Souk it to them (Bargaining)

Member Name: duncantorr

Product:	Bargaining
Date:	30/04/09 (502 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: In life you get what you negotiate....

Disadvantages: ....not what you deserve

If you really want to upset an oriental trader, it is said, pay his asking price straight away without question. He will stay awake all night cursing himself for not having pitched it higher in the first place. Since I wouldn't want to upset anyone, I feel duty bound to haggle.

Haggling, though, is one of those many skills at which I am better in theory than in practice. I rediscover this every time I try to buy anything, and never more so than when in countries where haggling is the norm for all commercial dealings. Having recently visited one such country - Morocco - I have had my limitations impressed on me yet again.

Fortunately, my wife is the opposite. She loves haggling, and the practice comes to her so naturally that she doesn't bother to think much about the theory. She is, of course, much more effective at it than I am, and the reason is simple: she enjoys it and I don't. More effective than either of us individually, however, is the pair of us together. We have found that playing the haggling game as a twosome gives us many advantages, just as a doubles pairing would expect to outperform a single player at tennis. Most of the same negotiating principles apply in either case; playing as a pair simply gives you weight of numbers and more tactical options.


* Local knowledge *

Whether playing as a team or individually, it's valuable to know in advance what degree of pricing flexibility is customary in different countries and different kinds of outlet. There are some shops where there's simply no point in haggling: western supermarkets for example. I don't think even my wife tries to persuade the checkout assistant to give her a discount at our local Sainsbury's.

Clothing, furniture and domestic appliance shops are different, especially secondhand ones. In the UK, you might expect to negotiate 10 or 15% off the marked price without too much difficulty, perhaps 20 or even 30% with some hard and crafty bargaining. But if you went in and offered only a tiny fraction of the asking price you wouldn't be taken seriously; indeed, the shopkeeper might take umbrage and harden rather than soften his attitude. Not so in China, to take an opposite example.

In Chinese markets, we found there was a huge disparity between the first asking price and the final one - a multiple of ten, at least. We would approach a stall-holder and show an interest in an item and he would say, for example, 500 yuan. As soon as we shook our heads and walked away this figure would start tumbling, as he ran after us shouting: 400 - 300 - 200 - 100. If we were at all interested, we might at this point turn round, come back, and offer perhaps 20, eventually settling at about 50. I mention this example not as a claim to any kind of negotiating prowess - probably, the trader went away laughing at what a soft touch we westerners were not to have beaten him down still further - but to illustrate how wide the range of prices can be in different parts of the world, and how useful it is to have an idea of what scale of reduction applies locally.

In Morocco, we had been advised that the asking price for tourists would tend to be about four or five times what a local would expect to pay, maybe more if you really looked gullible. Whilst you may never hope to buy quite as cheaply as a knowledgeable local, this kind of measure gives you an idea of what you can realistically aim at.


* Preliminary manoeuvres *

If you don't know what the customary range of discount is in a particular locality, test the water. Start off with a potential purchase of only marginal interest, one that you don't mind missing, and come in with a really low initial bid, Chinese-style, just to gauge the vendor's reaction. But don't, of course, do this before you have established what price is being asked - your idea of really low may already be too high. And don't do even that without a little preparatory manoeuvring.

On the general principle of not showing too much enthusiasm, it is always better to make the vendor take the initiative in trying to interest you in an item, rather than expressing an interest proactively. Thus don't, if you can avoid it, ask the price, just pick up an item and examine it, cursorily for preference. With any luck - and in most oriental markets no luck is needed; just try stopping them - the merchant will rush up to tell you of its many alleged merits, culminating in the asking price. At this point, without saying a word, you look at him blankly, put the item down and move onto something else. You can do so with complete confidence because you were not in the least bit interested in that item in the first place. You have deliberately started with something you don't want as part of the softening up process before you begin the serious haggling for something you do.

You have to be a little bit careful at this point. The chances are that the merchant will ask you what you would pay for the first item. Assuming it is genuinely of no interest to you, don't suggest a price no matter how ludicrously low; in many cultures once you have named a price you are regarded as having entered into the bargaining process and if the merchant accepts the price it's a deal. Trying to wriggle out will only queer your pitch for haggling for what you do want later. Just shake your head, say something like "it's not even worth talking about" and insist on moving on to other things in which you may actually be interested.

Then, of course, there is the walk away from the shop/stall entirely, as already described above. My wife and I have developed a variation on this theme, which capitalises on the advantages of playing as a team. She shows an interest in an item and the merchant goes into his spiel and names a price, at which point I mutter something disparaging and walk out forthwith. Not just out but away, leaving her there. Never fear, I am not abandoning her; she knows I will be off around the next turning on the right.

My disappearance meanwhile gives her great leverage in the ensuing negotiations along the lines of "my husband doesn't like it and obviously thinks it's far too expensive; unless you can give me a big reduction there's no chance he'll agree to my buying it." She is, of course, perfectly able and entitled to buy things without my agreement or even knowledge, but the merchant doesn't know that, and in cultures in which the male is regarded as the primary decision-maker it tends to be assumed that the deal will be lost unless she can be offered a low price to help her persuade me to come back. She's far too sensible to put pride in feminine independence above securing the lowest price, just as I don't mind looking like a petulant skinflint.


* Team talk *

How, you may be wondering, will she know whether I actually like the item in question or consider it good value (assuming that my opinion carries any weight in the matter, which, in fairness to her, it generally does)? That's easy: she knows from the wording of the disparaging remark I have muttered while walking out. Without revealing our precise code here (who knows, there might be dealers reading this), it could be, for example, that "it's not very good value" means that I like the item a lot, whereas "it's not very good quality" means that I think it's acceptable but not special, whilst just "it's not very good" means I think it's rubbish and will be puzzled if she sticks around to negotiate further.

