Please Help A Friend Understand This Illogical Response

Maybe he's trying to make your friend feel like his product is worthless, thereby making him want to give it away rather than charge what it is actually worth.

Steve, I think there's a lot of internet markleters who are just playing at it. They probably aren't even aware how illogical their response is.

They probably just view the whole thing as a tactic to get stuff cheap or free. It could be that they've actually had a few product sellers agree to the offer, so they think it works.

"Value" is entirely relative. Some IM packages that I've gladly paid hundreds of dollars for would be of much less value to my siblings, and no value at all to my grandpa. The fact that Marketer A offered $10 is solid proof that the product in question is worth at least that.

IMHO, it sounds like Marketer A is rather immature and bitter.

Hi Steve,


Your friend is assuming that everything coming out of Marketer A's mouth is truthful.

If we take that particular assumption away, then I can see where Marketer A's statement makes sense. If he's broke but he wants the product, then he's going to "haggle" and negotiate with Marketer B. Part of that haggling is to make the product seem less valuable.

It's like buying a used car. People often point out all the little things that are wrong with the car in order to help justify their lower offer. It doesn't mean they don't WANT the car -- they do. They just want it at a LOWER price.

(Then the car dealer comes back with reasons why the car is worth the price in order to justify his higher price. And they go back and forth.)

So, perhaps Marketer A was trying to do something similar. He wants the product but he was trying to haggle down a lower price.

Cheers,
Becky

It's a standard negotiation tactic, common in the Middle East. Seller grossly exaggerates the value of the product to keep the price high; buyer grossly exaggerates the worthlessness of the product to drive the price down.

No statements made about the product are expected to be true. Marketer A might claim to have been left the product in his grandfather's will as a child, and Marketer B might claim that it is only out of sorrow at the death of Marketer A's grandfather that he is offering to buy this worthless trivia at all.

In general, you seesaw back and forth around the desired price, (A+B)/2, until someone finally accepts an offer... usually with much wailing and gnashing of teeth about how painful it is agreeing to such an unfair exchange.

I do believe the haggler really values the product yet wants to feel good about negotiating a deal to get it at a reduced price - double win for the consumer and also, widely accepted consumer behaviour in many cultures globally.

Personally, I would sell the buyer 30% of the product for the 10 bucks.

When the buyer complains, I'll tell him that I sold him the part that was worth the 10 bucks to him, just as he stated when he said, "Please, it's not even worth the $10" then agree that it isn't worth the $10, it's worth $27 for the whole product.

Full refund and a blacklisting to follow.

The buyer may not ever learn a lesson here but it sure would be fun to mess with their mind in the process instead of getting bent about it.

[QUOTE=Steven Wagenheim;954429]Please note the following conversation and see if you can pick out the
illogic in it.

Marketer A - How much is the product?

Marketer B - $27

Marketer A - I'll give you $10 for it.

Marketer B - Sorry but it's $27. No discounts.

Marketer A - Please, it's not even worth the $10.


First off, if he does not have the product he cannot know its value. Secondly there will always be bargain hunters who, usually because of previous successes, will try to bargain everyone down. I don't pay much attention to them nor do I care about their motives or mindset. If they want to bargain then let them buy a house or a car. For most other products the price is on the label.

It could just be a negotiation ploy. By saying it's not worth $10 he's trying to devalue the product. For all you know, Marketer A is filthy rich.

When I went shopping with my son for his first car (a used one), I didn't go driving around in my BMW. Instead we took my old pickup truck.

When looking at cars I would point out every nick and ding in the car. The car we finally bought the seller was trying to sell for $4,500. I wound up paying $3,200 even though I probably told the seller it wasn't worth $3,200 at some point.

When Microsoft buys domain names for their new products, they don't tell the current domain owner that Microsoft wants the domain name. Instead they use a lawyer that says "My client is interested in your domain name".

As an example, when Microsoft launched Slate.com, the had to buy the domain name from a guy named Bill Slate. Of course they didn't go in to negotiations saying Bill Gates wants to buy your domain. In the end they paid $3,000 and I'm sure at some point they said it wasn't worth that amount.

Good question. I'm often amused and perplexed by people. I can only guess at the motivation. I suspect that if he sold it for $10 that a refund request would come shortly thereafter.

I bent over backwards once to accommodate someone that begged me to take the form of payment they preferred, sold the product, and had a refund request the next day. Never again.. these are my terms and payments accepted, take it or leave it.

Either you need something to solve a problem at hand, or you don't. If it's not a hard solution to a current painful problem, you're really selling to a WANT rather than a NEED. And once you get into "want" territory, all logic goes right out the window.

You're dealing with a much more primitive sensory interpretation apparatus. That may be why it seemed like a "childish" response to you, only because children often don't have very good logic skills either.

