I hate haggling, but everyone's at it. Why can’t people charge an honest price? | Adrian Chiles

From market stalls to hotels, builders to lawyers, we’re all trying to shaft each other. I blame capitalismI’m in my mum’s country, Croatia, on an island called Murter. It was here, a good 45 years ago, that I was first unsettled by money matters. Back then, it was the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. There were market stalls in the village selling old-school tourist tat, carvings, embroidered cloths and so on. I was around seven years old and holding my mum’s hand as she pointed at a wooden donkey. She asked the bloke: “How much?” He gave her the price and, here’s the thing, she shook her head and said: “Ne.” Huh? What did she mean, no? I squinted up at her, appalled. But the old chap didn’t seem to mind and an agreement was soon reached for her to purchase said donkey for about half the original asking price.This, my first exposure to bartering or haggling or whatever you want to call it, straightforward as it was, seems to have scarred me for life. I cannot bear the process and I am consequently hopeless at it. To me, it strikes at the very heart of trust and integrity. If a bloke offers me a wooden donkey – they’re still there – for 100 kuna, and I then offer him, say, 50 kuna, that seems to me to be the height of rudeness. It feels as if I’m saying to him: “OK, you cheat, you’re trying to sell me something worth half what you’re trying to get out of me.” I always feel I might be punched or sworn at, but all the evidence is that people don’t mind at all. If and when they do drop the price to 50 kuna, it actually makes me quite angry. It turns out they were, after all, trying to sell me something for double its worth. How dare they? Continue reading…
Via: I hate haggling, but everyone's at it. Why can’t people charge an honest price? | Adrian Chiles