Auction Hunters

For this blog I watched an episode of Auction Hunters called "Battle Bought" and looked at the different negotiation strategies used.

1. What were they trying to sell to who?
They were selling battle bot's to Chuck and Jason who are two aerospace engineers.

2. What were the opening bids for both sides? How did they come to an agreement?
Chuck and Jason started with $2,000 and that price was agreed upon under the condition that it worked perfectly. The battle bot didn't work perfectly so Chuck and Jason dropped it to $1,800. Ton and Allen counter offered by including all of the controllers plus the big battle bot for $2,500. In the end they compromised and decided on a price of $2,000.


3. Name 3 things you read off of observing body language during negotiations.
Jason's hands in a strained position indicated that he was still very interested but wanted to get a better deal.

Chuck was leaning a little bit away from Allen and avoiding eye contact suggesting he was trying to hide something. Perhaps he knew the robot was worth a bit more and wanted to keep that a secret. 

4. Identify any negotiation strategies used.
Alan and Ton used small talk to get the buyers to feel a little more comfortable. When they feel more comfortable they might give more things away with their body language. Another thing they did was a little sweet talking. "Wow I'm feeling humbled" said Allen after they talked about Chuck and Jason's work. When the deal was in danger of dropping in value they bartered and threw in some extra robot controllers and parts to bring the price up. This worked pretty well because they sold the buyers things they didn't originally want and thus raised the price of the deal.

5. In your opinion, who got the best out of this negotiation?
I think that Allen and Ton got the best deal out of this negotiation because although they didn't know the value of the product as much as the buyers but they used their superior negotiating skills to sell the product on their terms. I noticed that in they had an initial offer of $2,000 and that's what they ended up with in the end. Although at one point they could have walked away with selling only one item for a fairly good price they sold off the rest in order to squeeze the last few hundred out of the buyers. They also made a positive relationship with the buyer's which leaves room for further deals later on.