Is this the normal way business is handled?

Maybe someone has asked this before but being somewhat new I haven't seen this issue addressed.

I was looking into buying a pair of speakers from another member (who lives 2000 miles away) While I was asking the seller the usual questions, I'm sure other people were too.
Well I decided to buy the speakers and told the seller so. I was willing to pay the asked price along with all shipping costs. He stated that a local (to him)person was interested (but had not comitted to buy), and he would rather sell them to them to avoid shipping. I feel my offer to purchase was just used as leverage to make the other person to make a quicker decision.

Since I made the first offer isn't the seller obligated to sell them to me?