How to do commercial transactions with smart players

[Ashtagon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

There's no reason that increasing your offer by consistent 10$ increments undermines your credibility more than any other increase unless you're claiming your latest bid is literally all the money you have on hand. Perhaps barring some particular cultural assumptions that we evidently don't have in common? (Cultural Familiarity is, of course, a factor on both sides.)

Also, once you've made a second bid further bids don't really reduce the credibility of your threat to leave. Unless you're foolish enough to get caught up in the process like Daffy Duck insisting it's duck season, each further offer is more likely to really be your last, not less likely.

The problem is that each successive bid increases the chance that the seller thinks you're just playing games, and simply refuse to do business with you.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Culture20

What this ignores is that the seller has a limited quantity item and the buyer (usually) has money. The buyer is looking for a specific tool or item that is needed for a purpose, whereas the seller is looking for liquid asset. If the buyer is sticking around for multiple raises on bids, then the seller can start reducing the amount they’re willing to decrement the price each bid, possibly to a limit far higher than the price the buyer was thinking he could haggle to.

The seller has no general ability to presume that the buyer badly needs to obtain what they're selling, and a buyer giving that fact away is making a serious tactical error. And they may have nearby competitors that the buyer could try if they don't get an answer they like, though the seller probably knows whether such competition exists and can operate accordingly. They also don't usually have the enormous advantage of knowing that they're going to see enough custom for their supply to be the limiting factor!

There are reasons for both sides of the negotiation to want to reach a mutually agreeable price, and there are (usually, and certainly as far as the other knows) reasons for both of them to be willing to end things without a transaction. If any part of that wasn't true there'd be no basis for negotiation at all.

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

The problem is that each successive bid increases the chance that the seller thinks you're just playing games, and simply refuse to do business with you.

It's certainly a bad idea to try to haggle with people who are offended by haggling, but it's rather silly to judge haggling in situations where haggling is culturally appropriate by that.

[AlexanderHowl]

A seller always knows that the buyer needs the item when the buyer comes to them. My father sells paper collectables and has been in the business for over 30 years now. He always has a minimum price for every item, but he prices every item above his minimum price, so he can offer a discount during the haggling with his customers. It makes his customers happy to receive a discount and he usually ends up making more than his minimum price. If someone offers less than his minimum price, he says 'no' and politely refuses to waste anymore time with them. When they usually come back at the end of the day, he never gives them a discount because they wasted his valuable time during their first interaction with him, so he usually ends up making more money off of the people who are unreasonable than the people who are reasonable.

[Ashtagon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It's certainly a bad idea to try to haggle with people who are offended by haggling, but it's rather silly to judge haggling in situations where haggling is culturally appropriate by that.

Compare these two:

How much is the vase?

I want 1000 lira for the vase.

I can only afford 600.

I'll let it go for 900. Any less and my children will starve!

But look! There's a scracth on the bottom. That's going to make it less stable. 700 lira.

800 is my final offer. Would you have me unable to pay rent on this shop?

750? That's every penny I have on me today.

Done.

----

How much is the vase?

1000.

I offer 500.

I'll let it go for 900. Any less and my children will starve!

600?

Get out of my shop! Begone!

----

Haggling is fine if you are playing the hagglig game. If all you are doing is changing your bid each time without offering "entertainment" to the other person, they'll get impatient fast.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

A seller always knows that the buyer needs the item when the buyer comes to them.

Have you really never been in a shop and considered buying something, but decided not to? Not buying is almost always an option. If it isn't, you could charge arbitrarily high prices.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

Haggling is fine if you are playing the hagglig game. If all you are doing is changing your bid each time without offering "entertainment" to the other person, they'll get impatient fast.

That may be true, but doesn't seem relevant unless you're just being a stickler about players roleplaying the minutia of the transaction. When haggling, the players are making Merchant rolls constantly, which could easily be construed to include the elaborations required to 'play the haggling game'.

[Ashtagon]

Personally, I feel that if all you are doing is rolling dice, why are you even playing a role-playing game. Die rolls shouldn't happen unless they advance the story. I guess some people are fine with roll-playing though.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

Personally, I feel that if all you are doing is rolling dice, why are you even playing a role-playing game. Die rolls shouldn't happen unless they advance the story. I guess some people are fine with roll-playing though.

Seems like any rules for commercial transactions are basically irrelevant to you, then, since they're very unlikely to significantly 'advance the story'.

[Ashtagon]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Seems like any rules for commercial transactions are basically irrelevant to you, then, since they're very unlikely to significantly 'advance the story'.

I had thought I'd already outlined the circumstances in which the rules wold be used --- basically, when you're "playing the haggling minigame". If all you're doing is changing the number each time, with nothing more to add (no "story"), that's when I'd impose a cumulative -2 to each successive roll.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Ashtagon

I had thought I'd already outlined the circumstances in which the rules wold be used --- basically, when you're "playing the haggling minigame". If all you're doing is changing the number each time, with nothing more to add (no "story"), that's when I'd impose a cumulative -2 to each successive roll.

I certainly wouldn't do that, because as GM I'd be the one having to come up with cool 'stories' for each round of every single interaction, whereas the players have to do far less work.