Datsun240ZGuy said:I guy I've known in the Datsun world advertised some wheels as $500 or OBO so me being polite asked what's the best he'd take and he said he was firm at $500.
I had to reply and point out that he did list them as OBO so I felt I could ask. If he'd said FIRM I wouldn't have asked.....
Some people think OBO means "or better offer".
I report every ad I see that has the price at 123456.
There's a check box for "No intent to sell" which is exactly what that is
If the seller doesn't have a price, it's not actually for sale.
Datsun240ZGuy said:I guy I've known in the Datsun world advertised some wheels as $500 or OBO so me being polite asked what's the best he'd take and he said he was firm at $500.
I had to reply and point out that he did list them as OBO so I felt I could ask. If he'd said FIRM I wouldn't have asked.....
That is kind of a big pet peeve of mine... I'll list a price and I'll get a million "what's the lowest you'll take?" messages. I respond with either (myPrice*1.5) or "I dunno... What's the most you'll give?" and they go away. The way price negotiations work is one party throws out a number. The other party can then either accept that number or counter offer with another number. When a prospect asks me how low I'll go, that's asking me to negotiate against myself and I'm not going to do that. OBO means or best offer... Asking me how low I'll go isn't an offer.
But then, I learned my negotiation skills from this helpful training film:
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Some people think OBO means "or better offer".
It does, and I never use that or other abbreviations.
All of my ads have the following:
If the ad is still up it is still available. Reasonable IN PERSON cash offers will be considered.
Yah people who can't negotiate in good faith drive me nuts. Shoot me a reasonable offer. Im split between listing with a cushion to let people feel like they got a deal and listing the real price with 'firm'. I feel like a lot of the lowballers are super flaky too. Not worth my time to deal with.
I might go back to ebay for smaller and low scam target parts. FB marketplace you really need to not be in a hurry. If you need it gone you need bigger reach. At least there you just need to undercut the salvage yards.
I don't care if someone makes me an offer before looking at the parts; if I say no we've both saved time. I'd rather hear the offer before I set aside time to meet the guy, show the stuff, etc. I never understood the "in person offers only" mindset. Why waste the time? I have 10,000 things going on at once, taking the time to meet with someone so they can make me a 1/2 price offer is at the very bottom of my priority list.
In reply to dculberson :
I don't get that either. Maybe the thought is that you'll make me an offer over the Internet then show up and then try negotiate down once you put eyeballs on it or something. But what's to prevent you from doing the same thing if I don't accept any offers until you're there in person? I'd rather have the prospect standing there, looking at the thing, thinking about their sunk costs and bathing in the fallacy of it all as opposed to making an unemotional and rational decision from miles away! Once you've driven here to look at whatever it is - even if it's just from one part of town to another - you're already subconsciously invested and it's going to be easier for me to walk away from your offer than it is for you to walk away from mine.
Maybe if you're not willing to negotiate at all you'd tell the prospect that you don't negotiate except in person hoping that they'll arrive thinking that negotiations will happen and then you hope that they decide that your original price is better than going home empty-handed.
I always just sort of put that sort of comment into the same category as the "I don't need help selling this" or "no scammers" or "will not respond to is this available" comments. As though the people that were going to scam you or just click the message button without adding any text are going to pay any attention to your comments. "Gee, I was going to try to scam this guy, but damn it, his ad said "no scammers" so I guess I'll leave him alone!" said exactly no scammer ever....
L5wolvesf said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:Some people think OBO means "or better offer".
It does, and I never use that or other abbreviations.
All of my ads have the following:
If the ad is still up it is still available. Reasonable IN PERSON cash offers will be considered.
It's "or best offer" and allows for reasonable negotiation. The "in person offers only" thing just screams grumpy boomer I want nothing to do with and just leads to time wasted by both parties.
I miss the glory days of craigslist where you could low ball a guy with a couple of Google Voice phone numbers to see if he would bite and then swoop in with a still low but more reasonable number and close the deal.
RacetruckRon said:L5wolvesf said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:Some people think OBO means "or better offer".
