Buy, or Pass!!!

In a bagel store I gave my order and pointed to a certain container of cream cheese on ice, as well.  "Nope, just sold the last one of those", the owner said.  "Can I have that one?"  "Nope, we need it for display."  Wattzy need a display sample for if he has none to sell??

Gee..and I thought I had encountered a few while set up in a show.  P51 could write a

book.  I am a "watcher"...usually to see if anybody is going to bid some insane price

before the auction nears the end, and I need to delete, or if I have a chance, and not waste my time. Often I watch to track an item because it opens at an insane price, and will roll over, unsold and "relisted", where I will see if the new listing approaches reality.  (sometimes they sell...just depends on what somebody else is willing to pay for whatever, and how bad I want it)  Often they go bye-bye.

     25 years ago I was selling Chevy parts at A flee market. A guy walks up picked up A quadro bog 4 barrel he is looking it over. He starts asking me about it what years did it fit, what size motor is it from all kinds of questions? I guess I gave him the right answers and he wants to know the price. I told him I had $50.00 into buying the carb, $25.00 into the rebuild kit and $25.00 into the float. I am asking $50.00 for the carb he starts yelling that its highway robbery. He wips out A $5.00 bill and throwes it onto the table starts to walk away I grab A 10 pound sledge with A short handle out of the trunk and start after the guy. I caught up to him and nocked the carb out of his hand and smashed it with the  sledge hammer. Security gets called I end up getting thrown out because I was told the guy did not steel the carb he gave me $5.00 for it even though that price was not what I was asking. Choo Choo Kenny PS I don't sell at flee markets any more.

Five dollars for a 4bbl??    That guy inhaled too many gas fumes.

Choo Choo, if you could have ever known that you would get thrown out for that idiot taking the carb for $5 and getting away without getting in trouble himself I bet you wish your sledge hammer had found something more personal on him to smash with it! LOL!

Reminds me of the great Steve Martin joke. A good friend of his was having a yard sale and on one of the better items, placed a note saying, "Price: One pubic hair". Steve said, "I asked him why?" His friend says, "Just so I can hear someone ask me if I'll take half a pubic hair for it."

Can you say "SNIPE"!!!

How is that not illegal? You'd have to deal with the cops if you did that in any retail store. It's still theft, with the only difference that you dropped a fiver in the process...

quote:

How is that not illegal? You'd have to deal with the cops if you did that in any retail store. It's still theft, with the only difference that you dropped a fiver in the process...

 

The poster wrote that he knocked the carb from the guy's hands and smashed it with the sledge hammer. 
I think they wanted him off the premises. 

Choo Choo:  Consider yourself lucky!  In today's society, if you even touched him, you would have been charged with assault!  

 

Before I was medically retired, I was in car sales for over 30 years. I would see people leave for $25 to $50 and drive  50 to 100 or more miles to try to save that money. That is actually one of the buyers you don't want. They will nickel and dime you for as long as they owned the car, ie, cheaper oil changes etc. Another buyer is the one that brought a coach with them to help negotiate the price. The coach takes over and the buyer just looks out the window confused. The buyer that pays actual or near actual price is the one you want because they will be a return (repeat) customer and be happy with their deal. They can turn out to be long time friends also.  

Yeah, I know, but what the first guy did really should have been addressed as well. I've seen people 'buy' stuff by throwing at the owner what they'd paid for something then trying to walk off with it (which the real owner corrected the situation pretty fast), but what that guy did was insane, you can't just decide what something is worth, and think that is an actual transaction.

 

 

I'll go to my grave baffled at people like that, or someone who'll cross town to save $0.02 on a gallon of gas. A co-worker if mine is so short sighted he doesn't get that it's cheaper to pay more for gas if you're getting a small amount and just a few cents difference than to drive 20-30 miles to get cheaper gas elsehwere. I have never been able to get him to understand this. He's the type you're describing for sure.

The best thing to do when buying a car is to go online and search 3 dealers near you, tell them what you want, options, etc. Have them email you back their bottom line price. No if,ands or buts, bottom line. if they vary from your instructions find another dealer.

 

Always do your homework first, know the price range cars are going for. Then email them with your wants and price. 

 

I have shopped like this for many years and many cars and have been very pleased what I have paid. 

