Well! Now! There is haggling ... and there is haggling. If I am providing a service, or selling a new product, or buying same, the price is the price. If my mechanic says its $65 an hour and will take three hours, and the parts are $100, then the price is $295. End of story.
However, if someone is selling me a used high end item, like an airplane, there are other factors than what the seller (even if the seller is me) is asking.
With the airplane in question, that started all of this, it is a nice clean little bird. There are a few questions out there that need answering, but once answered, the asking price is still well above Vref. If I wanted the plane, I would make the seller an offer. The offer might even be a little above Vref, because it looks to me like Vref might quote a little low.
Conversely, if the seller of this same bird was asking LESS than (or maybe even equal to) Vref, and all the questions came back with favorable answers, I'd write him a check and we would both be happy.
Now, in my business, especially on the engineering side, we do get the occassional hagglers. We get a lot of repeat business, and, if we identify a client as a haggler (actually, we call them "whiners"), then we build a "whine factor" into the initial proposal. So, we mark up the proposal 15%, allow ourselves to be whined down 10%, and make 5% more than we would have to cover the bother of having to listen to the whine.
Reg
