Bargained

If there is one life skill that I seriously lack is – bargaining. Well, not that I am very good at other skills, but I have always got the raw end of a price negotiation whether I am a buyer or a seller.

This one time, when I tried to get rid of my furniture while moving countries, I not only gave away my almost new and absolutely well maintained table for peanuts, but also the new owner made me ship (drive) it to his place. And then each time I try bargaining the only discount that I have ever gotten is – pennies. Its generally so  bad, that I might have as well not bargained to save face.

Anyway, over the years I have become increasingly weary of bargaining so much so that, I just plain avoid places where I might have to get into a verbal tussle and haggle on price. However yesterday I was caught in an unfortunate situation where the only option I had was to bargain and buy a product.

In my quest to live a healthier life, there is this vest that I have been eyeing for a while. Yesterday I happened to see it being sold at a Tradeshow. The difficult bit was – it was being sold by a Chinese lady.

Russell Peters–Indians vs Chinese

However hard I try, I can’t hide my looks and my accent. So boldly I approached her and asked for the price. Having had a very nice conversation with a Chinese lady before, I was sure I could pull this bargain off.

Now, I have heard from other seasoned shoppers that the trick to bargaining is to stick to your base and not be perturbed by any antics that the seller pulls off on you. To compensate for our ridiculous accents and our inability to understand each other, she pulled out a calculator and started typing numbers to indicate the offer price. Then I took over and I gave my number. This went on for a while and I could see that she was visually very upset. Finally after what seemed eternity, I successfully managed to get the price down by 10%. Imagine 10 whole percentage points! I was very happy and walked away grinning with my prized vest.

Today I wore it to the office. One of my colleagues asked me the price I got it for. Then he showed me a website which lists its original price. I am never ever gonna ever bargain again.