One of the signs of spring and summer in the Okanagan — across Canada for that matter — is the weekend garage sale season.
Each Saturday and Sunday during the warmer months, sellers take the opportunity to clean out the basement or garage and sell a few items while buyers enjoy the opportunity to search for some good deals.
On Saturday, several of us set out tables with sporting equipment, small kitchen appliances, dishes, utensils and other household items we no longer needed. It was an exercise in decluttering.
We didn’t put prices on any of the items. Instead, we asked people to make us an offer on what they wanted to buy.
If the price seemed too low or too high, we would counter, but most of the time, the customers suggested prices close to what we had expected.
There was one notable exception. One customer made a lowball offer on one of the items. We suggested a higher figure.
The customer then tried to negotiate, offering 25 cents less than the figure we suggested.
Why would someone choose to haggle over such a small amount?
I can understand someone wanting to dicker over the price of a house or a used car, but it doesn‘t make sense when the item is a second-hand frying pan, blender or tablecloth.
Later that day, after the sale was over, I thought some more about this customer haggling over just a few cents.
Will a garage sale find be a much better deal at $4.75 instead of $5? And if so, is haggling over this amount really worth the effort?
The price difference isn’t enough to buy a cup of coffee or a lottery ticket. It won’t even cover the cost of a call from a pay phone — if one can still find a pay phone.
If it wasn’t about the money, what else would motivate a haggler?
Perhaps this was about winning.
Some view negotiations as a competition, where one side wins and the other side loses.
If the final price is less than the asking price, the buyer wins. If the end price is the same as that on the price tag, the seller wins.
Under this model, any drop in price, however small, is a win for the buyer.
But this isn’t a game I want to play. It’s hardly worth the effort for the buyer or the seller when the price difference is a matter of a few cents.
And from what I witnessed on the weekend, the vast majority of garage sale customers don’t want to play that game either.
Maybe this customer didn’t see haggling as a game.
It’s possible the motivation may have been an extremely pessimistic and cynical attitude.
There are some who believe sellers — all sellers — are trying their hardest to wring every possible penny out of the buyers. Greed is the only possible motivation.
If this is the underlying belief, then the buyer will use any and every method to avoid getting ripped off in the transaction.
It’s a fight, a battle, a war for the buyer’s hard-earned dollars.
The description of buyers and sellers at war with each other is a vivid image, but it’s also inaccurate.
It doesn’t take into account those who go into business because they want to provide products or services to their customers.
It doesn’t explain those who take pride in delivering good quality and reliability.
And it doesn’t explain those of us who set up garage sale tables so we can get rid of a few items we no longer need.
The garage sale is over now and the house is less cluttered.
If the customers came away happy with their purchases, then I’d classify this decluttering effort as a success.
John Arendt is the editor of the Summerland Review.