Want a deal on a purchase? Find common connection with seller

If you’re looking to furnish your home with vintage furniture or expand a collection of treasured memorabilia, new research suggests those items could end up being cheaper if buyers emphasize a mutual connection to the past.

The research also has implications for sustainability.

What the researchers say: “While a good gains value through association with an individual owner, it also gains value through its connection with a collective past,” the lead author told us. “Connecting to the people who came before changes the value of objects. Sellers value the good more, but they will accept less from a person who also values that good because they want the link to the people who came before them — the heritage connection.”

“It’s long been known in behavioral economics that owners will often over-value an item,” she said. “Yet, we were observing almost an opposite pattern: Owners were willing to take a below-market sales price if the buyer was somehow connected to the object’s past.

“Even more surprising was that they’re offering a lower sales price to people who they think are likely to value the item the most. From an economic perspective, it’s an interesting demonstration of how people are willing to trade between money and emotional connections. From a marketplace perspective, it gives us insight into the selling and donating of the heirlooms retirees may be trying to get rid of.”

Past research has found that owners who are highly attached to sentimental items demonstrate heightened sensitivity to the future usage of their goods. This research suggests that sellers find it easier to part with an item when selling to buyers who share a connection to the item’s past.

The research is applicable to markets that involve resale, such as the $43 trillion U.S. housing market and the $450 billion collectibles market.

“To get a discount on an older house, real estate agents might encourage their clients to use homebuyer ‘love letters’ that emphasize their experience living in a house from the same time period and their goal of staying connected to the past while enjoying the house,” the researchers said.

But the research could have significance beyond the hunt for a good bargain.

“While we analyze buying and selling of consumer goods in this paper, our work has implications for sustainability,” the coauthor explained. “While individuals sell goods, governments sell land, oil, water and mining rights. This research suggests that emphasizing a natural resource’s connection to generations past and the people who came before may make citizens value the land more and may make them more concerned about who gets the rights to the resource.

“We hope that understanding the link between the past and the present will pave a way to understanding how to preserve and protect our future.”

“Novelist William Faulkner famously wrote, ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past,’” said the lead author. “This is true in the marketplace, where the past has been mostly ignored. We found that a heritage connection — a seller’s link to the people who came before them — affects the decisions consumers make in a marketplace.”

So, what? This is an interesting piece of research which ties in with previous findings in the field of selling using commonality. For example, a study (reported at the time in TR) showed that car salespeople who emphasized what they have in common with the potential buyer are some 30% more likely to achieve a sale.

The reason is that commonality is one of the five main elements of trust. The more we have in common, the more we will trust each other—we see each other as part of the same tribe.

If we both value an antique—or house—for its past, or our connection to its past, we form a bond (the action of the reward neurochemical oxytocin ensures this) and become, at least potentially, part of each other’s support network.

Really, any commonality will serve the same purpose: our kids are the same age, we both vote Democrat, we attend the same church, we both like Star Wars movies, our spouses have the same-colored hair, we are both hirsutally challenged (nearly bald), we both like to ski, hike, or fly to Bermuda. Any and all commonalities trigger the same trust/bonding mechanism and the desire to do business together.

The trade solidifies the relationship. The car, the house, the antique become of secondary importance to the strengthening of the relationship and thus the potential widening of our support network.