I made it onto the dock and headed for the Youth Hostel. Along the way I saw North Face and other outdoor gear. I went into all of them to check out the prices and on which ones I wanted. I really only wanted to spend 50 yuan or 60 yuan. Shop keepers were calling prices out for 150 to 280 yuan for the same exact pack. I kept testing shop after shop to see how low can the shop keepers go and the lowest I was able find was 100 yuan. I knew the actual sale price that is possible is 80 yuan and this was the local price. How to go about getting this price? Well, I’ve had practice and I planned to use my practice of negotiation to end up paying 80 yuan and not 280 yuan.
In the last shop on West Street I went in to see the pack that I wanted hanging high up towards the ceiling and asked for the price, it was 240 yuan. I proceeded to walk out of the shop and was stopped by the keeper. The shop lady blocked me and said I shouldn’t walk out without checking out the pack personally. I said I could not afford to check out the pack because I could not afford the price. I told her that I was only set on paying 70 yuan for a pack and her pack did not fall into my price range so I didn’t want to waste her time and get disappointed myself of not being able to buy it. She started to tell me how no one on the street will go for that price etc… so I continued to move my feet out the door and reminded her that this was why I didn’t want to touch the bag. She stopped again and said, “100 yuan”. I kept moving forward and then she called out, “95 yuan”. I kept walking can she grabbed my arm and said, “what’s your top price?” I said, “OK, 80 yuan”. Sold!
I walked out of there with a North Face pack for 80 yuan. Back home it would cost a lot more than $11., which was about what I paid for. It was green like my internal pack and I didn’t mind the color because it matched. But no one seemed to like that color in the shop and recommend that I get a different cooler color. I asked for pink, that was my first choice of cool color.
Haggling in China, you have to be willing to let it go and walk out when the price is not right. But you also have to be willing to buy when the price is right after negotiation. It’s a part of the silent code of haggling honor to not make a fool of shop keeper. But you also have to silently know what the local price is in order to haggle. If you don’t, they know and they won’t negotiate with you because they know they will win and you will cave in at their price. It goes like this, if there are not price tags then it is usually fifty percent off and then another 20 yuan off after that. This is the local price.
