I just returned from a conference in Istanbul, which was the second of three conferences on the next generation of negotiation teaching. It was fascinating; and I will have several posts in the next few days about different pieces of it. One of the most interesting concepts behind this conference was the opportunity to take advantage of the city itself, to take advantage of a negotiation culture completely unlike the US one, and to go into the Spice Market and Grand Bazaar to have some fun while learning about the negotiation culture here. I will have several stories from this experience. The first is my important negotiation for soccer jerseys for my boys. (I have for many years used soccer jerseys from around the world as the standard gift for my sons. In some places—France, Spain—this has led to classic department store purchases. In others—Italy, Bosnia, Croatia, Israel—this leads to bargaining with vendors in tourist squares.) I have a general process that I use for negotiation that I was curious to test again in Istanbul.
We were divided into groups for this exercise—I had the pleasure of venturing forth with Vanessa from Israel and Yilderoy from Turkey. My general process occurs in the following steps: (1) ask for the price for one jersey; (2) ask for the price for three jerseys with the assumption that most vendors are willing to give you a break on more; (3) ask for the price in dollars with the assumption that sometimes the exchange rate helps lower the price further; and then (4) ask for the price in cash with the assumption that, if the vendor would accept a credit card at all, he would definitely prefer to receive cash in either currency. Since we had a native Turkish speaker, we agreed that we would also add another step of seeing what happens in the native v. tourist price. (On another note, we have discovered that even for restaurants, there is a local versus tourist price. The posted price, if it exists, is for the tourist. Natives get a lower price. This also occurred last spring in Rome where a cappuccino (a necessity of life for me) across the street from the conference center was three times more for me than the residents.)
So, here is what happened. I found the jerseys that I liked and started bargaining. Step one—how much is one? 15 Turkish lira. The exchange rate is about 1.4 Turkish lira to a dollar so this meant the opening price was about $10.70 per jersey and that I would have to spend over $32 if I bought a jersey for each child. Step two—how much for three? 40 Turkish lira (about $9.52 per jersey). Step three—how much in dollars? 25 dollars for three (now $8.33 per jersey). Step four—Yilderoy starts bargaining in Turkish—I don’t know what was said, but the calculator was out and the result was about $21.80 for the jerseys (now $7.26 per jersey). Finally, step five, pulling out a nice crisp $20 bill and saying I will take them now if he takes the bill. Done! Final price is $6.66 per jersey.
A few thoughts—first, one clearly has to spend some time to do this. It would be completely understandable should you decide that the $10 I saved is not worth the 20 minutes I spent. For us, this was fun and educational. It also is culturally expected– at least over jerseys. For example, we were told that one did not bargain over food in the bazaar and this seemed to be the case. Buying Turkish delight on the last day to take home, I asked for a discount since I was buying two boxes and was given free samples instead. Of course, this was still well worth it to me and quite delicious.
Second, I do think that you need to be cognizant of your ethics here—I felt okay bargaining for $10 off on the jerseys but I do feel the guilt of ostensibly appearing to be the ugly American and bargaining over what could be real money for the vendors. Vanessa challenged me on this—why would I assume that I have a nicer life or more money? Shopkeepers affording stalls in the Spice Market need to be doing well, she noted, and I need to get over myself. In my attempt not to be patronizing, perhaps I am being even more so.
Either way, the story provided much food and fun for thought!
Fun post. I will add that in bartering for soccer jerseys, it is a good idea to check a few different vendors. This assures you are getting not just the best price, but the best product too. I have found that jerseys sold in markets are generally not “official” and vary in quality.
Either way, you have to ask yourself if it is worth your time. Personally, I prefer the novelty of it all, and the pride I find in saying I’m not a sucker, over another historical building tour.
And don’t worry about undercutting the vendors; as they say, there’s a sucker born every minute, or at least plenty people who are more than happy to have already saved $40 on a soccer jersey.