How honest are you when selling stuff?

[Moondog55]

Somebody just offered me $600- for my big down sleeping bag . I was talking him up and then asked him where hes was headed etc. I wound up telling him that the bag was unsuitable and he would be wasting his money. It being 30 degrees warmer than needed for Europe outside of the Arctic circle in winter
I want to sell that bag but not at the expense of somebody elses ignorance or lack of experience.
Anybody else ever blown off a sale because of similar circumstances?

[Tortoise]

Well done, Ted.
I have done similar - a friend calls me pathologically honest. But I was handed an out with the biggest one. I bought a house, naively believing the 'septic tank with an overflow pump' description, without checking it out properly. It was only a holding tank, with all grey water and sewerage being pumped illegally through a dodgy pipe to the distant mains. I wasn't going to sell it without explaining to the potential buyer that it was an issue. Yard flooded with raw sewage from time to time, and it would have cost about $40,000 to fix. Pump not up to the job, pipe not up to the pressure from an appropriate pump, need to put in a pump station, plus 200 m of mains to join the nearest one. Very happily, a developer approached me to buy the property. His project was going to require him to do all that anyway. I sold.

Last edited by Tortoise on Sat 29 Jun, 2019 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[CBee]

It is a duty giving the potential buyer all the possible infos and details about the item. Including history and usage. After all, the purpose of selling second hand is not profit driven but just trying to recover some of the original cost.
I have been buying and selling hiking and rock climbing equipment and I always try to give away as many details as I can and I expect the same from sellers. If I smell dishonesty I usually withdraw...

[north-north-west]

I hardly ever sell things - prefer to keep using them until they fall to pieces (which doesn't take all that long given how rough I can be with my gear). But on the rare occasions it happens - yeah, honest to a fault. Hate being ripped off, won't do it to someone else.

[ribuck]

"Under-promise and over-deliver".

It's the recipe for surrounding yourself with happy people, and feeling good about yourself.

[Rosscodj]

I've "blown" a few sales by being honest, but I can't bring myself to sell something to someone if I don't think its the right fit for them. More so if its expensive and/or safety can rely on it. That said, if I've given them all the information, made it clear that I don't think its the right choice, and they still desperately want to buy it, I'll sell it to them, as long as their life doesn't depend on it - I'm a skydiver, and we have a lot of second hand sales of gear throughout the community. There's always a big discussion about this when someone injures themselves flying a canopy that is probably too high performance than their experience level, and whether the person who sold the gear to them should have said no.

[neilmny]

"Under-promise and over-deliver".

It's the recipe for surrounding yourself with happy people, and feeling good about yourself.

+1 ribuck and well done Moondog.

[Huntsman247]

It all depends on how selfish a person is. If you care enough about other people to be a decent human being then you would not even have to think twice about deceiving anyone or being honest, you would not only be honest but discourage them from doing something that could result in their harm. A sale is not worth a human life or injury.

[davidn3875]

I am the co-owner of an independent outdoor store, operating for 23 years and one of our prime philosophies is that we would rather not sell an item to a customer than sell them the wrong product for their purpose. I guess that that is one of the reasons that we are still in business.

[trekker76]

If there are faults or wear and tear I am brutally honest as I don't like the idea of returns or repercussions. Otherwise I don't question what folks want an item for.

[Petew]

Totally honest. I have been selling stuff a long time. Always let the buyer know a products strengths and weakness. What to expect lifespan/performance wise etc. I sell stuff for a living. Best approach is honest information and expectations. I have zero interest in being pushy and am not bothers if I make a sale or not. If the buyer is informed and happy, that's what counts for me.

[rcaffin]

Well, I have to be totally honest, given my visibility, don't I?
But it is so much easier that way.

Cheers
Roger