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Comment by noonespecial | Hacker News Reader

I once sold a car to a man for $500 more than my initial asking price because he made me mad with ridiculous haggling.

I thought it would make him just go away. He produced the money instantly. I've always wondered about that...

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I once heard a haggling tip when buying something: make an initial offer, when the seller make a counter offer, walk away. Then go back a little later and offer slightly less than your first offer. The psychological effect is to make the seller feel like he’ll either lose the deal or end up at an even lower price. It sounds like you basically used the reverse trick on this particular buyer.

as someone who also appreciates the subtle arts of haggling, you might enjoy the book Getting to Yes. It's more about negotiation than haggling but very interesting and practically useful.

Yes, this and its successor "Getting Past No" are good to understand the ways you can bend a negotiation.

>I once heard a haggling tip when buying something: make an initial offer, when the seller make a counter offer, walk away. Then go back a little later and offer slightly less than your first offer. The psychological effect is to make the seller feel like he’ll either lose the deal or end up at an even lower price.

That wouldn't work well in e.g. some chinese markets, where the vendors sell to touristy looking people for 5x or 10x the reasonable price.

So, they ask for $200, you make an initial offer of $150, they refuse, you leave, then come back and make an offer of $120. They accept it and you think you've won -- but they might have gone down to $50 too...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IJhD6D75tE

An explanation would be that your asking price was ridiculously underpriced. The man saw that and thought you are obviously clueless, maybe he can make you go even lower. After you raised the price he abandoned that strategy and just bought it.

the few times I've sold things on craigslist or whatever (I'm usually a buyer) as soon as the person has accepted my offer I'm instantly concerned that I way underpriced it and want to reneg lol.

If I'm posting something on Craigslist, I'm usually more interested in getting rid of it than getting the best price.

Yeah, that is a puzzler. According to Adam Grant, those who are intelligent negotiators don't necessarily get better short-term results for themselves, but their business partners do better, maybe because smart negotiators value the win-win for the long-term relationship.

How this other guy was so bad that it made him look smart? Wow, head scratcher. Maybe he thought "Now HERE is a good negotiator, after all my BS he raises the price". Haha.

If you just raised the price and did not tell him why, he may have thought it was a consequence of you having a stronger negotiating position, like there was another buyer, his negotiating time was limited and he should make the payment while he still had control.

Any one know what happened to Saturn's fixed price cars idea? I know the brand is gone, but not sure if its troubles had anything to do with fixed prices.

Doesn’t Tesla do that too?

No idea about new cars, but Carmax is a nationwide used car dealership chain that does no-haggle pricing.

Well Saturn went away around 2008 I think. But IIRC Scion had fixed prices, but then Toyota ended the Scion brand in 2016.

Lots of used car brands doing that now. "No Haggle Pricing"

I have noticed their prices are consistently lower than the asking price at high touch dealerships. Especially when you remove hidden feels like "Doc fee" .

I will likely buy from a place with a fair advertised price sooner than walking in at an advertised price of 125% aiming to negotiate it down to 95%.

You can also outsource it for new cars, e.g. Unhaggle.com

He needed the car, and was worried you'd go higher!

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