It does, and I never use that or other abbreviations.
All of my ads have the following:
If the ad is still up it is still available. Reasonable IN PERSON cash offers will be considered.
It's "or best offer" and allows for reasonable negotiation. The "in person offers only" thing just screams grumpy boomer I want nothing to do with and just leads to time wasted by both parties.
In person only requires both people to be reasonable. The seller has to list a price that seems fair for me to invest the time to go see it and the buyer to not go in expecting to get half off. That used to be the expectation posting used stuff. However the norm seems to be kids throwing out offers that would probably get them yelled at if they had to call on the phone.
"It's hard to sell parts..."
(insert fb marketplace rant here)
Pretty good for buying stuff though, because it seems like most people trying to sell are just happy to hear from someone who will actually communicate and show up.
If its something I don't truly need, or its something I want but the price is crack pipe, best believe I will throw out an offer. Worst case is they say no.
If its something that I legit need or its priced right, I never negotiate via messenger because I don't want to queer the deal. I will try to chisel a bit when the opportunity presents itself - sometimes the sellers just tell me "you know its a deal, I know its a deal" so I just pay the guy.
I sell parts for a living at the dealer level. I will just say that the profit levels have fallen over the past 15 years and buyers (wholesale, retail) seem to think that I get my inventory for free. The retail/wholesale parts business has turned into a glorious waste of time and effort.
Noddaz said:I sell parts for a living at the dealer level. I will just say that the profit levels have fallen over the past 15 years and buyers (wholesale, retail) seem to think that I get my inventory for free. The retail/wholesale parts business has turned into a glorious waste of time and effort.
I had a guy walk in the shop, ask for a price on stainless quarter fenders, tell me I was out of my mind because he could buy them from xwebsite dot com and I should sell for the same. That's not how it works, that's not how any of this works!
theruleslawyer said:RacetruckRon said:L5wolvesf said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:Some people think OBO means "or better offer".
It does, and I never use that or other abbreviations.
All of my ads have the following:
If the ad is still up it is still available. Reasonable IN PERSON cash offers will be considered.
It's "or best offer" and allows for reasonable negotiation. The "in person offers only" thing just screams grumpy boomer I want nothing to do with and just leads to time wasted by both parties.
In person only requires both people to be reasonable. The seller has to list a price that seems fair for me to invest the time to go see it and the buyer to not go in expecting to get half off. That used to be the expectation posting used stuff. However the norm seems to be kids throwing out offers that would probably get them yelled at if they had to call on the phone.
This ^ ^ ^ – plus
My time is valuable. Before I added IN PERSON to my ads I got a lot of time wasting responses.
I use the IN PERSON requirement to eliminate the waste of time negotiating with online low ballers and others who aren’t serious buyers.
When a person comes to check out an item to me that is an indicator of actual interest.
It has worked well for me.
Noddaz said:I sell parts for a living at the dealer level. I will just say that the profit levels have fallen over the past 15 years and buyers (wholesale, retail) seem to think that I get my inventory for free. The retail/wholesale parts business has turned into a glorious waste of time and effort.
15 years?
30 years ago, at the bike shop, our cost for a lot of parts was the same or more than Supergo.
20 years ago, it was cheaper to buy from Summit than from suppliers.
Summit has a jobber company called Atech. Sometimes it was cheaper to buy retail from Summit than to buy from Atech, because Atech charged for shipping and Summit retail didn't. That's how slim their margins are, AFTER they get their bulk discount from their suppliers.
RacetruckRon said:L5wolvesf said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:Some people think OBO means "or better offer".
It does, and I never use that or other abbreviations.
All of my ads have the following:
If the ad is still up it is still available. Reasonable IN PERSON cash offers will be considered.
It's "or best offer" and allows for reasonable negotiation. The "in person offers only" thing just screams grumpy boomer I want nothing to do with and just leads to time wasted by both parties.
"Or better offer" means hey, if you like it then give me more money than I'm asking.
I can get the in person thing. I had a brand new toolbox that I wanted to sell because I didn't like it, and I couldn't return it. I had just paid $1000 for it. I got an e-mail offer for $750. No, I am not going to give you $250. I don't even know you.
