Am I being fickle here?

goldtop

Dan_Halen said:

goldtop said:

Funkfingers said:

I live a long way out into The Sticks. If I am going to put the question, "is that your best price?", I do so before I travel.

And when he says "yes"?

Then you both know where you stand and how much it will cost you if you want it. Is that a difficult thing to grasp?

How do you know what FF would do?

goldtop

It's daft to try to negotiate until you've had the item in your hand. Using the 'best price' tactic to try to lowball is classic Del Boy.

The best price is already on the advert. So it's up to the would-be buyer to make an offer.

Dan_Halen

goldtop said:

Dan_Halen said:

goldtop said:

Funkfingers said:

I live a long way out into The Sticks. If I am going to put the question, "is that your best price?", I do so before I travel.

And when he says "yes"?

Then you both know where you stand and how much it will cost you if you want it. Is that a difficult thing to grasp?

How do you know what FF would do?

What? That doesn't even make sense. I said he'd know what it would cost (useful information before travelling with a view to buying it), not whether I'd know if he'd buy it or not. Christ...

Rob1742

I’m finding that a number of guitarists / musicians are really weird and your situation cements that fact. 

I couldn’t park myself in someone’s house for two hours and adjust a guitar.

Forgetting the buying of it, just the fact he thought it fine to rattle around your house for a few hours.

I was looking at buying a few weeks ago when the seller asked me why I was bothering him, and he didn’t think I was being honest. So that one ended quite abruptly. 

I have had a good few situations where I have had to pull away as the seller just seemed from a different planet.

Whenever I look to a  private transaction I actually have real reservations as I think there is a good chance the guy I’m dealing with is odd.

I buy and sell for a living, I trade across many many sectors but it’s the guitarists area where I sort of found a number of odd balls in comparison with other areas.

Kurtis

goldtop said:

It's daft to try to negotiate until you've had the item in your hand. Using the 'best price' tactic to try to lowball is classic Del Boy.

The best price is already on the advert. So it's up to the would-be buyer to make an offer.

I don't like haggling but I would assume it makes more sense to do it when you are there with the guitar in your hands and money in your pocket. That gives you a bit of leverage. 
Then I suppose that's different to making an offer. 


When people ask "is that your best price" I like to say something like "well I wouldn't say no to a bit more if you insist". 

skullfunkerry

I know nothing of CS guitars, mine are all very much cheaper than that. Just want to add my voice to the chorus of "two fucking hours?!"

Offset

goldtop said:

Dan_Halen said:

goldtop said:

Funkfingers said:

I live a long way out into The Sticks. If I am going to put the question, "is that your best price?", I do so before I travel.

And when he says "yes"?

Then you both know where you stand and how much it will cost you if you want it. Is that a difficult thing to grasp?

How do you know what FF would do?

It's more about what Jimmy Buffet would do.

goldtop

Kurtis said:

goldtop said:

It's daft to try to negotiate until you've had the item in your hand. Using the 'best price' tactic to try to lowball is classic Del Boy.

The best price is already on the advert. So it's up to the would-be buyer to make an offer.

I don't like haggling but I would assume it makes more sense to do it when you are there with the guitar in your hands and money in your pocket. That gives you a bit of leverage. 
Then I suppose that's different to making an offer. 


When people ask "is that your best price" I like to say something like "well I wouldn't say no to a bit more if you insist". 

ISTM that when a buyer says "what's your best price" they really mean "what's your lowest price". They're just too sheepish to say it.

Still, nothing beats the Gumtree buyer who emailed and immediately said he wanted me to discount the price to cover for the half day he'd have to take off work and the petrol money he'd spend coming to pick it up.

Kurtis

Yeah, I know 

Creed_Clicks

Did he use your toilet?

ryanverbena

Creed_Clicks said:

Did he use your toilet?

Haha no use of the toilet. And he did decline a beverage when he came. I'd love to tell you that he helped himself to my fridge, but no. All he wanted was a screwdriver for the action. 

He did get a complete bollocking from his missus however, over the phone, which caused him to leave. She'd apparently tried calling him 20 fucking times (quote) whilst he was at my house trying the guitar and didn't know if he'd been murdered. 

yocky

Speaks volumes that when he doesn't come home his wife assumes someone has had no choice but to murder him.

