Here's a Surprisingly Effective and Simple Strategy for Buying on eBay: The key, a study found, is to make your offer a round percentage off the listed price.

 

"In some online negotiations, there is a simple way to boost your odds of getting a discount.

In a recent study, researchers looked at eBay transactions where buyers could either pay a listed price or make a "best offer" that was below the listed price.

When buyers did make a "best offer," they closed many more deals if the amount they offered was a round percentage of the listed price.

Let's say a seller was asking $34 for a product. An offer of $17 -- exactly 50% of the asking price -- stood a much better chance of being accepted than an offer of $18, or 53%.

Why? In these types of transactions, sellers usually don't field more than one offer at a time -- so the sellers are considering each offer individually rather than waiting for many buyers to make bids in a traditional auction.

And when sellers mull each offer individually, it is likely easier to mentally process an offer that's a round percentage.

"These round percentages seem to coincide with a higher percentage of getting a deal in the end," says Hannes Petrowsky, a research associate at Leuphana University in Luneburg, Germany, and the study's lead author.

The researchers studied more than 25 million eBay negotiations in 30 product categories -- about 45% of them were successful -- from 2012 to 2013. The goal: to see how buyers on the platform could get the cheapest offer without overpaying for an item.

(The researchers didn't examine traditional eBay auctions.)

Buyers who offered percentages that were difficult for the seller to calculate mentally, such as 51% off the listed price or 39% off, would close fewer deals than those who offered 50% or 40% off, respectively.

For instance, for every 1,000 offers made at 50%, 388 would lead to a deal, but for every 1,000 offers made at 51%, only 317 would lead to a deal. "When buyers offered exactly half of the list price, sellers tend to accept offers," says Mr. Petrowsky.

Offering 90% of the advertised price was most likely to result in a sale; the researchers found similar increases for those offering even percentages of 30%, 40% and 50% off the listed price.

The research -- which was published in the Journal of Economic Psychology -- found other trends in eBay deals.

For one, buyers making offers on items that cost more than $100 were more likely to reach an impasse than products that were priced lower.

And buyers who mimicked the precise endings of the asking price stood a better chance of closing a deal -- for instance, a buyer who offered $27.77 on an item priced at $37.77.

Buyers who used that strategy increased the likelihood of a deal by 5.5 percentage points. Prior research has shown that these precise offers make the buyers seem more knowledgeable but less willing to make concessions." [1]

1. Here's a Surprisingly Effective and Simple Strategy for Buying on eBay: The key, a study found, is to make your offer a round percentage off the listed price. Dizik, Alina. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 11 May 2023: R.2.

 

Lithuanians, like that gypsy horse - have almost learned to live without food, but are already dying

 In Lithuania today, the majority is middle class and everyone is very happy, but the problem is that most people do not have money for food, because food is very expensive. If we don't count food, then life in Lithuania - live and sing like the horse.

Lietuviai, kaip tas čigono arklys - beveik išmoko gyventi be maisto, bet jau užverčia kanopas

Lietuvoje šiandien dauguma yra vidurinė klasė ir visi labai laimingi, tik, va, bėda - maistui pinigų dauguma neturi, nes maistas labai brangus. Jei maistą neskaičiuojame, tai Lietuvoje gyvenimas - gyvenk ir žvenk.

„Indijos technologinių įmonių“ pažadas konkuruoti su Kinija žlunga

   „Indijos edtech įmonė „Byju's“ buvo Azijos šalies startuolių bumo plakatas, kuris sulaukė aukšto įvertinimo ir tenkino milijonų studentų poreikius visoje šalyje, nes pandemija pablogino jų galimybes lankytis mokyklose ir mokytis.

 

     Pasirodo, tai simbolis visko, kas nepavyko, kai Indija pažadėjo sukurti interneto kompanijas, kurios konkuruotų su tokiais Kinijos titanais, kaip Alibaba ir Tencent. Karšta šalies startuolių ekosistema, viliojanti tokius investuotojus, kaip „SoftBank“ ir „Tiger Global“, susiduria su klausimais dėl finansinės atskaitomybės ir drausmės, brangių įsigijimų, svaiginančių vertinimų ir ar investuotojai pervertino bendrą Indijos adresuojamą rinką arba TAM. Viešieji sąrašai buvo atidėti, o atleidimai iš darbo yra beveik kasdienis reiškinys.

 

     Praėjusį mėnesį Indijos kovos su finansiniais nusikaltimais agentūra, Vykdymo direktoratas, surengė reidą Byju patalpose Bengalūre dėl įtariamų Užsienio valiutos valdymo įstatymo pažeidimų ir tvirtino, kad konfiskavo kaltinančius dokumentus. Popieriuje rašoma, kad labiausiai vertinamas šalies startuolis teigia, kad yra įsitikinęs, kad problema bus išspręsta laiku ir patenkinamai.

 

     Bendrovė, kurios vertė paskutinį kartą buvo įvertinta 22 milijardais dolerių, per pastaruosius metus suklupo nuo vieno ginčo prie kito, kai prasidėjo finansavimo žiema, o investuotojai pradėjo klausinėti savo portfelio įmones dėl grynųjų pinigų deginimo, įsigijimų ir pagrindinių verslo valdymo ekonominių aspektų.

