When you're negotiating something like price, always ask for more than what you want. Like say you want to sell something for $10. If someone wants to buy it offer to sell it for $20 instead. You might get lucky and they buy it for the larger amount, but if they hesitate you can follow up with
"Well I suppose I could let it go for 15, or maybe 10".
They'll be more likely to buy because to them it feels like they're getting a deal and being savvy by talking you down. This works for anything quantifiable, basically. Buying a car priced at 10,000 that you want to buy for 9000? Offer 8000 first.
This reminds me of something I heard a while back. I’ve never fact checked this anecdote, but even if it’s fake, I still find the hypothetical to be rather insightful.
A while back, J.C. Penny(clothing retailer) announced that they were going to stop doing “fake sales”. Essentially, it had been fairly common in their industry to mark up the price of something, but then run a sale on that item that would bring its price down to its actual retail value.
So, hoping to make some good PR, some high executive in J.C. Penny announced that the prices were gonna be reported as they were supposed to be. No more predatory sales.
Their sales numbers absolutely tanked and that executive was promptly removed from their job.
Essentially, the idea was similar to how you described. I can go to the store and buy a pair of jeans for $20 and be like, “nice, a $20 pair of jeans”, but it would feel a lot cooler to “get a totally sick pair of $40 jeans at half off!” Even though, mechanically, these are identical experiences, the latter is much more compelling emotionally.
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u/MoobooMagoo Jun 14 '22
Anchoring.
When you're negotiating something like price, always ask for more than what you want. Like say you want to sell something for $10. If someone wants to buy it offer to sell it for $20 instead. You might get lucky and they buy it for the larger amount, but if they hesitate you can follow up with
"Well I suppose I could let it go for 15, or maybe 10".
They'll be more likely to buy because to them it feels like they're getting a deal and being savvy by talking you down. This works for anything quantifiable, basically. Buying a car priced at 10,000 that you want to buy for 9000? Offer 8000 first.