So today I sold my bandsaw. I got a little under half the price I paid for it. I wasn't going to sell it for anything less than $200 but the guy had worked hard to get the money and the bank stiffed him with fees so I just let him have it for $190. It's only $10 and I needed the room more than the cash and now I have both.
When he saw my workshop we got to talking about woodworking and it turns out he does his own and sells his stuff at local markets. He described how he got into it and how he works and so now I have an in for getting to know how the local market works.
He can also get me some native timber which is pretty hard to find in New Zealand due to laws against cutting down native trees... as odd as that sounds.
Who knows what might have happened had I taken the rigid path and demanded the $200 come hell or high water. Maybe the transaction would have just been robotic "Here's your money now give me the saw" or it might have still gone as well as it did. But I will tell you this. I don't like being a douche. I like to put others first. The guy was a single dad, his ex-wife was a typical ex-wife and he was left skint. He looked as bedraggled as his story told so I settled for less.
Sure you could call me a sucker and that's most likely a fair call. I suck at haggling because it's not the culture I grew up with. You paid what the sticker price said. Others obviously grew up different to me and that's their nature to try it on. But the truth is that I abhor money. I'd rather have contacts that I can learn from or get things done with than I would have a tonne of money to buy things outright. I whole-heartedly dislike people who are all about money. Money is a means to an end for me and I'd rather have the end than work to get money to get that end if you know what I mean.
Don't get me wrong, I want to make money from woodworking but only so that I can feed my hobby. If I could feed that hobby in other ways then I'd much rather make stuff and give it away. This world doesn't work that way though and so here we are.
The next time you sell something don't just rigidly stick to the sticker price. You may just end up with more than you would have got had you done so.