 

 

And since I have been a car buyer for over FIFTY years, I have a lot of horror stories from the other side of the table, including my most recent experience.  Although it is hard to tell whether it is the factory cataloging models they won't provide to dealers, or dealers only stocking loaded up gas hogs...but..this is not the venue for this

subject, in which I could talk about often going out of state just to test drive something I'd  allow myself a ride to the cemetery in.  As a train related note, Consumer's Reports' current issue says most of the current lemon problems with cars has to do with their Mickey Mouse electonics....so I stand corrected, from thinking the auto people could make them work, why not trains?  (auto people can't either)

 

I was at a flea market a seller had a new in the package MTH barricade set with the flashing lights that a person was trying to get the asking price down from $5. When the seller told him he could not go any lower than $5 he put them down and backed away. At that point I picked them up and told the seller _ell I’ll give you $5 for them and handed him the $5. The other fellow had a hissy fit and tried to tell me he was negotiating for them. I told him when you put them down and backed away as far as I was concerned your negotiations were done. I was not negotiating and was more than willing to pay the asking price…. Goodbye  

My wife and I were selling a house but not the refrigerator.  We needed the refrigerator for our new home.  Plus that, we liked the model that was no longer made.

 

A buyer offered us a decent price but with the refrigerator included.  We said we would accept the price but without the refrigerator.  The buyer couldn't decide.  

 

A second buyer offered us more money without the refrigerator.  Sold.  The first buyer lost a good house for the price of a used refrigerator.

 

Joe

Fair enough. Hey man, you don't want it? Then let that guy standing behind you buy it for that.

I've had that happen plenty of times when I'm on the fence on an item for whatever reason, and I see someone's just itching for me to put it down so they can buy it. Been on the other side of that as well.

How many of us can say they've seen when that second guy pick up the item to buys it, sometimes long after the first 'tire kicker' has left the table and then the first guy comes back and goes bonkers? Happens all the time.

You snooz;' you lose, people!

I'd go benefit of the doubt on that one... He could've been off in la-la land somewhere when you made your offer and blindly accepted it.

My problem with the EBay watchers is I do NOT eve lower my prices while the auction us running. They watch week after week after week, and never bid. I get NO bids on the item. I'll re-list an item 4 or 5 times before I consider lowering the asking price a little and they still watch and no one bids. You would think if they were trying to get a feel for the market they would get that after a week or two and watching a bunch of auctions. They are not waiting for the price to go down because they don't bid when it eventually does. They are not waiting until the last few hours to get a bid in and maybe get a deal or snipe as they never bid. Its like they like watching water boil. I don't get it. When I put an item on watch, its something I am interested in, and I want to wait until the end to see if the price gets bumped up beyond what I am willing to pay, or I want to be able to find that listing again in case I don't find it at a show I'm going to.

 

Admittedly, there are those that do the same at shows in a way. I was at a show this weekend and had a nice clean 517 caboose on the table. I had a guy paw it looking it over for 15 minutes and taking all of the dust off of it, and he eventually put it down and walked off never to be seen again. Wierd!!

 

Gandy

I watch stuff all the time on eBay, for items I'm not sure if I'll bid on or not. Many times, I'm looking for a specific thing and find several ones, so I'll watch them all to bid on the best or cheapest one.

I never get bent out of shape if people watch my items for sale but don't bid, as that's what the watch function is for.

As a fairly active Ebay seller in the past, I never paid attention to watchers--either the item sells or it doesn't.  Provide an accurate description, price it sensibly, include sufficient pictures for the prospective buyer, etc. and the seller has done his part of the listing. 

 

How does a watcher enter in to this process unless the seller has anxiety about whether the item sells or not.  A watcher doesn't create any additional work for me as the seller.

 

As a prospective buyer, I watch items for some of the same reasons mentioned already.  Presently, I'm watching a number of auctions on the same item to get an idea of the market, and, perhaps, use Buy It Now if the price is right, based on the prices I'm watching.

 

Bottom line is as a seller I don't pay much attention to watchers, and as a buyer watching can be useful.

 

Carl

 

so a friend of mine was watching two guys haggle over a piece on a dealer table. he stepped up and asked the dealer if anybody had given him any money for the piece.

(it was marked $25 and typically sold for $100 or more) the dealer told him no money had changed hands. my friend said is it still for sale, the dealer said yes. he asked if he could pay him for it. the dealer said yes, (the whole time this is going on two guys are still arguing over who is going to pay for and get the item), my friend pays the dealer picks up the item. the two guys pitch a fit and say they are going to buy it. my friend says snooze you lose.

Most of this thread has dealt with table-side situations.  Had a similar experience trying to buy a couple of cars from the same seller.  Both used a BIN listing and while I was going back and forth with the seller over a discount for taking both cars and combining shipping, a third party used BIN on the car I most wanted.  Pity is the seller and I had reached a deal.

 

Carl