy something that I want.