Negotiating

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Negotiating

The Situation: I am trying to sell my 1998 Volkswagen Jetta GL so that I can put a down payment on a new Subaru I have already agreed to buy. In fact, I am supposed to go and pick up the new Subaru tomorrow morning. If I am unable to sell my Jetta by tomorrow, I will have to borrow the money for my down payment at prime plus 5% interest. Needless to say, I would like to sell the Jetta today for no less than $4,700, which is what I need to put a down payment on the Subaru. If I am unable to sell to the party I am negotiating with, the Subaru dealer said he would buy it for $4,400, but I think I can get more than that.

Negotiation Arrangements: The buyer I am negotiating with is Carole Meriwether. We have agreed to negotiate at 6:30 pm in BAH because it is neutral territory. We both felt that it would be in our best interest to negotiate somewhere where we both felt equally comfortable.

Strategy: I am going to pursue a strategy of active-engagement. I will be as competitive as possible because I see this as a distributive bargaining situation where the more I win, the more she looses.

Planning and Preparation: I am going into the negotiation with an idea that I am going to drive a hard bargain. After researching more about the car on Consumer Reports and reading reviews, I believe that the car is worth more that $4,700, and I plan on obtaining more than that. My strategy will be to start out higher than one might expect at $7,800. After all, studies show that negotiators who have an exaggerated first offer tend to get better results. I am planning on Carole thinking this value is way to high, so I will be prepared to argue why I priced the car at that price point. Things I will mention will be the ...

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...te frankly, $100 dollars is not worth the hassle of dealing with it. She recognized this and offered $4,550 for the sake of haggling and I told her I would not sell for anything less than $4,600. So, she agreed and I sold her the car for $4,600.

We did reach an agreement and I am marginally satisfied with the result. I say marginally because I went into the negotiation with such high expectations and I ended up not even getting my resistance price. I did however get more than the Subaru dealer would have given me and I was able to bring Carole up to $600 above what she said she could spend. I feel like I won the exercise because I gave in less when it came to our resistance points. Carole's resistance point was $4,000 and she paid $4,600. My resistance point was $4,700 and I got $4,600. So she paid 600 more than she wanted and I got 100 less than I wanted.

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