case study negotiation

1. BUYING A WORK OF ART
Chris Comte is an artist with studios in Morro Bay,
California, and Cincinnati, Ohio. She has built a following
of admirers in southern California and in Ohio and is
considered to be very talented by those who collect her
paintings. Many of her works have appeared in magazines
such as Southern Living and San Luis Obispo Magazine
and have been purchased and displayed in many
prominent locations including art galleries, courthouses,
and private collections. However, like most struggling
artists,
she always needs to sell her works for a fair price to pay
the bills. One of her favorite (and she believes one of her
best) paintings is of two young women dressed in their
finest Sunday white outfits, sitting in a rowboat on a sunny,
lazy August afternoon, with a beautiful wildflower garden
behind them. The painting is simply titled Sunday. A
retired couple from Texas is vacationing in the area for a
few days and by chance stop in the studio. While browsing
they pause to admire Sunday. The next day they decide to
return to the studio and possibly buy the painting. The
listed price is $12,500. The buyers believe they cannot
afford to pay the asking price, and have decided to offer
$7,500, knowing that artists often negotiate the price of
their works.
It is a classic distributive bargaining situation. The only
real issue is price. Both parties would like to make a deal,
but both also know they can walk away from the deal.