Ninty percent of the time, you will know when its ok and when not. Generally, such haggling is ok when you are dealing with the sale of high margin goods/services where the seller has sufficiient headroom to offer a discount and still make a profit. In some venues, bargaining is expected and the initial price quoted is deliberately excessive with the intent of eliciting a counteroffer. At the other extreme are low margin products in local food markets where the margins are extremely low (a few percent in grocery markets) so there really is no room to haggle except in special situations (defects, overly-ripe, near the pull date etc). where its perfectly ok to ask if the merchant will take a lower price. Likewise, as someone noted, its unfair to ask an employee of a service provider who comes out to fix your freezer or HVAC for a discount from the price you were quoted since most of the time they have fixed prices per job established by their company. Its ok to ask if they offer discounts for seniors, military veterans or some other affinity group but otherwise, we don’t bargain over the price to fix the A/C on a 100 degree day. Do your price shopping on line or when you call potential service providers, not after they arrive.
Menu