Haggling: not a dirty word

uNkNowN ElEmEnt · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:16 am Post subject: Haggling: not a dirty word

We all talk about skills we need to learn for the new world we expect to be living in soon. Has anyone given any thought to learning the lost art of haggling or negotiating?

In North America it has apparently become almost insulting to ask for a lower price. I have been looking at customers as cheap skates but I think this may be one orf the more undervalued skills we can learn. Afterall didn't we use it a lot in history?

Anyone have any tips or stories when it really paid off?

uNkNowN ElEmEnt · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:38 am Post subject: Re: Haggling: not a dirty word

Heres an article I was reading last night about it:

How to Haggle
Take your time throughout the haggling process.
Get to know the shopkeeper. Especially in Greece, Turkey, and as you get closer to the Middle East or North Africa where haggling is a high art, you may spend an hour with the owner on big items, drinking tea, showing each other pictures of the family, getting friendly. This is all part of the ritual. Hurried hagglers overpay and may truly offend the merchant.

Marketplaces are bastions of bargaining, havens for hagglers, and here's how to do it:
o Never go to a market or souk on your first day or two in country if you can avoid it. Jet lag will leave you too tired to bargain properly and too cranky to deal with the incessant hustle of the marketplace with the necessary good humor.

o When you see the trinket or craft item of your dreams, never look all that interested. It's merely something that caught your eye
briefly.

o Determine what the item is worth to you, and don't let the
bargaining end up much above this figure.

o Let the stall owner make the first offer. He will insist over and
over "How much do you want to pay?" Wait him out and politely keep angling for his first asking price. Once he says it, look shocked.

o Counteroffer with at least half as much (even less if his price
seems outrageous), at which point he will act extremely offended.
Don't be fooled or frightened away no matter what his reaction. It's
all in the unwritten script, and being horribly insulted by your
paltry offer is part of his role. He will grumble and complain and
look like he's mad if you end up getting to the right price, but
that's how he's supposed to act. Trust me, he won't sell you an item for less than he's willing to get for it. He's the pro; if anyone's
going to get a raw deal, it'll be you if you don't bargain stridently.
Any price he ends up agreeing upon is fine with him, no matter how
wounded he acts.

o Now begins the back and forth, a ping-pong match of prices that draws closer to some median as you go. This median depends on the place, the merchant, and the item. The thing may only be worth as little as 25% or as high as 75% of his original asking price. This back and forth is a way to feel each other out and decide where the price should be. It's supply and demand on a person-to-person basis.

At the beginning, however much he comes down in price, you go up by, at most, half that much. For example, if he knocks off 20 euros, you add 10 euros to your next counteroffer.

o Consider each counteroffer you make theatrically and carefully. Re-examine the item as you ponder. Find flaws in it, maybe the price will come down (don't harp on this one or you will eventually insult the merchant, plus co-opt your own position; if it's so shoddy, why would you want it?). The higher you're forced to go, the less enthused you should appear.

o Play good cop/bad cop. Your companion who's standing next to you has the job of appearing completely uninterested in the item and trying increasingly to drag you away. She's tired and wants to leave, or thinks the thing is outrageously overpriced, or doesn't like it. If you're at the stall alone, make up a spouse back at the hotel and invoke him or her as the reason you can't spend too much.

o If you truly can't budge the merchant quite as low as you want, try walking away. Don't do it until you're getting close to the right price, and do it slowly so he has time to call you back with a better offer! This offer will usually be the right price (or at least his
final offer), and the haggle is over. Sometimes this strategy
backfires, and he'll let you leave. If you truly still want the item,
swing by the stall later on, after having comparison-shopped (whether you did or not). Appear only marginally still interested, and drop your offer down from the last price you were offering (say to two-thirds of the offer) to prove you'll only take it now if it's a
true bargain. Often, the shopkeeper will spit out a figure closer to
the original median you two were working toward, and that's it. The
deal's sealed.

Once you agree on a price, you must buy the thing. If you can't get
the merchant down to a fair price, don't buy it. But if he comes down to your asking price, you are honor-bound to purchase the item. Only pay what you're willing to pay (but be willing to pay fairly; don't expect a leather jacket for $10

Negotiations are a part of everyday life. Whether it's a merchant
creating a package deal for a good customer, or a parent providing
incentives for improving a child's grades, we all use our negotiating
powers to get what we want. Although the specifics of each encounter may differ, the strategies and tactics used can easily be categorized.

A strategy is a long-term position on which you can base your overall negotiations. A tactic is a short-term position designed to further your effectiveness in a key aspect of the negotiations. Because strategies and tactics have a great crossover in the ways in which they are approached and applied, they can be grouped together.
Remember that one negotiator's strategy may be another negotiator's tactic.

My note: I think you should approach it with an almost playful attitude although you must be careful not to let that show or you'll loose out.

CarlinsDarlin · Moderator Joined: Jul 02, 2004 Posts: 1420

Well if it's a dirty word, I'm guilty of using it Smile

I haggle all the time. I've even successfully haggled at Wally World. Not ashamed at all. I'd be more ashamed to admit I spent more money than I should have on something because I didn't haggle. It is a lost art, and one that should make a comeback.

Some time I spent several years ago travelling in the middle east taught me well about the art of haggling. Merchants there expect you to haggle.
Kathy

Narz · Posted: Mon Jul 07, 2008 9:25 pm Post subject: Re: Haggling: not a dirty word

I love haggling. I've probably saved hundreds over my lifetime, even in places where it's not supposed to work.
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TreeFarmer · Heavy Crude Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 347

I'm an Anglo-Saxon Protestant and my next door neighbor is an immigrant from Isreal who owns a bakery. One day during negiotations for an anniversary cake he told me "you would make a good Jew." I took that as a compliment of my haggling skills but I was also aware that paying the opponent a compliment is a tried and true strategy in haggling!

TF