During the five trade I have made, I used several different strategies in order to deal with different circumstances. In terms of the first trade of chocolate bar, I firstly thought about the price range of goods I want to exchange and therefore I determined to trade for small snacks. This strategy helped me finding out the target trader quickly and after I stated clear my goal, we finished the trade successfully.
I planned to get small goods for the paper clip since I wanted to have a good start and could trade up with more options. The first thing came to my mind was snacks. And I successfully traded the red paper clip for a chocolate bar from one of my friends. I guess having a clear price range helped.
In terms of second trade, I brought my chocolate bar to the library because I was sure that people would feel hungry when studying in the library in the late night. And the chocolate bar is the perfect option for those people.
The second trade was with a stranger in the library. The chocolate bar was a convenient and delicious snacks for people studying in the library, which allows me exchange that chocolate bar with a ball-point pen successfully. I guess having a specific target market for selling goods is important for my trade.
Afterwards I traded the ball-point pen for a novel book from my neighbor. The idea is that he has already read this novel for many times and it will be more valuable if he exchange this book with me for some other goods. I think the integrative negotiation and win/win idea really helped.
After I got the novel book, I started to persuade my roommate to exchange his Yoga mat with my book. I listed several reasons which included that this book is about detective which was his favorite and he has already bought a new Yoga mat. So it was no harm that he traded his used Yoga ma with other goods. Finally we made the deal. And I think clarifying the advantage of trading helped.
At the end, I traded the Yoga mat for a