I have a haggling problem

I guess my problem is I don't feel it's appropriate to do it. When does one haggle? It has never occurred to me to offer less than the price offered.

 

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I usually ask, "what is the best price you can give me?" Whether a coin or a washer and dryer. If it isn't good enough, so be it.

 

I tell you what kills me is the guy that is nice and communicates well..We pile up 10 or 12 coins and get a settled price of average for the coins..And all of a sudden he say well I could do with out this coin or these two. and puts back about four or five coins and says total me up. I did at regular price..Then but you said average so and so ..correct I did on 12 coins you put back four of your bargain chips..Now price is regular..They have wasted my time when others are standing at the table and then they walk away in huff...Plus I have seen it make the ones waiting walk away cause they think this is going to take a bit of time and there are 500 other tables to shop..You have lost a lots fooling with the transaction...Sorry guy want go no futher flustrating.....LJ

 

I go along with most of what has been said already. I am both a collector and a part time dealer, so I see the haggle from both sides:

1. Recognise that most sellers have marked up their prices in the expectation of some haggling before you start. If you pay full price they are surprised and delighted - but you have not earned their respect. Test the water early with a general "Are you open to offers?" Very rarely will you get a flat "No", and in all other cases you have opened the door for negotiation.

2. Keep a sense of humour. It is much easier to test the water with a silly offer if it is done with a laugh - even if the seller rejects the offer, he is likely to do it with a laugh back - which keeps the door open for further discussion.

3. Pick your time. If the seller has a stack of people at his stall already, he is not going to be in a position to discuss things with you in detail, and is more likely to stick to close to the marked price. Try to come back when he is less busy. If you are concerned that the particular item may go before then, try "Can you hold that one for me for a little while - I'd like to discuss a deal with you, but I can see you are very busy just now..." You can also often get good deals at the end of a selling session if the seller has had few sales that day - he still needs to pay the bills, and some cash in hand is always welcome even if it is not as much as he would have liked.

4. Don't issue ultimata unless you really mean it. Keep you offers open ended as much as possible - once you have said "I wont give you more than $x for it" the seller has only a a yes or no answer to give back.

For most people the buying and selling process is as enjoyable as adding to your collection, or making a profit. Enter into the fun of it, and you will find it much easier.

 

come here i need someone to haggle i am going to start collecting soon. there is always money left on the table here that i would never like to leave if i can help it. one mans meat is another mans poison

 

Some coin dealers are so overpriced I wonder how they make money. I walked into my local pawn shop a few weeks ago to purchase a few common morgans. I knew the going rate thanks to ebay. I offered $27 per coin and I wanted a lot of them..like 50.
I was turned down and offered 28 per coin. I like to sell morgans on ebay because it brings attention to my other coins for auction, so I dont mind taking a little loss. The pawn shop wanted $32 each! As I was leaving I asked them how they think theyd get a better price than what I offered them. They said that local dealers buy them..hahaha. There are no local dealers. Even with ebays fees and shipping costs they couldnt make more there.
Turns out the owners actually run a small auction house down the road. They self slab morgans with ridiculous grades and throw them in auction. I told them this is wrong and makes the auction look illegitimate.
Before I knew this, I was trying to consign some errors and civil war relics to them. They kept refusing my consignments, always with a new excuse. Its all an inside job, nobody consigns anything to them. They just auction off the crap they buy in the pawn shop.

 

Just all depends where you're shopping and what you're shopping for. This line works all the time when buying a car, especially a new car. Probably not so much with coin dealers though.

Wal-Mart matches prices as well. :thumb:

 

I am with you sir. I hate haggling, which may surprise some people. The best I can muster is "what can you do" and not feel too ackward about it. OTOH, I do walk away from a large amount of material, and if I were a better haggler I am sure I could buy more than I do face to face. This is another reason I love pick groups, since usually no haggling is allowed in those situations, so I don't feel like I am disadvantaged.

However, the number one point has already been brought up many times. KNOWLEDGE. If you know what a coin should go for, you are in a position of strength. Always try to know your marketm this is the number one thing that will lead to buying success and a nice collection.

 

There are places where you should haggle. Coin shows are a good example. Dealers are paying a lot for the table and will mark up a lot of coins but you can always work something out. A good coin dealer will have prices so low that you wont need to haggle. These are the dealers that do the most business so it works out for them to sell low. I can buy 100 coins from my main dealer and not dare even try to haggle him. I almost feel bad when I buy a coin for $3 and sell it for $100.
Coin Dealing is a greedy atmosphere. When I first started selling I wanted over 100% profit on all my sales. Now I'll settle for 50...lol.

 

you are buying from dealers and you are making 50-100% on all your purchases? Or do you have your own shop and are buying from the public?

 

I do not have my own shop. I dont take advantage of kids and give them a dollar for their morgan.
I sell error coins that I mostly find myself in rolls and bags. I also cherrypick dealer's coins.
This past year I found a 1955 double die cent, and an indian cent in ms state from bank boxes. Both sold for over 500.
I also buy raw errors from dealers, and search ebay for error mislistings. Then I get them graded and sell them for huge profit. Cointalk has taught me a great deal.
A buddy of mine buys and sells civil war relics and does much better profit wise.
Ive been hooked since I found my first presidential dollar error in a roll and got it graded by ngc.
It was a double error. PArtial collar with partial edge lettering. Sold it on ebay for more than 100% profit.
Im all about profit.

 

I think it gets back to the whole "Ebay as the "market" argument.

Just yesterday I bought a coin from a BM dealer near me for $45. The same coin on Ebay, (I have seen them there before and checked again yesterday), is around $70.

