The Englishman’s Guide to haggling

Is my Englishness a reason for my dislike of haggling? I seriously doubt it, and I watch my wife currently haggling with kitchen suppliers and builders with a mix of awe and wonder.

The press is full of it at the moment: the economic downturn has seen a spectacular boom time for hagglers and this is having a marked impact on businesses.

There are several examples in The Economist, highlighted here.

In the hotel business if the price of a room sounds steep, would-be guests can negotiate it down. The hotel may even throw in free cocktails to sweeten the deal. Clothes and electronics shops have become particularly eager to move their merchandise, and consumers, aware of their desperation, have grown bolder. One market-research firm has found that 72% of American consumers have haggled in the past four months, compared with 56% a year earlier. The firm’s chief executive estimates that they are successful 80% of the time.

Hunting for a bargain may be part of any shopping experience, but haggling is not. Now that even big names will listen to customers trying to cut a deal, haggling is becoming more accepted, at least for as long as the recession grinds on. Even if they cannot get a discount, shoppers can ask for another item to be thrown in, or for the retailer to pay the postage or VAT.

Haggling works best in hard-hit industries: car dealers are more willing than ever to hammer out a bargain now that sales have slumped. But the trend is spreading. Providers of phone and internet services are willing to cut monthly rates to keep customers from cancelling or switching.

Although in the long term firms may be hurt by this rise in consumer power, at the moment many are finding that a haggler is far better than no customer at all.