Wednesday 22 July 2015

Haggling

To me, the idea of haggling over price assumes a kind of fundamental dishonesty of the human race. I realise that some salespeople will try to get away with something by pricing their goods high, and that sometimes they need to be called out on that. My problem is when this becomes the normal state of affairs. When you have to assume that all prices are negotiable because all items are overpriced to begin with, it starts to feel like we're wasting our time together. Just tell me what you think is a reasonable price. Don't make me work to extract this information from you with a dance of offers and counter-offers including a big show of how much it would hurt your business to give away these goods for this lowered price.

That's how it feels to me. We begin with a lie (the initial asking price), then we proceed to histrionics and performance (haggling) until we finally arrive at the accepted price, which is, if this has gone right for you, the vendor, higher than the true acceptable price.

You can't compare in that environment. Vendors can't compete on price, because all prices are fluid. You can't shop around without doing the haggling dance at every vendor, but by the time you finish with one of them, that is assumed to be a completed sale.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - I do know some people who love that game, though.
PPS - So maybe it's me. I find it insulting, exhausting and inefficient.

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