"What's Your Best Price?"

I just joined AgoN but have 47 transactions at Head-Fi. All perfect. I'd come up with a different retort if I were you.

You're not him.

I just joined AgoN but have 47 transactions at Head-Fi. All perfect. I'd come up with a different retort if I were you.
Baka1969 (Answers | This Thread)

Welcome.

If your opening line when responding to a listing is, "What's your best price?", then speaking as a buyer and a seller with over 250 transactions, I believe you're starting off at a disadvantage.

However, we all have our own methods, and if you have 40+ successful transactions as a buyer using this approach, then I can't argue with you.

Good luck.

i agree with tvad that asking for "the best price" is highly correlated with not buying an item.

tvad, even though you and i have had our differences in the past, i respect you as a reasonable man and one of great intellect. your wisdom is evident in many of your posts.

if you are interested in the item, you might ask some questions, but the stronger your interest, the higher the probability that you will "bid" on the item, even if your price is less than the seller is willing to accept.

i would use, as a rule of thumb, a principle, i learned in my first economic course in college:

the value in use= the value in exchange., if i were to buy a used item.

i admit to having sold on audiogon, but i have never been a buyer.

Soon after reading this post I received an email (just yesterday) from a potential buyer with that god awful question "What is the absolute bottom dollar you would accept". Well I thought for a few moments as to how I should answer this, a smart a-- response or be nice. I took the nice route thinking I do want to sell these speakers and hey, you never know. Today I got the "thanks but I found something cheaper and closer. Most responses to this post agree that this question rarely ends in a sale and now I am a believer too, I'm going for the smart a-- response next time.