"Where did all the reasonable traders go?" A Rant

This right here is the attitude you should have, IMHO. Some guys want to fleece you. Most don't. Everyone values the beer differently from you. End the end, it's just beer. If I had a nickel for every PM discussion on a trade where the other guy simply vanishes. It's annoying, yes, but I don't take it personally. Don't take ANYTHING personally. Just shrug it off and move on. Find some regular trading partners. Treat them right. Give them barrel aged extras. That's how I've found this game is played. It works for me. Each to his own.

 

I'm personal friends with @MrShake and having talked with him earlier today about this, I really think a lot of the disagreement with his rant is just misunderstanding. Some of the things he posted I believe were stated by other individuals, but came across that they were his comments.

I trade a lot, with a lot of people, but find posting ISO's to be a huge pain. Bif's are awesome, and a great way to meet new quality trading partners, if you do it right!

In the end, it's just beer guys. If you feel comfortable with the deal, accept it, trade it, and drink it. If it doesn't come across as something you want to do, then don't do it. $4$ is a decent starting point sometimes, but it all depends on what you want, and what you got. I've traded many higher dollar bottles for lower dollar bottles just because I wanted to, and the other way around as well.

@MrShake, we'll drink some killer beers here tomorrow, and more on the lake on Sunday, I'll have to remember to pull a Dark Lord from the cellar too.

 

Alaska, Montana, Delaware, New Hampshire and Oregon pay no sales tax. ;-)

I can see both sides of the issue on including tax.

1) Let's say we don't include tax. Then a $16 beer is a $16 beer everywhere. Great! But, people in states with no sales tax are now spending $16 to get a $16 beer and people in states like California are spending 8%-10% more. Not so great!

2) Let's say do include tax. Then it's whatever leaves your pocket. Great. But NOW states like Oregon / Delaware / New Hampshire / Alaska / Montana get a little screwed over since they're having to send more beer to cover trades.

Granted, it's a small percent ... and I bet your opinion on whether or not it should be included correlates with your states tax rate. ;-) IMHO you gotta have a little wiggle on $4$ to account for these state to state differences.

 

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For what it's worth, I think it's much closer to 12:1 than 5:1 on $4$ and on rarity. Interesting though - do a poll to see what BAs consider a good ratio. I think you'll be surprised by the "wisdom of the crowds."

 

Just a side note here, you can always use the "leave conversation" option and ignore future messages from the person if you don't want to talk to them, if this happens to you again in the future... I think this would save you the trouble of dealing with people who want to haggle over gas and tax $ (which I agree is silly)... and hopefully save you from having any more frustration and rants like this is the future

 

Reasonability is a relative thing...like I consider your offer of 5 NG thumbprints for an upland sour pretty unreasonable. All your comments to me just came across as someone who was mad that they couldn't get the bottle they wanted for the beers they were offering but maybe that wasn't your intention.

I agree that if someone was going on and on about gas and tax etc I wouldn't do the trade and would just leave the conversation. Pretty simple. On future trade threads one piece of advice might be to specifically list the bottles you are willing to trade rather than just throwing your cellar list up there. You probably could have avoided a lot of that by doing this.

 

OP... just let it go. You're not going to get anywhere good anytime soon. Rants usually don't.

 

This was your post:

"Hey BAers... I've been wanting to get my hands on some Upland Sours. I'm particularly interested in persimmon, as I LOVED finding them wild as a kid.

Here is my cellar:
http://www.beercellar.me/cellar/MrShake

Of course, not every thing there is up for trade, but take a look!"

I'm just telling you that for example you wouldn't have had to deal with people asking for Wild Peach if you hadn't put your cellar link up rather than just typing a list of the bottles you are willing to trade. Of course I don't agree with it but there are traders out there that will always gravitate to the rarest beers on your list whether they say FT or not. It's certainly not your fault that some do that but if you can prevent it from happening to you why wouldn't you?

 

This can go back and forth all day long about how people value their beer, but the point has been made several times, if you dont like the trade politely tell the other party how you feel and go on to the next trade, or just drink your beer. And it is better to list exactly what you are ISO FT rather than leave a link, it will save a lot of headache getting the deal done. Locking this down, but leaving up for people to reference.