How to negotiate with a friend?

January 17, 2015 2:26 PM

I am miserable at negotiating and making deals involving money. An acquaintance of mine has some used equipment through his work that I could use. He offered to sell it to me cheap, and invited me to come down and take a look at what he has and make an offer on it. He said because it's works, he has to sell it, but he can give me a really good deal.

I don't even know where to begin. I have never been good at negotiating/making offers. Having to make offers/talk money with friends is a really uncomfortable place. The equipment in question is germane to my hobby. Money is really tight right now, and buying equipment used gives me an opportunity to do more than I might be able to otherwise.

He explicitly said I could look at what equipment they had and make and offer on the stuff I want. I don't want to insult him by offering too little. But I also want to get the best deal I can because of the aforementioned brokeness.. He works at a non-profit that gets donations; but this is equipment he can't use. But he can sell it and use the money to use at the non-profit.

I worry specifically that a too-low offer will be insulting. Or he'll take it and feel resentful. But a too high offer might seem like I have money to throw around.

This friend isn't a close friend, but one I really enjoy spending time with because his job is my hobby. I don't see him outside of his job. But not that I wouldn't, just the opportunity has never arisen.

Is it socially okay to just say "Hey, I'm really bad at this negotiating stuff, how much do you want for it?"

posted by [insert clever name here] to Human Relations (10 answers total)

Is it socially okay to just say "Hey, I'm really bad at this negotiating stuff, how much do you want for it?"

Yes. However, this is a particularly good opportunity to develop your ability to negotiate and handle money, because there's almost no drawback here.

I worry specifically that a too-low offer will be insulting.

That shouldn't happen - period. If a person says, "tell me how much you want for this" explicitly and is then insulted by the response, he isn't a person you want as a friend. He may decline to sell it, which is fine, but he shouldn't be offended. You would be doing exactly what he wants you to do.

If you want to be especially careful here, you can always say something like, "at the moment, all I can afford for [STUFF] is $xx - you will probably get more from [SOMEONE ELSE]" to indicate that you realize you aren't giving the best possible deal.
posted by saeculorum at 2:31 PM on January 17, 2015 [6 favorites]

Check out Slate's Negotiation Academy. One takeaway from it is that if you mention the price first, you actually have the advantage. If you make a low offer, the final price will probably not be as low, but the whole discussion will be "anchored" around the low price you give.

If it were me, I wouldn't mention being bad at negotiating. That tips your hand, and it also may make your friend anxious that if you make the deal and then have some time to think about it, *you'll* feel resentful toward him if you feel like you got a bad deal. I would make an offer that's maybe 75-80% of what you're willing to pay and see what he says.

Alternatively, you could both choose someone to act as a go-between, someone you're mutually friends with. You write down an offer, your friend writes down a selling price, and the go-between calculates the midpoint and you see if you can make a deal.
posted by alphanerd at 2:44 PM on January 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

If the items are unusual this might not work, but normally I'd look them up on ebay, craigslist and so on – or any specialized marketplace that would apply – and get a ballpark figure for how much would normally be asked. Then offer 2/3 of that.
posted by zadcat at 2:52 PM on January 17, 2015 [10 favorites]

You could always say, "I'd love to have the equipment, but I don't know if I can afford what you might consider a reasonable offer."

This takes the edge off of what might feel insulting. If he's willing to go WAY low, just because you are a friend and he needs to move the merchandise, he'll ask what you have. Then you can say, "I only have like 100 dollars" or whatever. He can either do that because he wants to help you, or he can he can say that he's looking for a bit more. But the beauty of this is that you won't be low-balling it, because you are being honest, and it's also designed to express that you want to protect his interest, in case he needs more money for it. Clean outs for both parties if you aren't on the same page.
posted by SpacemanStix at 2:56 PM on January 17, 2015 [8 favorites]

I buy, fix and sell a certain vein of used equipment as a hobby, and I think zadcat's suggestion is school one. In my experience, 75% of eBay is the most a local seller is likely to get for your average widget. If you want to be totally above reproach here, then offer that much. 2/3 of eBay is totally reasonable given that you're saving him the the trouble of posting an ad and dealing with strangers. Make sure you assess the condition of the equipment carefully and with a clear head, as repairs or replacement of missing pieces could be expensive.
posted by jon1270 at 3:03 PM on January 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

Money is really tight right now

In addition to some of the excellent points above, figure out how much you can comfortably afford to spend on this. Worst case scenario: After a few figures are thrown out, you let him know "My budget is x. How much of this equipment can I get for that amount? Here is my order of priority: piece 1, piece 12, piece 4, etc." Then you spend only as much as you feel comfortable with and he parts with only as many as he feels okay with for that amount of money.
posted by Michele in California at 3:29 PM on January 17, 2015 [6 favorites]

I am the treasurer of a nonprofit to which people often make unusable donations. Though they were free to us, just having these items sitting around is a pain because they take up space, have to be accounted for, et cetera. Sometimes I quietly offload them at Goodwill just to make them go away, though if they're at all unique (and some are very unique), I always worry that somehow the donor will get wind and be upset. Likewise, I can't exactly put them up for public sale. A friend offering to buy them, on the other hand, is my very favorite solution, because it turns a problem into cash. Nonprofits always need cash. Odds are good that your friend will jump at any offer you make, even if it's low, because it's money their org was never going to get otherwise. If there were a fair-market price to be had with the amount of effort they're willing to put into the sale, he wouldn't have offered to do this deal in the first place; laws around non-profits are Byzantine, but one clear line is that you don't use them/their resources to do favors for friends just because you can.
posted by teremala at 3:53 PM on January 17, 2015 [4 favorites]

I'm not great at negotiation, but one trick I've picked up is to ask: "Would you take $XX for it?" I like that phrasing because it's easy for the person to say "nah I'd have to get more than that to sell it" without any weirdness.
posted by frenetic at 4:07 PM on January 17, 2015 [4 favorites]

Since it sounds like there's a variety of pieces of equipment, I would pick a number you are happy spending, offer that and ask how much of the stuff he thinks you could fairly take for that money. E.g say there are eight things, and you decide you don't want to spend more than $100. You say, hey, I can afford to spend $100 on this hobby at the moment, and out of the stuff you have, I'm most intersted in Thing 1, Thing 2, and Things 6-8. I realise you probably can't let me have them all for $100, but which ones do you think I could have for that?

Best case scenario, he says, dude, I don't care, take everything. Worst case, he says, hmmm, Thing 1 is worth $150 all on it's own, so you can either have that, or Things 6-8, but not both.
posted by lollusc at 4:09 PM on January 17, 2015

Find out what it's all worth, ebay, craigslist, etc. If it's electronic, it's probably worth zero. Then offer what you can afford. "I'm really broke dude, I scraped together X, how does that sound?" What else is he, or the non-profit going to do with it? If he says no, just say, "Oh well, bad timing."

No one's feelings should get hurt. It's not that kind of transaction.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 5:07 PM on January 17, 2015 [2 favorites]