If someone knocked 50% off a couch, why wouldn't I try to see if they'd knock off 75%?
If you're selling a $100 laser printer for $20, then you're clearly not trying to extract the maximum value from it, so why wouldn't I try to see if you'd take $10 for it?
It seems like you implied that getting rid of the things in question was more important to you than getting a fair price for it. People simply carried that assumption further.
I got a few where people were mad that I simply re-listed their item at a higher price than they sold it for. I'm sure they felt duped for undervaluing their product in the first place. As binarysolo pointed out in this thread, some sellers feel they need to urgently sell their items, so they under-price. I'd could afford to wait for someone to pay my asking price.
Instead of being angry that they didn't maximize their profits, could it be that the sellers were _offended_ that someone would maximize profits with their possessions? I can imagine a couple reasons:
1) The Toy Story 3 plot: people want to find a home for their possessions with people of similar interests. They become angry that you are reducing the consumer surplus that would have gone to the ultimate buyer.
2) They realize that arbitrage on a first-come-first-served marketplace can reduce the value of the marketplace as a whole, since buyers are less likely to find bargains. They recognize your behavior as antisocial and become angry.
If you look at giving away stuff as a transaction, it might make more sense.
You get to feel better about not creating waste and helping someone else -- if that was worth nothing to you, you'd throw it away. They get a calculator at the expense of having to deal with a human, coordinate details and potentially troubleshoot a device that may not be in perfect condition. In that sense you've reached a market price for the transaction. The person on the other end is just trying to negotiate a better deal for themselves after you thought the agreement was already done. Being aggressive can be very effective because avoiding conflict is also pretty valuable for a lot of people.
The fundamental issue seems twofold:
1) that a more fragmented society results in more transactional thinking versus feeling like we're all on the same team.
2) we're in an increasingly disposable society where the cost of second hand goods can be higher than new items, depending on how valuable your time is (again, if the calculator malfunctioned they might spend a few hours troubleshooting at greater opportunity cost than the price of a new one).
"In the best case the programmer and the company will both think they are getting a good deal."
IMO that is far from the best case. That allows "ignorance is bliss" and, at the other end of the malice spectrum, for one party to be taking advantage of the other.
I once sold a rare trading card for $50. I thought I was getting a good deal, the other person knew it was worth much more than that and thought they were getting a good deal. Was this situation optimal?
I once sold a laptop to a person over craigslist for a fair price. He thought he was getting a good deal as well. When I got home I discovered that model had just been obsoleted and so a brand new one was as cheap as the used one I'd just sold. Was this situation optimal?
Because the only way to do price finding is to make an offer and have customers accept it. [...] So selling with a low (or free) price does not give you any moral rights later to say it was too low, give me more.
You're thinking of this in a very narrow way.
If I tell you "here, have this for free, no strings attached", and then after you use it, I jump out of the bushes and say "hey! That thing had value! You're morally obligated to pay me!", of course you are under no such obligation. That seems to be the situation you're thinking of.
What if you open your imagination a bit? What if I say, "if I tried to maximize the amount of money I made, I would have to price out people who wouldn't be able to pay anyway and their lives would be better off being able to use what I built. I don't care about maximizing the amount of money I can make, I'd just like fair compensation, so instead of setting a specific price I just ask you to 'tip' a fair amount if you can."
Am I "morally entitled" to any specific amount of money, if I didn't set a specific price? Not really, no. But it's not like I'm saying "please, have this for free, I don't want anything back, seriously", instead I'm saying "I would like something back, but I'm trusting you to decide on a fair amount".
Here's the more interesting question: if you're not obligated to pay a specific amount, can such a "trust" system work? Can I get fair compensation, and still allow anyone who wants to be able to use my work?
As it stands today, in most cases, probably not. But open your imagination a little. Can it be made to work? Can there be public pressure on major companies to contribute to TideLift and/or OpenCollective? Maybe non-commercial source-available licenses, which still contribute to The Commons, even if they're not the traditional understanding of "open source"?
I bought a music box at a garage sale for bout $10. It seemed like a good deal at the time. A few months later I noticed a label on the bottom so I did some research and discovered that the same item was selling for around $1,000 on eBay. Should I now go track the owner down and tell her that she should have asked for more money?
Counter that with the time I found a Coach trinket at another garage sale for $1.50 and I pointed out to the homeowner that an old gf had bought the same thing from the Coach store for $35. Her answer was "well, I guess you're getting a good deal then."
In the end, once the seller and buyer agrees on a price, it's hard for me to see how that's screwing someone over.