I also think there's a seed of truth in what you said about rationalization on the part of the buyer too.

But then again, everything everyone else said is true too. I know lots of consumer advocate sites are trying to get westerners more warm to the idea of haggling for EVERYTHING as the economy continues to stagnate.

The same way that the OP assumes that all vendors will price products for the minumum they will accept (like he does), it could just be that the buyer assumes all vendors are charging MORE than the product is really worth (possibly like he/she does, or has encountered before).

Anyway, my $0.02 for what it's worth. But I'll let you have it for $10.

all this discussion is very interesting to me.
you see, i am completely baffeled by the negotiating mentality.
why would i set a price if i didn't want that price?
and yet i am told that it is an insult not to negotiate in some cultures.

now for my point.
i was doing ok offline. i had/have a 12 year old business making upmarket hammocks.
but i was mostly marketing them on the flea markets, and people presume that all flea market products are negotiable.
not mine.
so when i finally got the urge to strangle a customer, i realised that it was time to move on.
safer for all of you online. :+)

I think everyone wants to be the person doing the rejection.

Rather than trying to understand the above exchange, compare it to the conversation below with boy calls EX-girlfriend.

Boy: I saw you at the pizza place with your friends. You looked kind of sad. You know I've been thinking maybe we should get back together, both of us are miserable apart.

Girl: I looked sad because I think I flunked my history final. I'm sorry but I'm not interested in getting back together.

Boy: YEAH! Well neither am I. I just said that about being miserable apart and wanting to get back together because I felt sorry for you. I've never been so happy in my life. CLICK!

---------------
Now listen for the same pattern:

Marketer A: I saw your WSO and thought maybe I'd offer you $10 for it.

Marketer B: Sorry, the price is $27 firm.

Marketer A: Yeah.... well it's a lousy product and not even worth $10 anyway!

Mr. Spock would not approve of Marketer A

Originally Posted by Rob Anderson

all this discussion is very interesting to me.
you see, i am completely baffeled by the negotiating mentality.
why would i set a price if i didn't want that price?
and yet i am told that it is an insult not to negotiate in some cultures.

now for my point.
i was doing ok offline. i had/have a 12 year old business making upmarket hammocks.
but i was mostly marketing them on the flea markets, and people presume that all flea market products are negotiable.
not mine.
so when i finally got the urge to strangle a customer, i realised that it was time to move on.
safer for all of you online. :+)

I completely agree with Rob on the mindset to try and haggle down a set price. I understand that in certain situations it is common, but if by chance you may think that all situations are negotiable then by all means negotiate with some respect of myself and my business and I'm sure they would want. Ask me for a deal or what I can save you, include me in the fact that your really interested but you just are not able to swing that price. Let me understand but at the same time keep your credit, you get more fly's with honey then you do with vinegar. Next time you may just get that discount, if not no one is going to waste their time with a bigger pain then worth customer.

Marketer A - Please, it's not even worth the $10.

Translation - I was interested in buying your product and I had reservations about the price. Unfortunately your objection handling skills are so poor that you have failed to spot a chance to 'win' a sale.

Maybe if Marketer 'B' had said something like - "It's interesting that you think that way and I would like to explore that possibility. Tell me, why do you think it is not worth $10?"

Sometimes "Because that's the price" just isn't enough.

Here is my opinion:

Marketer B want to get this product at a price as low as possible, but he is not sure which is the reasonable price because he thought it will not worth $27 as Marketer A said. So he tried to make the price as low as possible, then Marketer A will try to make the price higher than $10, maybe 12, 14 or 15, who knows. A price that are higher than $10 and the cost price at the same time. But if the Marketer B said it worth $20, it will be impossible for Marketer A to sell this product to Marketer B at a price lower than $20 because according to our business experience, Marketer A will add the price and make it higher than $20. So, according to my opinion, Marketer B acts like this because he do not know a lot about the price of the product and he wants to make the starting point as low as possible.

Wow, some people REALLY have too much time on their hands.

Here's how I see it:
Altho "negotiation" tactics may have been in A's mind when this scenario played out, it certainly wasn't in B's mind. So there's a disconnect there (like how can two tango when both are on different wavelengths?) I believe A "wants" the product, but his approach/mentality leaves much to be desired.

I believe there needs to be awareness of following:
a) price
b) value
c) benefit

Price = a monetary number put on a product.
Value = is in the eye of the beholder, just like in beauty.
Benefit = ?, well that depends upon what a purchaser does with the product/service.

It is hard to judge or put a "value" in any product/service without actually trying or experiencing it, so the "Please, it's not even worth the $10" argument goes out the window, it's ILLogical and I interpret that to mean A "wants" the product but isn't really a serious "qualified" customer (meaning he doesn't really need it, else...)

