I Give You Best Price...

Me: How much for the DVD?
Vendor: Y7.
Me: Y7? I'll give you Y5.
Vendor: 6.
Me: 5.
Vendor: Are you Korean? (I get this a lot.)
Me: Me? No. My parents are Chinese.
Vendor: Yeah sure, 5.

That actually happened to me. Bargaining is a great microcosm of the Chinese way of life. And it's one of the things that really still gets foreigners. I saw some white guy trying to bargain for some toys a few weeks ago, and he was absolutely brutal at it. He just kept asking for the "local" price. "Don't mess with me, lady, I just want the local price. I live in Shanghai! Here, look, this is my business card. See? Shanghai! My company is here, I work here, I live here! Give me the local price!" Meanwhile, the lady, understanding very little English, just stuck to her price and laughed to herself. The whole scene was just retarded. Buddy, if you're so Shanghai, why don't you speak some Chinese? There are no Price Club cards here like there are at Costco.

Getting a good price here isn't that hard, you just have to have an idea of how it works here. Usually this comes after getting screwed a few times. So here are some tips for anyone looking to come through China:

1. Don't bargain for stuff you don't want. The vendors will hate you for it. It's a saving face thing.
   
2. Know that the starting price is outrageous. The more you look like a foreigner, the worse the price will be. Come back with 20% of whatever they said and stick to that. If your price is just too stupidly low, they'll shut you out right away. The fact that they're still bargaining means you're in the ballpark.
3. Know how much it "should" be. Ask someone. You can definitely get that price again. You can even say that your friend bought it last time for that price (lie if you have to).
   
4. If it's something unique (like an antique), figure out how much you want to pay, start below that and work up. Don't get sucked in by the bargaining game.
5. If you've been bargaining and not getting anywhere, just leave. Watch how fast the price drops when you get up. And even if they don't chase you, you can just bargain for the item somewhere else with a little more information.
   
6. The best way to get a good price is to go back to the same guy. You're building up guanxi by giving him business (more on guanxi on a later post).

Bargaining is just a way of life here; there really aren't any hard feelings. People will spend 15 heated minutes haggling over something, but once the deal is done, they'll be friendly again, and the vendors may even tell the buyer that he bargained well and to bring some of his friends by.

The local price thing isn't really as bad as some Westerns would make it out to be. It's not like those prices are reserved for the real locals. They wouldn't not sell something to you at the local price (once you get to it) just to show you up. They're there to make money, after all. The local price is just the normal price locals would expect to pay for it, having a good idea of what it should cost (this comes back to rule #3).

Rule #3, knowing what to pay, is also tied into some other aspects of the Chinese mentality. People inevitably ask someone they know how much something should be, and that someone will take his friend to his "guy", who will give him that price because they have a business relationship (i.e. they have guanxi). That's all fine and good, except that this is also kinda how business is done at the top in China. People just get contracts and strike deals with their friends or their friends' "guys". It runs counter to the capitalist (and probably more efficient) way of doing things, and often totally confuddles Western businessmen.

Economically, bargaining here is kind of a neat exercise. The vendors have pretty perfect information about their goods and their cost, but you, being fresh off the boat (take that, Whities), have no clue. And Westerners, typically being a little more affluent, have a higher willingness to pay. When they find out they just got screwed, they feel shitty about it, but it's actually a pretty good solution. Paying Y20 ($3) too much is really no skin off a foreigner's back, but that's several meals worth of money for the seller. Everyone's relatively happy.

For more tips, watch some Russell Peters.