I've had both experiences. If you are looking to get full possible value on something, expect to ride it out. If you just want to get rid of something and don't mind taking a little less than full value, I've had things get snapped up.
You're right. The point I had intended to make was more like setting a price on the garage sale items and simply saying "no" to lowball offers; getting market value doesn't have to require giving up anything.
That's really interesting. Perhaps people feel they are getting a better deal if they 'win' (buy) something at $20 that someone else wanted for $19. But if you had of just listed it at $20, then they feel that the seller is just trying to extract as much value as they possibly can.
That is - they are getting the market value rather than the arbitrary value the seller assigns. Even if that value ends up being the same.
This is exactly what I noticed when getting rid of stuff on my company’s “for-sale” mailing list. It doesn’t matter what it was, there was a HUGE difference in responses between $0.01 and free. It could have been a brand new in the box $50 item and if I asked for $0.01 for it the responses would be like: “Hmm, I don’t know. Can you throw something else in to make the deal better for me”. But say it was free? Man, I would get like a hundred responses within a minute.
There's always trying to sell as fast as possible before they leave the country or get a medical operation.
50% doesn't strike me as exceptionally low. I've sold things for much cheaper because it's better than throwing it away, and still I get faced with tire kickers who keep trying to negotiate it then insist on some other pound of flesh when I don't budge on price. It's why I avoid used item marketplaces.
And yet I've bought many items with patience at those prices. There was a bike I wanted originally listed at $1800. I offered 1000 as that's what it was worth. Every week it was relisted $50 lower, every week I dropped my offer by like $25. Ended selling buying for $700 (I emailed the seller so much they were chatting with me). Took 7 months but the demand was just not there. At the end guy was like sigh should have sold for $1k.
Some people list at a fair price. If that's what it is I'll not even haggle. like bought a fully CNC taig mini Mill with computer software and 4th axis for $900. Hand cash walk out. Fair price.
Other shit is obviously over priced and so you negotiate.
Sold a lathe recently for $1400. I had firm on the price. Took a year to sell. Sold firm.
It also depends on the product here. Consumer popular shit like games and cars have a lot of negotiation. Some tools. Other shit is less negotiated.
Some shit is high demand and lots of haggling like motorcycles. I just enjoy the hell out of telling people no.
"That offer is offensive and I've setup a block list for you"
I wonder if so many people struggle with basic economics because of how hard it is to price things as a seller?
I've seen people go anywhere from 'Well, I have a standard x% markup' to 'that should be worth (outrageous number)!'
In reality, as the article shows, there are many, many factors to determining a price for something you are selling.
I've also had people try to buy things from me as a person (as opposed to a business) and tell me I'm asking an unreasonable amount for it. ... Yeah, because it's worth just slightly less than that to me. That's the point where I tip and decide I'd rather have the money than the thing.
Probably because humans have a sense of perspective and fairness that isn't always in sync with what a purely rational economic actor would do. Just a guess.
Something similar did happen to me. An ad agency found a photo* I had taken and wanted to use it in a campaign. I usually give things away to non-profits, but this was going to be a large-scale thing for a major drug company. I asked what price the person thought was fair and we settled on a reasonable price. Maybe I was lowballed? I don't know and don't really care. It was more than $100, though.
I didn't set a nonzero price just because I wanted to protect other artists ability to make money off of their work, I set a price because I thought it would be cool to have some extra money to buy some new camera gear.
I think the argument here (which I am not saying actually happens or can happen, as everything I know about this comes from reading this discussion) is that it is a little underhanded if you go "anyone want to be the other side of this transaction?" and someone in the room decides that you were a sucker for giving him the announce notice, opens his laptop, manages to find out that outside the room the going price is actually $450, quickly buys some at that lower price, and then sells it to you at $500, whereas if he didn't get involved that $50 difference would have stayed with you (as your $500 intention would have been fulfilled at the slightly lower rate in the larger market).
You value them based on what somebody is willing to pay.
So, you ask these folks to make you an offer. If it is more than the £450 you're looking for, you can take it, or hold out for more, if you think they have deeper pockets and desire.
If they turn around and sell it on for more, that's no loss to you; you got what you thought was a fair price, and weren't willing to put in any additional sales effort.
If you're selling a $100 laser printer for $20, then you're clearly not trying to extract the maximum value from it, so why wouldn't I try to see if you'd take $10 for it?
It seems like you implied that getting rid of the things in question was more important to you than getting a fair price for it. People simply carried that assumption further.
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