Even if you don't go as far as devising an elaborate code, mutual tacit understanding is essential when bargaining as a team. Candid exchanges between you only tip your hand to the merchant. Above all, of course, one should never make a remark to one's partner that expresses unbridled enthusiasm, least of all in relation to the asking price. If you exclaim "I absolutely adore it and it really seems very cheap" you are asking to be ripped off.

Equally, though, it's best not to be totally scornful about the item in question. This lacks credibility - after all, if you thought so poorly of it, why are you negotiating in the first place? It also tends to turn the conversation confrontational as the merchant seeks to defend his merchandise. Never make negotiation a matter of confrontation, still less of ill temper. Perhaps in theory human pride shouldn't be a factor in a dispassionate commercial deal, but in practice it is. What you want is to make it easy for him to reduce his price without the loss of pride (or face, to use an oriental expression) that would come from yielding to brow-beating, so avoid any appearance of brow-beating. This is one reason why the little manoeuvre of my walking off, described above, is effective. It casts my wife and the merchant as accomplices in arriving at a price that might appease me, rather than as head-to-head adversaries.


* Team tactics *

Of course, whatever price they arrive at isn't going to appease me, at any rate not straight away. Before fetching me back, my wife will have already talked it down to the lowest point she can do on her own; she's aware that once she reappears with me in tow the merchant will know that she has at least managed to persuade me to consider making a purchase, and he won't therefore feel he needs to give way much further. But he'll probably have kept some flexibility in reserve, and the next challenge is to exploit it to the full.

For a start, we won't reappear straight away, which would betray too much eagerness. When we do, my demeanour will be that of someone slightly irritated with the whole business. I'll let it be known that in the meantime we've seen lots of similar items on similar stalls and I'm not quite clear why we've returned to this one, since the competitors were - and remain - just as appealing. I won't, of course, be rude or aggressive, just reluctant and reserved. My wife will be more forthcoming and friendly towards the merchant, but not actually help him push me to conclude the deal.

There is, as you will have recognised, an element of the time-worn "good cop, bad cop" routine in this bit of play-acting, and the merchant may well recognise it as such, but it can still be very effective. You might want to vary the roles to suit your natural styles; it's best if you're in character. Personally, being forceful doesn't come naturally to me, so I don't try for that, but I'm quite practised at being silent and inscrutable, which often disconcerts a trader more. My wife's manner is much more affable, but she also manages to be extremely firm with it, and anyone who imagines she's a softer touch will find they are very much mistaken, though imagine it they sometimes do, to their ultimate cost.


* Last knockings *

Eventually the merchant will stick at what seems like his final price. At this point you examine the item minutely for any flaws or defects that might give you a rationale for suggesting that a further reduction would be in order. Prior to this point, you haven't given any reasons for not wanting to pay his price other than that you don't want to pay it. Why should you? He's given no reason for wanting you to pay it other than that he wants you to pay it. There's nothing sacrosanct about it. But now, if you can find any reasons to deploy, it might make it easier for him to budge to bridge that final gap. Alternatively, you might persuade him to throw some other minor item in free to seal the deal.

Similarly, if you are actually interested in buying more than one of the article in question, now's the time to use this as leverage to push the price per item lower still. Do not introduce this idea before you have reached what seems like the rock bottom price for a single article; otherwise you make it too easy for him to explain as a volume discount a discount that you probably could have talked him into anyway. Keep the two distinct, and sequential.

This is also the moment to find out if the price might be a little lower if you paid in a harder currency than the local one - euros or US dollars, for example. Pounds, regrettably, don't seem to be a very popular option at the moment, but euros tend to be more than welcome on the fringes of Europe, and dollars are usually very acceptable in Latin America and parts of Asia. I generally carry some of the relevant currency around in addition to the local, just in case. In souks or bazaars you might be wary of paying by credit card for security reasons - I certainly am - though the most unlikely, basic-looking stalls are often equipped to handle them. But it's sometimes worth going through the motions of enquiring about cards, if only as a preliminary for determining if you can get a discount for paying in cash instead.


* "Done" - you have been *

So finally you've exchanged signals with your partner that you both think the price has gone as low as it's going, and the deal is done. You come away with your purchase, wondering whether you might have had it even cheaper if you'd haggled a little bit more. Conceivably you might, but the point does come when you have to consider the value of your time, and how much pleasure the process itself is giving you, relative to the marginal few extra pennies, or cents, or rupees, that you might save. It's also important not to become too caught up in the game for its own sake, and lose your sense of value. What really matters is whether you're obtaining something you want for a price you feel it's worth and which you can afford to pay.

However low the price goes, never feel sorry for the sellers, even if they tell you that you're ruining them and starving their children. You're not. No seller will actually sell at a price he regards as unprofitable, nor will he reciprocate by feeling sorry for you if you pay over the odds. Which, as a westerner, you probably will, no matter how many negotiating tricks you deploy of the kind described above. To give a couple of examples from our forays into the souks of Marrakech: we drove an initial asking price of 600 dirhams for one woven bedspread/throw down to 420 dirhams for two, i.e. 210 each or 65% off; and we drove an initial asking price of 100 dirhams for a leather-bound notebook down to 40, i.e. 60% off. Fair enough, I'd like to think, but if what we were advised at the outset was correct, nothing like as good as the quarter or fifth that an adept local might expect to pay. I dare say the merchants felt they'd got the better of us on both occasions, and very probably they had.

Mind you, my wife recently negotiated 60% off a British lawyer's quoted fee. I'm not sure even a Moroccan merchant could do better than that. Maybe I should stop complicating things with theory and just leave it all to her.



© duncantorr; also under the name torr on CiaoUK 2009

Summary: Haggling as a team game