FOLKS, Ebay is a HIGH priced venue for many/most coins nowadays. I literally have to search through 50 pieces of garbage in ancients to see a coin I would consider bidding on, and then have to pass on 70% of them because of too high of a starting bid. This is even ignoring all BIN, which in my view are 99.9999% of the time 20-50% higher than you can buy the EXACT SAME COIN from a traditional dealer.

Anyone who believes Ebay prices are the "market" are way overpaying for their coins most of the time.

 

So, you sold it for more than $2?

 

Have trouble haggling? Try being a seller sometime. Of anything. Be it a house, car, stereo equipment on craigslist,etc.,ect... Find stuff you're willing to part with and sell. By the time the general public beats the crap out of you with low ball offers, you'll be completely comfortable making reasonable offers as a buyer!

Unless you have something that is rare and in very high demand, (which can be fleeting) selling anything is usually not easy or enjoyable. People who only buy will never know this and will have more of a tendency to overpay. I think the buyer usually has the advantage because they can spend their money anywhere else. The seller relies on someone wanting to buy from them.

A reasonable offer is usually appreciated. Some dealers mark stuff up in anticipation of hagglers at a show. If you don't haggle, they get off easy and they make a better than expected profit. If you haggle and talk them down, you end up paying the minimum they have to get. Not really a steal. They didn't pay for travel and table fees to go there and lose money OR break even on coins. Although some people expect them to.

 

This one had me spitting coffee out of my nose. Absolutely hilarious!!!!

 

... Or you could look at it the other way round. Ebay, and other online means of selling, now represent a very large proportion of the whole market place, if not the majority. The laws of supply and demand have free play in such a high visibility and openly competitive environment, so maybe the prices there are more likely to represent the true value of a coin, and it is the traditional dealer (and their reference books) that are now out of date?

I don't say I like it, but there are definitely two sides to this argument. Certainly if you have the time and access to traditional face to face dealers, you have a better chance of getting a good price than online. And I agree most BINs online are well over the top, but an open auction without reserve is more likely to end up with a true current value than a reference book.

There are of course extraneous blips in the system - recently there was a serious error coin produced by the Royal Mint in the UK(Undated 20p in 2008). Dealers and serious collectors soon spotted it, and the price started at about GBP 120. After a while it became apparent that there were at least 200,000 of them in circulation, and the price drifted down to around GBP 30. Then the press got hold of it, and there were articles in all the papers and on TV. The price went crazy, and one lucky seller realised GBP 7000 for his find. Now things have settled down again and they sell for GBP 50 to GBP 70.

Other tilting factors include online over-grading by inexperienced sellers, and also the "money-laundering" effect of dealing in Precious Metals.

But the reference books are dependent on information from formal auctions, and if a coin does not turn up for a long time, the indicated prices can be years out of date. I spent 5 years trying to get an 1827 sixpence for my collection, watching both online and traditional auctions, without success. The reference books at the time indicated it was no more scarce or expensive than other dates around then. When I eventually got one, I had to pay about 5 times the suggested price, and now the ref books show it substantially higher than before.

So I would say no source of coins has the monopoly on correctness - a coin is worth what you have to pay to get it, or what you can sell it for! But as a buyer or a seller, you can select your market to optimise your chances.

 

Ebay is an EXCELLENT source for COMMON RETAIL GOODS. Maybe not so good for nice coins. I just bought a new in package item for $88 shipped, plus got 2% back in ebay bucks to use later. The seller lost 12% of that in fees too. The same item is $125 over at Cabela's, plus shipping, plus tax! It comes out to a savings of about $63 on that one item for me for the exact same item. Just one example of millions.

When it comes to collector value, it's going to be buyer beware, no matter what you're looking at. I tend to agree with medoraman on ebay coins. There are some extremely nice coins on ebay. But i would say they comprise maybe 10 to 15% of what is offered overall. The rest looks like a "inventory that can't sell" dump. Especially the raw, ungraded stuff.

 

I don't disagree in the slightest. However, it used to be if you bought it on Ebay 10-15 years ago you most likely got it cheapest. Now, I can find 10 examples of a book cheaper than any Ebay BIN offering. It seems Ebay wishes to become a fixed price market, but if so they will be very uncompetitive.

I hope I wasn't leaving the wrong impression. I buy on Ebay more times than any other way I buy, its just once I find an auction I actually would be interested in and set a snipe I am outsniped 9 times out of ten for coins. The only ones I seem to win are more esoteric items, which I am very happy Ebay exists for.

For everyday items I use it quite a bit. However, just like coins, I find other online sellers like Amazon, (even on their marketplace), usually have cheaper prices than Ebay's BIN listing. I just bought a pepper grinder I like as presents a few weeks ago. Ebay price was $25, Amazon's was $20 and had a variety of colors not on Ebay. Plus, cheaper shipping.

Chris

 

Fair points sir, but when Ebay is the outlier when considering BM shops, shows, and traditional auctions, I believe you have to wonder which is the real market, all of them except Ebay, or Ebay.

Regardless, I simply wish to know what prices are at EACH of these sources, and buy from the cheapest. I do buy some coins on Ebay since I can buy them for half price or less than a dealer would charge. I won't tell you which ones, though, since I don't want any more competition.

 

Lots of good points in this thread.

I haggle all the time, not just for coins but almost everything else. A tiny mark on a door of a fridge can get you up up to 50% off.... then wipe that sucker off when you get home. I've bought dress shirts and gotten a discount when I whined about how expensive they were (25% off just by making a comment).

Once you learn how to haggle you'll do it all the time. It just takes practice and a little backbone.