He came back two weeks later with a $550 offer. wtf.
Four weeks later he asked if it was still available. I told him that there was no interest so I scrapped it.
I won't even bother to make an offer if the asking price is unreasonable. In my experience the seller isn't seeing reality and my offer won't be accepted at all, so why bother? When they lower the price to where it should be, then I'll make them an offer.
If the item is far away from me, I might politely inquire if they're open to offers. If I get a reasonable response, I'll say I'm willing to offer $xxx, based on condition once I've seen it. Don't want to waste our time if you're not interested in accepting that, etc...
ShawnG said:Me, selling the silly "mayhem" wheels that came in the wife's 3/4 ton Suburban.
I gave the bolt pattern in the ad, and what they came off of. (8 bolt wheels).
Buyer: will these fit my 1996 4-runner?
Me: how many bolts hold the wheel on your 4-runner?
Buyer: 6
Me: Then why on earth would you ask such a stupid question?
This is nothing new. I was selling a Civic back in 1999 and I posted a short online ad for it. The ad basically had two pieces of information: the price and the mileage along with contact info. One guy contacted me via the ad and the first thing he asked was the year. Then he asked the price. He asked nothing else. I'm surprised he got the contact information figured out.
In reply to wae :
I asked for his OBO cause I've known him since 1991. Friend? More of an associate in the Datsun world. He helped me out a lot in my roadster days and I've cheered him on in his SCCA Datsun racing. I felt I could ask.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:I can get the in person thing. I had a brand new toolbox that I wanted to sell because I didn't like it, and I couldn't return it. I had just paid $1000 for it. I got an e-mail offer for $750. No, I am not going to give you $250. I don't even know you.
He came back two weeks later with a $550 offer. wtf.
Four weeks later he asked if it was still available. I told him that there was no interest so I scrapped it.
Yah, F that guy. I'd block them out of principle. I've had people get argumentative with me on price. They give me some made up price that maybe one was listed for 5 years ago and sold instantly. I always tell them they should just go buy that one if it is so much cheaper.
Or the other way when I was looking for a corvette I found what looked to be a z06. It had ALL the cosmetics done. Emblems, vents, engine covers, the works. It had some minor body damage and mechanical issues and was listed for a couple grand less than cleaner z06 in the area. I pull the vin for carfax and it comes up as a FRC (non z06 hardtop) I tell the seller I'm not interested because its misrepresented and he just goes off on me me about and somehow wanting to prove his damaged non z06 is worth probably 50% more than it really is in that condition. I eventually had to block the guy from sending me links to pristine low mileage z06 as comps.
I like what the English use ONO , "or near offer"
One problem is 50% Plus of the people who say they are coming over never show up or call and say they cannot make it ,
So my plan now is give them an shopping center address right off the freeway and tell them to call me when they get there and I will be there in 5-10 minutes ,
Then I can do my work and "If and when" they call I can go meet them.
Good Luck
Funny enough, I just had the easiest parts transaction I think I've ever had. Set of 5 Jeep wheels and tires were posted at 2:45 this afternoon, and by 4:30 the whole set was in the buyer's truck, and his cash was in my pocket. I doubt I'll get that lucky again anytime soon.
This is for something of greater than zero value, offered for free. Screenshot is entire conversation, which is now 2 days old, and emblematic of many I have had trying to purely give E36 M3 away.
californiamilleghia said:I like what the English use ONO , "or near offer"
One problem is 50% Plus of the people who say they are coming over never show up or call and say they cannot make it ,
So my plan now is give them an shopping center address right off the freeway and tell them to call me when they get there and I will be there in 5-10 minutes ,
Then I can do my work and "If and when" they call I can go meet them.
Good Luck
All of this. I started doing the same a few years ago. It makes things so much simpler
That and any conversation which starts with "what's your lowest" or "what's your best price" is a non starter. In 20 years of online selling I have never once met a serious buyer who started the conversation that way. Sometimes I just tell them half my asking then ghost them.
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