Sunday, May 5, 2013

Seth Has Negotiating Skillz!

Yesterday we went to Beijing's Pearl Market and had a blast. I was proud of all of us for negotiating good prices and for having fun doing it. The rules of thumb we had before going in were:

  • Counter-offer at 10% of the first offer
  • Don't pay more than 15% of the first offer
  • Don't be afraid to walk away
We all had chances to negotiate but I think Seth was the best at it. He had a way of doing it where everyone had fun, even the vendors. The negotiations were not done verbally but on a small calculator that was passed back and forth with offers and counter-offers. All numbers were in Yuan. Here is my favorite sample of Seth's skills during negotiations for a pair of Timberland hiking boots.

Vendor: 750
Seth: 65
Vendor: 700
Seth: 66
Vendor 600
Seth: 67
Vendor (laughing): "Give me a 3-digit number."
Seth (with a smile and a twinkle in his eye): 68.5

Sam and I laughed out loud.

Seth ended up getting the boots for 120 Yuan, about $20.

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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 5, 2013 at 3:27 PM

    Funny! My best advice when bargaining for items is to remove Cousin Courtney and Natalie far from the scene. In Turkey, Courtney wanted to buy some shoes for her sister and after carefully selecting the perfect pair, she asked "how much" and the shop keeper said a price (very high and obviously ready to begin the negotiating with his customer),and Courtney said "great" and pulled out her wallet! Later that day, Natalie wanted a little purse and asked me to bargain for her and here is how that went:
    Shop keeper: 200
    me: 50
    Shop keeper: 150
    me: 60
    Natalie: 70
    me ( little louder): 60
    Natalie: 80

    I gave up at that point!
    Valerie

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousMay 7, 2013 at 7:33 AM

    Awesome

    ReplyDelete

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