Bargaining (translated literally as “speak price”) is common at the smaller shops in Hong Kong. Prices are marked up actually, because the proprietors know that people will try to bargain. I’m not very good at it myself, since I’m not confident enough in my Cantonese. Lots of my family members are known to be extremely good bargainers, each with their own unique style.
My dad is the “friendly” bargainer, where he’ll try to get on the good side of the person trying to sell him things. He’ll say that he’s been giving the store good business for years, and that he’ll get his friends to shop there as well if he can get a discount. One time he even got the price lowered on a computer he was about to purchase.
My mother is the “bluff” bargainer. She’ll make a good guess as to how much an item cost the retailer to purchase (with her lifetime of shopping expertise), and ask for a little more than that price. The retailer, barely making any money from such a price, will no doubt ask for something much higher. My mom might budge a little, but not enough to make the retailer happy, so she’ll start to walk away with an air of indifference on her face (after all, this is Hong Kong, and if one can’t get something for a low price at one store, one can walk two steps and have another shot at it). The retailer will often chase her out to the street, and agree to her price.
My grandmother was known as the “old person with no job” bargainer. She could stay inside a store for more than half an hour, just trying to get someone to agree to her price. She would analyze all the variables in an item, such as the make, quality, durability, colour, necessity, etc. Then she would try to convince the retailer that it’s only worth so much based on each variable, and stand rock solid on this price. Eventually, the store owner would be so fed up with the everything that he or she would usually agree just to get her out of the store.
One day I’m going to be the “dairy” bargainer, and known as the person who tries to get discounts by offering ice-cream and a cow.
I find barganing amusing personally. When my brother and I were on a cruise, we were in Mexico at one point and were doing some shopping, but not really with the expectation of buying anything. Expressing even the slightest interest in an item would immediately get the proprietor on you trying to negotiate a price on the item.
The best example was a switchblade knife, which we knew was not legal in Canada, but we were facinated by the idea. My memory is spotty, but I believe the starting price on the knife was around $45 USD, but they just wanted to sell it to a pair of teenagers so bad that when we kept saying that we couldn’t buy it, they kept dropping the price. We never even made an offer, but finally they said we could have it for $10 USD and we accepted. I just couldn’t believe that we didn’t do anything and the price dropped by that much.