Alright, ok, so I need to tell you a story about how it feels to live in a country where haggling is a THING.

See, I live in a little country called Oman, on the North-Eastern tip of the GCC. Beautiful coasts, fun people for the most part, but we have this ingrained culture of haggling. Let me put it this way:

It’s bad enough that we haggle even if we don’t really to lower the price.

Worse yet, we decide to haggle even before knowing the price.

Disastrously, we haggle even if we don’t know how much the thing is SUPPOSED to cost.

So a few days back, I was supposed to go find a guy to install some curtains at the house. It’s my first time, so a relative tells me to go to a certain shop and ask an employee to come with me.

“Sure,” I say, a sinking feeling already appearing in my gut. “How much is it?”

“Oh, not much. But haggle with him a little.”

“Uhh, sure. What’s the price I’m looking for?”

I hear a pause. “A little bit lower than what he says.”

Remember that slight sinking feeling from earlier? Yo, now I’m all the way down, in the depths of pitch black, horror splashing into my eyes. I’m supposed to go to an unknown store, speak to a dude, and bring down an UNKNOWN price by an UNKNOWN amount. I start pacing around the room, feet rubbing on the carpet, warming myself up in the hopes of an idea blazing in my head. If I haggle too low, family laughs at me. I haggle too high, and the store people just flat out refuse then inevitably laugh at me when I agree with their price. What to do, what to do, how to-

And suddenly it hits me, guys. A fool-proof way of haggling, with all the fun and excitement but none of the danger.

Always aim for 75% of what the price they tell you. Start with 60%, then ‘reluctantly’ agree to 75%. Boom. An invisible matchstick hits my brain, sets the kindle, and the idea is a fully-formed bonfire.

I drive to the store, excited. I’m speeding down the road, zooming past pedestrians, and screech to a halt at the curtain store. An employee is smiling by the door, but his smile freezes at the crazed look in my eyes.

“How much to re-install curtains?!” I immediately ask, barely saying ‘al Salam Alaikum’ in my excitement.

“Uh, well,” he says, clearly taken aback. “It depends on the curtai-“

“But what’s the usual price??” I ask, insistent now, ready to use my new trick on somebody, anybody. “I have two, I can show you photos!”

“Erm, around OMR3-5 for two double-layered large ones,” he says.

His words deflate me. 3-5. The equivalent of 10 dollars or so. I’m not haggling down that kind of low price. “Fine,” I retort, legitimately upset. The man is shaken by my attitude, and we agree on a time for him to come install the windows. I leave, thwarted.

Dear reader, I still have not tried my ‘fool-proof’ haggling technique and so cannot endorse it as of yet. But believe me, one day I will. I will use it and the world will see.

Also, when the guy finally showed up, it turned out he needed to install two curtains and dismantle seven more. I observed his technique and then dismantled some of the older curtains. I could see him watching me, and he looked impressed then priced 11 curtains at OMR10.

I guess getting my hands dirty with the dude and bonding with him worked better than haggling.

Question of the blog: What’s the haggling culture like where you are from? let me know in the comments!

Love,

Ammar