A while back, I was interested in simplifying my life and making a little money in the process. I wasn’t desperate for money, but I didn’t intend to be blasé about it. I had a few handheld gaming devices and games to go with them that I figured I could sell via Ebay – a PSP and a Nintendo DS. I also had a fairly decent camera that I wasn’t using since I have an equally decent camera on my phone. I listed these three items on Ebay and sold two of them fairly quickly – the DS and the camera went quickly. However, the PSP wasn’t going so easily.
Finally, I got a bite on the PSP. I was excited because I had gotten more money for the DS and the camera than I’d expected to get. I thought that might also be the case for the PSP. However, the buyer that made the winning bid did not acknowledge that s/he had won. I had their contact information, but I wasn’t going to just ship off the PSP without knowing for sure that the buyer was in touch and would pay me. I sent the buyer several messages, but the buyer didn’t respond.
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I could have taken a chance and just shipped the PSP off anyway. I was anxious to get rid of it, and if I didn’t get the money, well, at least the PSP would be gone. After all, I had made more money on the other two items. I was ahead of the game. However, I chose to use the power of walking away. Dawson (2011) talks about both the “walk-away price” and the power to walk away. Both of these apply to my situation. The price in this case was the risk of not making money, and because of the way in which I was selling the item, I had the power to walk away.
Therefore, I decided to walk away. I canceled the auction and took the item off the market, so to speak. I decided I would wait and relist it. I walked away from a questionable situation. In the end, I did relist the item and made more money than I would have made in the initial situation. In walking away, I won, which is part of successful negotiation.
- Dawson, R. (2011). Secrets of power negotiating. Pompton Plains, NJ: The Career Press, Inc.