OR worse, if it really could be useful to him, he desires to get it, but the asking price (= assigned monetary value) is not worth his risk (if there is no guarantee) OR investment (if a guarantee is available), SO I'm thinking, OMG, I see that as a reflection of how much A actually assigns value/worth to himself, because ultimately it's a measure of self value.

Finally benefits comes when a purchaser puts the product or service to use, deriving something worthwhile which would otherwise not materialize or which would, if left to oneself, take far longer to achieve. Value of that? Well depends on the recipient of the product or service.

Using this, I've been able to understand why someone like say, Jay Abraham, would be able to command $50k for a consultation. You and like may balk at the fee, but to the customer, it's worth every cent because the value they get (savings/earnings/profits in potential monetary value) far outweighs the investment put in for these clients.... Or why some WSOs or packages could be worth FAR MORE value than what it is priced at (because the benefits/savings far outweigh the costs, etc...). Of course there are the "investment" we buy that bombed out, but I take that to be part of the learning curve.... etc...

A believes in his product/service and know it's worth, A should stand by it. Of course there is no hard and fast rules, or right and wrong, but who is to say what something should be priced at? Only the buyer. If it's not "worth" the $10, then B should move on.... (I mean that in a nice way).

Hope that means sense.

Hi Steve,

You've obviously never haggled in a Marakesh souk

Pete

This kind of bargaining process to me so that seller might reduce the price though it doesn't work always. But yes the last line of MR A is meaning less if it really didn't worth $10 then why should he ask for 10. My guess Mr A might like the product though it didn't worth but still he wanted to pay $10.

Here's something to think about.

Sometimes the "logic" has to do with where the person is from and the economic environment they grew up in, etc.

Here's an example I found useful in trying to understand people.

My daughter's best friend was born and grew up in Poland. She is in the US (legally) and is struggling to understand some of the people around her. She has told both me and my daughter that in other places in the world you don't haggle, the price is just the price, and that's that...take it or leave it. It's just how the world according to the people she grew up around just IS.

Meanwhile, my husband has been around Asian people who negotiate for everything. I'm not saying that all Asian people are determined to negotiate, but what he has found is that the Asian people he has been around are more used to the negotiating and price their merchandise accordingly, leaving room to haggle. This haggling is expected.

Maybe the person your friend is dealing with is expecting to haggle, and is therefore suffering a kind of culture shock that the seller is not flexible. Their issue isn't so much that they don't want to pay the initial price so much as it is that they do not want to give the first price because they feel it is showing a weakness, and they are so determined not to be visibly weak that they feel better off not having what they wanted to buy than if they just paid the initial asking price and let the seller (your friend) "beat them" out of the full asking price. (Hope that makes sense, I really do!) I mean, think about it. When you have negotiated a really good deal, don't you brag about it to one of your friends every now and then? If he would have succeeded in getting the item for the lower price it probably would have been one of those grandiose stories he told at the next party about how he "got it for less than half price" or something.

(I have a few of those stories myself, including one where I got a $150 piece of exercise equipment for $10 because it was the last one, the display model, and my husband cracked his standard "I'll give you ten dollars for it" smirk without a smile. To our astonishment the manager eventually came over and said "okay, as long as you promise not to return it.")

My point is, this might have to do with a regional difference (since this is the internet, etc., etc.) more so than an illogical situation. It could be that it is just an extreme example of what is expected in the culture that the person grew up in. But in the heat of the "art of the deal", it's possible that this person who wants to haggle does not know how to be tactful in what they see as "the negotiation" and are just frustratingly attempting to intimidate the seller (your friend) into giving in by their demeaning the product they think they are negotiating to buy.

By the way, your friend should stick to his/her guns! If the product is worth what they are asking then the person haggling with them is not the target market he/she is shooting for. Not every person who takes a serious look at the product for sale is a potential customer, even though they may appear to be.

It might also have to do with the fact that the person is too embarrassed to just say "I don't have enough money".

As we all know as marketers the goal is to make money, to not have money could easily be viewed as a failure to himself and other marketers.

I've been poor before and it's not fun. Most people without money are too proud to say that. Just my .02.

Steve

I know, he's trying to get the product in a cheap price. So that he can use the other 17 to buy something else.

Also he may think that Marketer B will settle for anything just to get a sale. I was in a bind a few months ago and had to sell my car. I wanted $X,XXX or best offer. You wouldn't believe the offers I got! I wasn't totally desperate!

Anybody who would haggle over $27.00 isn't qualified to say what is valuable or not, because nothing is working for them!

I think this is being over analyzed.

Seems like he just wanted to get it cheaper. Then when his offer was rejected, he got defensive and then tried to better the situation IN HIS MIND with the "It's not worth it" comment.

Either way, clearly he wanted the product.

I would recommend reading the book "How To Sell At Prices Higher Than Your Competitors". It deals with this type of thing.