BillDL

ryanverbena said:

He did get a complete bollocking from his missus however, over the phone, which caused him to leave. She'd apparently tried calling him 20 fucking times (quote) whilst he was at my house trying the guitar and didn't know if he'd been murdered. 

It sounds like he drives all over the place frequently looking at peoples' gear but with no intention of buying, and that his wife is getting annoyed about it.  I had one such person years ago that responded to my advert in the classifieds of the local paper (yes, that long ago).  I was selling an amp and it was quite apparent from within the first 10 minutes that he wasn't really intending to buy it or anything else.  He turned up with his wife and no guitar of his own and spent about 30 minutes humming and hawing about it as he used a couple of my guitars to test it.  I was selling the amp at an extremely low price because I needed the cash quickly.  He tried to talk me down and I think I went down by a tenner.  He decided at the end of his visit that he "would have to think about it".

A year later after moving to a new house the same guy and his wife turned up in response to my classifieds advert for a guitar this time.  I recognised them immediately I saw them getting out the car.  It took them about 15 minutes to remember me and it was the same nonsense with him again.  I think they simply enjoyed going to see other peoples' houses as a hobby and so he could play other peoples' guitars.

Offset

ryanverbena said:

He did get a complete bollocking from his missus however, over the phone, which caused him to leave. She'd apparently tried calling him 20 fucking times (quote) whilst he was at my house trying the guitar and didn't know if he'd been murdered. 

...by you, presumably.

kentuckyklira

I don´t mind when people play a bit, make an offer and then walk away if I don´t accept it. 2 hours, and altering the action is a different thing altogether.

mark123

kentuckyklira said:

I don´t mind when people play a bit, make an offer and then walk away if I don´t accept it. 2 hours, and altering the action is a different thing altogether.

This ^^^^ .....after 15 mins i'd be asking is he going to take it or not ..2 hrs is toe curling for both parties and as for can i adjust the action " yes mate give me the money and you can do what you want " .
What if he turned the truss rod too much ? Or slipped and scratched the top ? He would have just got up and walked...sorry but the o.p needs to be firmer in future ..i think he realises that now and is more angry with himself for letting this bozo have the run of his house.

FastEddie

The question I would ask, about the price, is not the value of the guitar, but the value of the amount of money and what it means to you.

If you had taken his offer two weeks agon and bought bitcoin, you would be 'in the money'.
If you want to buy another guitar then you have cash and are in his previous position.

Value is hard to quantify.

We are selling a sports car which has an 'excitement value' much higher than it's value as a car.

It's a hard question to answer.

Dumodal

If the price was agreed beforehand then I would say no, if for some reason I missed a ding or or a blemish I couldn't see then I would say Yes (Reasonably offers).

Most of the time I will meet in the middle again when the offer is reasonable, I have a few come to my place and offer me way less for stupid excuses that are personal taste, like the action is too low or the  neck is too straight, I know by then that they are trying to low ball.

I take into consideration if the person had to travel a long distance, sometimes I knock a few quids for that but not major.

The market is tricky and getting a cash offer is tough at the moment, but if you feel the guy is taking the piss and you don't feel comfortable then don't take the deal or meet in the middle of he refuses then that's that.

thecolourbox

There's a lot of pages here so i'm sure I'll have missed some plot twist or whatever in the process, but i'd absolutely be the same as the OP in that scenario except that, like others, i'd have removed him from my house long before 2 hours and definitely not given him licence to mess with the set up of the guitar. I'd also be very reluctant to sell to him at any price after all of that, unless he'd retracted the lower offer at the time and paid the proper price.

I don't subscribe to the "everybody expects to haggle" thing, and therefore do not work on that basis. My price is my price, if you want it great, if you don't then frankly whether you have a million and one good reasons why you should get money off or just that you can't be bothered, it's the same end result, no sale and we all move on with our lives.

I had a guy come around once when I was selling a Squier 51 who'd agreed the (already very keenly/low priced) £120, and immediately said "I've only got £100 in cash, would you take that". Unfortunately he was the recipient of my sarcasm when I said "yes i'll take your £100, thanks, does that mean you don't want the guitar then?"

BillDL

What if you had been selling a 5,000 piece jigsaw set.  He would probably have expected to sit at your dining room table for four days making sure there were no missing pieces. I shudder to think how it would have turned out had you been selling a whole load of camping gear including sleeping bags, tent and porta-pottie.