Why can't everything be around it's market price? It's exhausting living a life where it seems everyone you wish to purchase an item from wants to cheat you.
Each time I leave my home, I feel like I have to put on several layers of performances just to buy what I want. And the truth? It's necessary because most sellers think to maximize profit first, so you have to perform severally for them to breach those layers since they're not satisfied with a 'true' profit.
And most especially, there's no downside to calling an outrageous fee, since they assume most would negotiate anyways, it's a gamble.
So they still make a lot from the few who can't challenge their pricing, nor lack the experience to do so properly.
I would follow my parents a lot to the market when I was little, which helped me observe how they buy what they needed. And each time, every time, I couldn't help but compare it to a real court case where evidence are presented and you need to defend or counter a claim.
My mom was merciless, because she will without fail, half the price of whatever she's offered as a starter offer, regardless of how ridiculous it seems, which usually ticked the sellers off.
But this way, she felt more comfortable to walk up to an agreeable price with the seller looking displeased, than to walk down from the ridiculous price by trying to sound reasonable.
Me? I usually practice the latter even now, I subconsciously cannot price that low because I find it ridiculous myself so I always start by asking to buy at no so far off the first price, which is where I'm cheated on, as sellers expect most people could settle around that region, so perhaps their true profit is still very well untouched. I have failed you mother!
If my mom is a merciless negotiator, my dad is more a performer. When we shop together, he plays tricks like pretending to leave the shop but sending me to pay up the last price we walked out of should the seller not call us back. A walk that felt like some humiliation ritual to me with the weird smirk on the sellers face.
He would also open a little conversation with me about going back to the other store we checked first (we didn't check any) or ask me how much we priced the others (we didn't) all to fluster the sellers.
His favorite would be to take the conversation outside pricing to where they bond a little with laughs before proceeding on a more familiar terms. This one did infact have the highest success rate.
Are you curious about mine? You'll be shocked because it's not exactly something I'd call a 'strategy', I just more often don't reserve the energy to perform.
I developed this technique after I tried using my mom's technique to fix my cloth and the tailor took half his price on my first bid without hesitation... I still dream about it.
Since I can't successfully drop my prices as low as my mom does, nor consistently put up acts with every seller I meet even on a bad day, I decided on the easiest strategy of all, using my freewill and simply... you know, leaving.
They usually ask you to negotiate their price when you start walking away, but then I had already concluded, that some first prices plus the sellers nature (loud + young + aggressive selling + very extroverted) gives me the sense that there's no price I would be settle on without feeling I'm being stolen from, so I just... don't.
It's always hilarious when they act surprised or mad you've yet to challenge their pricing. But a hinder to my use of free will is if you open a negotiation, you'll feel like you have to buy, because even if you quit mid negotiations, they'll ask you to take it at our current price, even when I'm not feeling the whole stuff at all.
I instead go for run down shops outside the spotlight with less customers and goods where I feel more comfortable being cheated on although that never happens, as I'm almost always satisfied.
But the final boss of negotiation was at an electrical store. The scamming had started wayyy before my Dad and I even knew the store existed.
First we asked the electrician to write the list of wires he'll need for our new house and their market pricing, since we had no basic knowledge on them.
His amount totalled at 750k, and he recommended us a popular Electrical store where we present this sheet to them with his phone number on it, should they try to cheat us, so he'll intervene.
We did go to the shop of course, but we didn't show them his list. Instead, we asked for the same set of wires and for them to make their list which came out 630k.
We were not done, we headed to a little more secluded yet trusty shop after asking around + keeping their pricing as reference, where their prices compared to the other was... strangely less in comparison, but still took a lot of work.
🙎🏽♂️: hm fair prices but the last is too far off market price
👨🏽🔧: haha!... p-please tell us, so we can adjust it... (okay)
🙎🏽♂️: sorry but the sum of all these won't give you this final number you presented, and you didn't adjust the total price from the last one we agreed on.
👨🏽🔧: oh right!, l-lemme do the right calculations... (okay)
🙎🏽♂️: *collects receipt* (Total is 610k, I'd say that's okay)
👨🏽🔧: Sorry Sir, as we loaded them, one of the wires is currently out of stock, but this is the next best alternative! (convinces me why)
🙎🏽♂️: hmm... okay I'll try these out, keeping your number should they falter.
👨🏽🔧: no worries sir, they definitely won't (he was right).
Now it seems to have gone well, but it wasn't till three days later, and after I had used it up, I realized something very significant, something I wouldn't have missed if I wasn't already satisfied and relaxed at the end of what seemed a successful bargain.
🧠: Hey you going to sleep?
🙎🏽♂️: Yes now leave me alone...
🧠: ...
🙎🏽♂️: ...
🧠: If those were the second best wires, why does our receipt still show we bought the best, and at its higher price?... Just saying.
🙎🏽♂️: Sigh...
🙎🏽♂️: He didn't adjust it on the receipt since it was after, to save more money.
🧠: Yeah... you got played.
At the end of the day, the seller made sure to have made beyond his true profit. But I still wonder, would I have encountered another obstacle should I have figured that out then? Who knows, but I'll never forget.
Some people would say go to huge stores with fixed prices, which I agree, well for some items like car body parts. But above all, the thought of having to pay the first price slapped on an item like a clothing kills me mentally.