Negotiating Trades

Overview

I would posit that most of us pay more for our miniatures than we need to. The reasons for this might be perfectly good and acceptable (e.g., supporting local store, need figures now, etc), but I would still argue that we typically pay more than we need to. A major source of below retail-cost figures are your on-line retailers, E-bay, and figure trades. I'll be mostly addressing the later here, but some of the principles apply to the other channels as well. I wrote another article, Acquiring Second Hand Miniatures, to address the total costs involved with acquiring second hand miniatures.

Negotiating Figure Trades

Face it, every miniatures trade is a negotiation. Some people don't like to negotiate. No big deal, it's pretty easy to pick up and even if you don't really do any negotiating, a little bit of preparation and research can help both parties walk away with a much better deal - as in real business transactions.

So how do trades differ from buying on E-Bay? First, trades are not necessarily competitive nor time sensitive. You can't see the number of other people submitting bids and there is no magical time when the auction is over. There may be significant space to expand the pie and look for creative solutions.

Assumptions

I want to state a couple of assumptions just to make sure we start off at the same spot.

• You're not necessarily trying to screw the other part out of every last penny.
• Win-win agreements are desired as you are interested in repeat transactions and your online reputation.
• Both parties are fairly rational people, possibly emotionally invested, but rational.

Key Terms

• Alternative Scenarios - A different package of goods and services than was original proposed. The initial offer might have been cash for figures, but ends up being a trade for other goods.
• BATNA - Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement. Your fall back position. Basically, what's the outcome if the negotiation doesn't work out.
• Win-Win - Conceptually, the idea that both parties can/will give up a little and end up somewhere in the middle.
• Walk Away Point - At what point do you simply walk away from the deal.

Preparing for a Negotiation

Before you start any negotiation, you need to do your research. You need to find out not only what the true retail cost is, but also what are your alternatives on E-Bay or other on-line retailers. You need to get an idea of how readily available something is. This helps form your BATNA. Sometimes you need to get a little creative. A Carnifex boxed set goes for $45 USD at full retail. However, if all you're looking for are the devourers then we run into some interesting questions. First, while you could argue that the devourers are only a small part of the overall box, a quick search of E-Bay shows that almost no Carnifex devourers are being sold. Everyone wants them for their DakkaFexes, so the piece is actually in high demand. You probably won't pay full price but you aren't going to find them lying around either.

You also have to determine your actual "need" for the miniature. Businesses get trapped by this all the time and it cost companies millions of dollars. There are "need to haves" and "want to haves". Mistakenly classifying one as the other causes you to pay a premium for the product and potentially addition for rushed shipping or poorer product quality. Let's take a look at the carnifex example again. I would really like another pair of devourers and I could acquire them today if I really needed them, for example, if I was leaving for the tournament today and the DakkaFex is a key component of my army list. Realistically though, I have a couple of other DakkaFexes and I really only want them so that I can experiment with magnetizing a fully moddable Carnifex. In this case, I need one out of a point of interest and not because I actually need one. I can afford to wait and see if something more reasonably priced comes up. This is critical because once I recognize this, I can afford to walk away from a potential trade.

If you're looking for painted miniatures or the condition is of particular interest, get pictures or conversely provide pictures, from multiple angles, showing everything that is included. This helps take any ambiguity out of the trade.

Let's say you decide you really do need the figures, parts, pieces, whatever. Figure out at what point you're willing to walk away. We'll talk about this in the next section, but the original asking price may be quite far away from what you are willing to pay. Understanding at what point you are willing to walk away from the deal ensures you don't get trapped into paying more that you should. This probably occurs more on E-Bay where people get caught up in the moments and in some cases, end up paying more than retail for something.

The sellers' preparation is a little different, especially for large lots. In addition to price, you have to figure out your willingness to piece a lot out. Case in point. I came across a trade opportunity for a large number of metal terminators. They were metal, primed, but not painted -- right in my sweet spot. However, they were all being sold as a single lot. So even while the initial asking price was attractive, the number of people who need 30+ terminators is pretty small, which limits your market. Had the seller detailed out the load outs of the terminators and been willing to sell them in groups of 5, he probably could have gotten 2X more than what I ultimately paid. I also made a lower offer because I didn't really need the terminators ... they were for my kids. If I didn't get them, no big deal. I made my lower offer, which was rejected, but let the intermediary know that if the seller couldn't find anyone to take them, that I would still be open to the sale. A couple weeks later, I got my terminators at my offered price.