 

     „Byju's“ nepateikė savo finansinių rezultatų pastaruosius dvejus metus, o praėjusių metų sąskaitos kėlė akibrokštą dėl neįkvepiančių skaičių. Remiantis vietos žiniasklaidos pranešimais, investuotojas „BlackRock“ pažymėjo, kad investicijos sumažino beveik 50 proc. Visa tai labai apsunkins kėlimą į kitą etapą.

 

     Ne visos problemos būdingos konkrečiai įmonei. Investuotojai į šalies startuolius pradeda suprasti, kad išlaidas internetu lemia tik nedidelė procentinė dalis išlaidaujančių Indijos interneto gyventojų ir gali praeiti šiek tiek laiko, kol perkamoji galia pasiskirstys tolygiau. Remiantis naujausia „Blume Ventures“ ataskaita, apie 45 milijonai vartotojų sudaro 50% internetinių išlaidų iš 850 milijonų indų, besinaudojančių internetu. Indijoje staigiai sumažėjo vartojimas už 30 mln. namų ūkių rinkinio ribų.

 

     Remiantis praėjusių metų Morgan Stanley ataskaita, tik 26% Indijos namų ūkių uždirbo daugiau, nei 10 000 dolerių 2021 m. Tai blaivi realybė tiems, kaip McKinsey vadovaujantis partneris Bobas Sternfelsas, kuris pareiškė, kad Indijai priklauso ne dešimtmetis, o šimtmetis.

 

     Po kelerių metų agresyvios verslo plėtros ir įsigijimų Indijos vienaragiai atsiduria rimtame pinigų trūkume. Masiniai atleidimai iš darbo ir sumažintos operacijos dabar tapo norma, nes vienaragiai priešinasi nemaloniai galimybei surinkti kitus lėšų kiekius daug mažesniu vertinimu. Duomenų teikėjo „Tracxn“ duomenimis, Indijos vėlyvosios stadijos startuoliai 2022 m. surinko tik apie 17,6 mlrd. dolerių, palyginti su 35,3 mlrd. dolerių 2021 m.

 

     Jei FED griežtinimo ciklas nesibaigs greitai ir išsivysčiusios ekonomikos pateks į nuosmukį, Indijos startuoliams netrukus gali tekti nuryti karčią nuosmukio piliulę. Kaip gali pasakyti Byju instruktoriai, kai sumos nelabai susisumuoja, investuotojai į Indijos startuolių sceną aiškiai neatliko savo namų darbų. Jie mokosi savo sunkias pamokas.“ [1]

 

1. India Tech's Vow to Rival China Falls Apart. Mandavia, Megha. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 11 May 2023: B.12.

India Tech's Vow to Rival China Falls Apart.

"The Indian edtech company Byju's was the poster child of the Asian country's startup boom, attracting a lofty valuation while meeting the needs of millions of students across the country as the pandemic hurt their access to schools and education.

It is turning out to be a symbol of everything that went wrong with India's promise of creating internet companies to rival such Chinese titans as Alibaba and Tencent. The country's hot startup ecosystem, which lured such investors as SoftBank and Tiger Global, is facing questions on financial accountability and discipline, expensive acquisitions, heady valuations and whether investors overestimated India's total addressable market, or TAM. Public listings were delayed, and layoffs are almost a daily occurrence.

Last month, India's financial-crime-fighting agency, the Enforcement Directorate, raided the premises of Byju's in Bengaluru on suspected violations of the Foreign Exchange Management Act and claimed to have seized incriminating documents. What is on paper the country's most highly valued startup maintains that it is confident the matter will be resolved in a timely and satisfactory manner.

The company, which was last valued at $22 billion, stumbled from one controversy to another over the past year as a funding winter set in and investors started questioning their portfolio companies on cash burn, acquisitions and the basic economics of running a business.

Byju's hasn't filed its financial results for the past two years, and the accounts filed for the year before raised eyebrows on uninspiring numbers. Investor BlackRock marked its investment down by nearly 50%, according to local media reports in March, at a time when Byju's expected growth hasn't even remotely materialized. All of this is going to make raising its next round extremely difficult.

The problems aren't all company-specific. Investors in the country's startups are coming to realize online spending is driven only by a minuscule percentage of spenders from India's overall internet population and it might take a while before the spending power is more evenly distributed. According to a recent report by Blume Ventures, about 45 million users account for 50% of online spending out of the overall 850 million Indians using the internet. India has seen a sharp drop in consumption outside the top 30 million households.

Only 26% of India's households earned more than $10,000 in 2021, according to a Morgan Stanley report last year. This is a sobering reality for those such as McKinsey Managing Partner Bob Sternfels, who declared it isn't the decade but rather the century that belongs to India.

After a few years of aggressive business expansion and acquisitions, Indian unicorns find themselves in a severe cash crunch. Mass layoffs and scaled-back operations have now become a norm as unicorns resist the unpleasant possibility of raising the next rounds of funds at much lower valuations. According to data provider Tracxn, Indian late-stage startups raised only about $17.6 billion in 2022 versus $35.3 billion in 2021.

If the Fed's tightening cycle doesn't end soon and the developed economies slip into a recession, Indian startups might have to soon swallow the bitter pill of a down round. As Byju's instructors might say when the sums don't quite add up, investors in India's startup scene clearly didn't do their homework. They are learning their lesson." [1]

1. India Tech's Vow to Rival China Falls Apart. Mandavia, Megha. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 11 May 2023: B.12.