Lesson 2 - Negotiation

Introduction

Negotiation is something we do everyday, let it be in the real world, or the world of Growtopia. Everyone at one point has negotiated over something in order to get a better deal, so negotiation is a concept we’re all pretty familiar with. There are many many tricks and traps to negotiation.

Make your buyer/seller think they are getting the better deal

The key is to let your buyer/seller think they are getting the better deal but really, you are. I see so many players fall into the trap of thinking they’re getting the better deal but really the other person is, resulting in them having a really hard time later on trying to sell an item ending up selling it cheap and back to lowballers who repeat the process but to other players. I funnily enough fell for this same trap thinking when I bought the world “BUYNONLA” for 80dls I was profiting so much but not until the end of the trade, I got laughed at because the original owner had gotten it for 10dls 1 day ago. Prior to the trade, the owner who wanted to sell me the world had a friend that was roasting him for things like “Why you need dls for this world so good” and also telling me “You’re so lucky the owner needs dls” blah blah blah. As long as you can master this skill, Trading will become so much easier and profitable.

Don't be obvious:

How do you make a buyer/sell think they are getting the better deal you ask? What I can tell you is to not be so ‘obvious’ or they will hesitate and rethink the deal. What I mean by ‘obvious’ is accepting instantly by saying “Trade” or “Okay”. Trust me, players always want to get the best possible deal for themselves and they don’t want to get ripped off. I suggest instead of saying “Trade” directly after they offer your desired price, make them feel you’re losing wls or distract them. Whatever you do, just do not let them think about the price and it’s worth. I suggest you say things like: “Oh what do you need this for?” or “Ah idk. I think I’m losing wls.”

Dummy Offers

One trick that can be used when negotiating, or when first trying to find out an estimated value of items is through what I call “Dummy offers”. “Dummy offers” is a trick that can be used to successfully determine if an item is overvalued, preventing buyers from getting ripped off. It is essentially offering a random offer for an item and based on the reaction of the buyer, one can see if they're overpaying. For example, I want to buy, say, an Emerald Lock but I don't really know the price. By essentially offering the seller a random price of 20dl, and the buyer reacts in a quick acceptance attitude like “Trade”, or “can more?” then you can instantly recognise that somethings not right. In some cases, yes, sellers might be desperate but you should always find out the reason why. Why is the seller selling his item for so cheap? Is it dropping in value because of an exploit?

Do not bring the price down, let them reach your acceptable prices

When you are making a deal, never bring your price down first. Always try and let the buyer increase his price. I like to do a 20/10 split. Everytime you lower the price by 10%, he must increase by 20% of his REASONABLE offer. The reason for this is that if you bring down your price way too early, the buyer would probably even lower it even more. Say you were selling an emerald pickaxe for 20dl, but the buyer’s initial offer was 19dl. If you bring it down to 1950wl, his max would probably be only 1920-1930wl. However if you lowered it to say, 1980wl he’s more likely to offer higher than 1950wl.