Relative Valuation

Everyone puts a different value on the total cost and it's important not to project your values onto the other party. What do I mean? For example, I may post for trade up a squad of painted OOP marines that I've spend time painstakingly painting and they've helped me to many victories. I'm emotionally attached to them. The other party however, wants raw metal he can paint to match his army. In this case, I may place a very high value on the squad (painted, OOP, etc) where as the other player is only willing to pay for base metal. I might even get offended if the other party makes an offer that falls short of the value I put on the figures.

On the other hand, you might find someone who is in the market for just that, painted miniatures and if your figures are of the quality and schema they're looking for, their value may very well be much closer to yours.

The key is that you have to ask questions and then determine if the other person's value is close enough to your accepable amount. Remember, a negotiation is a series of conversations and not a set of ultimatums.

Determining your initial offer and walk away point

Once you've determined your relative need, you want to come up with an initial offer. For some transactions, that offer may well be the asking price. It's up to you. In the case where there is no asking price, you probably want to start lower, so that you have room to go up if necessary, but I tend to also give my rationale for the bid. Sometimes the other person's initial trade post will give you some clues as to how low you can start. I always groan when people start off their trade threads with, "Need cash! ..." This tells me that they probably value a quick sale over maximizing the dollar value of the sale.

Expanding the Pie

Don't get locked into thinking about trades as simple "figures for cash" transactions. There are tons of ways you or the other party can expand the pie to uncover alternative scenarios and maximize the chances that each of you will trade away something of low value for something of high value. Instead of locking yourself into the Warhammer 40K miniatures for Warhammer 40K miniatures, think about offering up some other items. Some of the things you could include in a bid are:

• Figures from other games by the same manufacturer (e.g., WH40K for WHFB, Necromunda, etc)
• Figures from other game systems (e.g., Wh40K for Warmachine
• Books, codices, or other supplemental materials
• Terrain
• Magic Cards
• Paintball
• Shipping

It may take a couple of questions to determine what does the other person want. Are they looking for: armies, OOP figures to round out a collection, cash, why cash? Do you have what they are looking for and are you willing to part with it? Even if you don't find a happy middle ground, you really haven't lost anything for trying.

Finalizing the Deal and Follow Up

Once you think you have a trade worked out, I like to summarize the deal as I understand it and get the other party's acceptance. That's just to make sure that we both pulled out the same deal points from the exchange of e-mails, IM's, PM's, etc. If you're the buyer, remit payment as soon as possible or at least tell the seller when they can expect it to be sent. I just concluded a trade where the seller didn't have Paypal, so I had to wait a couple of days before I could go to the Post Office to get a money order and send it off. As a courtesy, I let him know and followed up when I had actually sent the payment off. I also like to let the seller know when I've received the goods. It's good form to close out the deal and let them know that their part is over.

If you're the seller, I typically wait until I've received payment before I send off figures, but if I know the person's reputation, then I don't mind sending them off earlier. Just like anything else, I try to package things up as best as possible and get them into the mail quickly so that I don't have the to-do hanging over my head. It just good policy to get this wrapped up as soon as possible in any case.

Avoiding Getting Screwed

E-Bay has feedback points, which is useful, particularly for sellers and buyers with low amounts of feedback. Setting up trades with forum participants is a little trickier. Warseer actually supports good trader feedback which is pretty useful, but in other forums, you might have to do a little bit of research. I like to look at a person's posting history to see if they are a long time forum contributor and therefore probably unlikely to jeapardize that by being an ass. If there is little posting history, then I look to see who else is talking to them and the tone they're taking. I also ask all of the questions I need answers to, and look at the quality of the response. If all else fails, I weigh the potential risk. If it's a low dollar amount and something not to critical to me, I'm more willing to take a chance. Overall though, my online trade experiences have been quite good.

Closing Thoughts

So there you have it. My 2 pennies on negotiating trades. If you approach with with the proper care and preparation, you can snag great bargains that will really expand your armies. Good luck and have fun.

Notes

Last updated	9/17/08
Author	Michael Kan
Pre-requisites	None
Related Articles	Acquiring Second Hand Miniatures