One of the things we are still trying to get use to here in China is that almost every purchase that we make requires some haggling. This is not to say that we can't buy things for the asking price, but if we do we are encouraging the crazy sky-rocketing of local costs, or at least the shellacking of foreigners. The given price can be anywhere from 20% too much to 200% and part of the trick is knowing which it is.
What is frustrating is that there are very few ways to just buy something for an appropriate price without spending time arguing - in a very friendly manner mind you - about how much it should cost. That is one of the draws of foreign stores, like the French owned Carrefour where we do a lot of our grocery and random household item shopping.
As an example:
Today, Cara was looking for some teacups that we had bought on the other side of town at something in a somewhat hard to get to location. We were able to get the cup sets for price Y with no haggling. (We were tired that day and the price was very acceptable, probably only 15-20% too much.) At a market near our apartment, Cara found the exact same cups and the saleslady/booth owner was even willing to put the cup sets in boxes that were EXACTLY SAME BRAND NAME. Then the saleslady quoted a price that was 80 times greater than what we had paid for the same item. Upon telling her that fact, she was willing to drop her price in half to a number only 40x greater. After walking away a few times, she went down to maybe 30x. At that point Cara left.
Its funny how "that's my highest price" translates directly into "keep harassing me and I will pay more".
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