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🙏🇮🇱 Haggling in Israel
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🙏🇮🇱 Haggling in Israel
By Greg Kubin
It’s been interesting to contrast buying things on the internet versus in marketplaces in countries like Israel and Indonesia.
Internet = mostly fixed price
Marketplace = negotiable
Marketplace vendors are sales pros. Here’s some of the tactics I noticed…and how I negotiated with them:
Give and you shall receive. Upon entering an antique jewelry storefront in the Old City (Jerusalem), a vendor greeting us with steaming hot cups of Bedouin coffee. He used the law of reciprocity - when someone does something nice for you, do something nice in return. Did we buy a necklace from him? No. But I certainly felt indebted.
No price tags! It’s a strangely effective tactic (that lots of software companies use too). Vendors only give a price if you express real interest. Dana asked one vendor in Jaffa the price of a dress. “Try it on first”, he said. She bought the dress.
You gotta be cool with walking away. Especially if it’s a market with multiple vendors with the same supply. In Bali, visitors of Hindu temples must wear a sarong that covers your legs. Naturally, the markets surrounding temples are filled with sarong dealers with very similar inventory. Walking away from a vendor and saying I could get another sarong next door was effective in cutting the price in half.
#SarongLife
Another favorite question is when a vendor says “Name your price?” I found little downside in anchoring low. But not too low that it was offensive. More art than science, I suppose.
There’s a case to be made to pay full price to artists who make and sell their own handcrafted goods. Negotiation with them can feel like bad juju if you want to be a patron of the arts.
I was working off instinct + experience negotiating software contracts + tidbits from reading books like Persuasion by Robert Cialdini — and so I’m by no means an expert marketplace negotiator. I’d love to know your best negotiation tactics. Email back with your reply!
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