Haggling when Selling Online: Good or Bad? Compatible or Unethical?

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Now while I'm still in the process of getting a credit card for this little ebay trading card shop I got planned, I remembered something that I thought I should share here.

At the local joint where they sell cards, I'm actually encouraged to negotiate and haggle. At the moment, I'm still just posting my cards up for sale on the facebook page of the local group so you can say the advice regarding haggling might carry over.

What do you think? Is haggling too old school for internet marketing? Should I keep it to when I just stop by the shop and people want to talk to me about what I got available?

I'll post a poll but I would appreciate some responses.
#main internet marketing discussion forum #bad #compatible #good #haggling #internet #marketing #unethical
  • What do you mean? Like an eBook is being sold for $20 and you haggle by offering them $10?

    This isn't a flea market or trading cards so I would just ignore you if you were haggling me on my prices.
  • It's an interesting idea, but it seems to me that offering a haggling option makes it seem like your not confident in your prices/product.

    A good many people don't like to haggle, but they'll think they shouldn't pay full price because you'll obviously take less, so there's a good chance they won't haggle and won't buy.
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    • You might be right but there can be other factors. In my case, some cards lose their value when there's a new banlist or a certain format is getting popular somewhere. I may have a hard time holding on to a single price for too long.

      I'm not sure that applies to my crowd. Like I said, haggling is actually encouraged (though I will say I didn't like how some players kept insisting/scolding me for not haggling hard enough). No offense to the other ones here who don't like dealing in something that sounds like a flea market but you'd be surprised at how a trading card shop can be like one.
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  • I think you are getting "sales" and "marketing" mixed up.

    With sales, one often needs to haggle, whether its on the selling end or the buying end. As a seller you name your price, if the buyer disagree's and you need that sale you'll haggle with them to get the sale and still make a profit.

    A marketer is something else entirely. A marketer doesn't worry about haggling. That's not their job. Their job is to find a market and promote to that market.

    You like widgets? That's great, check out this fantastic advertisement for widgets.

    A salesman will haggle with you to sell that widget, a marketer simply tells you about it.

    As a marketer I could care less if you have the money to buy something. I know you want it, I know you love it, and I'm putting it right in front of your face. It's then a salesmen's job to figure out how to get you to purchase that something.

    Haggling and marketing do not go together. but rather sales and haggling do.

    If you want to haggle than maybe you should look into a sales job, rather than a marketing one.
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  • OK, I'll admit I'm confused (if I only had a dollar for every time I had to utter that sentence!).

    You said it's an "eBay Trading Card Shop". So how is "haggling" different than just having an eBay auction?

    Or is this something more along the lines of Priceline, when you make an offer and the system either accepts it as a done deal or rejects it?

    :confused:

    Bill
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    • Okay sorry for the confusion guys. I tend to confuse the concept of marketing with the whole concept of selling stuff on the net.

      I suppose what I'm trying to ask is whether is it good idea to try and say your stuff is for sale on the net but open yourself up for negotiations (especially when the person who wants to negotiate is actually someone you meet on a regular basis).

      I'll try and change the title, does replacing "internet marketing" with "online business" make more sense?


      This is how it works. I post a list of stuff I'm planning to sell (whether it's on a facebook group or when I finally manage to put it up on Ebay), but then people tell me I should open myself for haggling.

      The question is: Is that a good idea?

      I don't know about Priceline but the problem with auction is that it only raises the price. It doesn't give the buyer a chance to convince me to go lower or (in the case of trading cards) might even offer a bit of trade to go along with the lower price. (Happened to me once or twice already offline.)
  • I haven't really heard the term "haggling" referenced in IM. "Negotiation" is probably more like it. Even still, it's a rare occurrence as far as I've seen, even though it's a perfectly acceptable part of any business.
  • If you want to let people offer less than you want, you can add OBO to an ad or eBay listing.

    Mahlon
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    Haggling when Selling Online: Good or Bad? Compatible or Unethical?

    Now while I'm still in the process of getting a credit card for this little ebay trading card shop I got planned, I remembered something that I thought I should share here. At the local joint where they sell cards, I'm actually encouraged to negotiate and haggle. At the moment, I'm still just posting my cards up for sale on the facebook page of the local group so you can say the advice regarding haggling might carry over.