Subject:
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The competitive market place
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Tue, 14 May 2002 16:29:10 GMT
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Highlighted:
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On several occasions, a bickering contest has erupted over competitive
market posts. Perhaps we need to settle on some ground rules for
competitive marketing here. I'd like to open the discussion with the
following thoughts:
In a market with any freedom, it is natural if someone is selling
something for what seems to be a high price, that others may see an
opportunity to enter the market and undercut the first seller. The
freedom to do this must not be constrained, otherwise, one accepts that
the first to announce something is the only one who can sell, or
subsequent sellers can only offer at the same or higher price.
In an attempt to make this more friendly, a convention has emerged that
subsequent sellers start their own threads. This courtesy is comparable
to in the real world where Wal-Mart doesn't stick their flyers outside
K-Mart.
It would be preferable that subsequent offers be made without derogatory
language (or snide remarks) towards the first offer, but in some cases
such language can be excused. In any case, if the original seller has a
problem with the language of the subsequent offer, they should initially
use e-mail to try and settle the issue. It would be preferable to e-mail
the second seller before other options, but e-mailing the Lugnet
administration may be called for also. The first seller of course is
free to make counter offers (in a new thread, or threaded to their
original offer). An example of an exchange which might be regrettable
might go something like this:
1st offer: I am selling cypress trees for $50 each.
2nd offer: For those who might want just one or two cypress
trees, and realize they could get many packs of them for
less than someone is trying to sell them for, I have just
listed 20 cypress trees in my BrickLink store for $1.50
each.
1st offer modified: Well, S@H still isn't available in
West Boondocksland so I was just trying to be helpful.
Since my price was obviously too high, I will now sell
cypress trees for $1.25 each.
There is also a flip side to this when buyers are putting out open
offers. Here one should remember that lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade is
not an auction house. If you are willing to offer the same price, it is
polite to add a me-too posting (which seems to be ok to put in the same
thread) and indicate that the first buyer should be satisfied first. If
you find the first buyers offer too low, it would be most polite to post
your offer in a separate thread.
If a seller wishes to respond to competing buyers offers, it is best to
do so in a way that doesn't escalate the discussion. Some options are:
- offer to run an auction in lugnet.market.auction or on eBay. Note that
to conform to Lugnet policies, you should not post this offer in
buy-sell-trade (but it would be reasonable to e-mail the buyers who have
made offers).
- pick a buyer by whatever means you chose (1st, highest, lottery,
whatever YOU chose) and initiate a transaction with them by e-mail
- place a for sale post in buy-sell-trade with the price you want to
offer (which may be the lowest, the highest, in the middle, or even
outside the range [perhaps neither buyer has any concept of how easy or
hard to find that part or set is]).
If there seems to be a good reason for in depth discussion of the value
of an item, a new thread should be started in lugnet.market.appraisal.
This discussion should avoid references to the buy-sell-trade offers, or
at least should totally avoid confrontational language. Such a
discussion is really the only time someone not making an offer should be
posting on the subject (i.e. don't respond to someone's offer with a
"Your offer is way to high").
I think if we work out some reasonable guidelines for conducting
business, we can eliminate some of the rancor which has occurred in the
past. Also, with reasonable guidelines, it will be clear "who started
it" if a bickering match does erupt. I think that if we can come up with
some reasonable guidelines, we can even have close to zero tolerance for
misbehavior.
Frank
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: The competitive market place
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| (...) <snip some ideas that may be worthy of discussion> (...) I respectfully disagree. It sounds like you are trying to engineer the community. I feel what you are proposing is too difficult to enforce with consistancy and fairness. Suz has a point (...) (22 years ago, 14-May-02, to lugnet.market.theory)
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