What ebay teaches us

This week we’ve been ebaying. Getting rid of clothes clutter before the Christmas shop-fest. For those of you who have never sold anything on ebay, the starting price the system suggests is 99p… and then you wait for people to bid on your the item. The highest bidder wins.

But here’s the rub. If someone was willing to pay £10, but the asking price is only 99p… they will win the item at that price. The only time the price would leap up to more than say, the £10 they had offered, is when another bidder chooses to put in a bid.

And this is what happens in business too. Who ever tells us our prices are too cheap, and we’re worth five-times more? No-one. Why should they?

So, top Tigerfish tip for this week is: don’t go in to a business transaction with prices which are too low. Using the ebay analogy, you might get reviewed as ‘***excellent ebayer, ***’ but the other party will bag themselves a real bargain.