The Sneaker Savant

The Art of the Deal, 1/2: @arkive2k_ posted a video the other day about how ridiculous folks are over there on StockX middling over a $3 or $5 difference in price on a $100 pair of shoes and, maybe there’s a good reason, but I don’t see how anyone is gonna pass on a 3% difference. Why?

To me, it seems, on StockX, a small percentage of y’all just don’t understand the art of negotiation. And as a seller who sells primarily on ebay…I’m convinced that like 98% of people I deal with just don’t understand the first thing about negotiation. So I wanted to make a post (voicing my frustration) to help educate y’all on how to negotiate.

At Sneakercon the other day, my buddy (who’s been living in China the past ~15 years) says to me ‘these guys out here just don’t know how to negotiate. There’s no back and forth.’ And I said ‘that’s absolutely true. Negotiation is much more of an international game than an American game’.

Negotiating, historically, was not part of my culture growing up. The price was the price. There wasn’t much p2p The idea never even crossed my mind…until…I started traveling to other countries in the early 2000’s…where I realized that negotiating is the only way to do business p2p. I remember I used to HATE negotiating. For whatever reason, I never felt right going back and forth with someone over a price and never really liked (what I thought was) hurting anyones feelings. I was terrible at it for a long time because I just hated it…but then…I guess I got into a groove. If I want something, or I want to sell something…I have a relatively rigid set of rules. Usually, I have a pretty good idea of what something is worth TO ME and that’s the number I tend to use as my basis.
- When buying, if the asking price is NOT within 40% of my basis number, I likely won’t even bother with negotiations.
- When buying, if the asking price is around or even AT my basis number - I will rarely, if ever, offer someone more than 25% below their asking price.
- When selling, I will almost ALWAYS accept the offer if it’s within 20% of my asking price.

Above all - I try to remain RESPECTFUL.