This week, the haggling-phobe in me was excited to read about Nibble, an AI chatbot being tested by online fashion retailer Asos in the UK.
The bot is empowered to bargain with customers – using techniques based on behavioural science, negotiation theory and specific user tactics – to respond to the offer made by individual users. Some users reported getting away with discounts of up to 40 per cent when testing the new tool, which is no mean feat.
This is especially true for easily intimidated shoppers such as myself.
No matter whether you’re buying vegetables at the local souq or refitting your home courtesy of Dragon Mart, haggling is an art form that is almost expected in many parts of the world – including the UAE (where I live) and India (where I was brought up). It’s too bad the art has always been my Achilles heel.
Firing demands at bots? That is something I have had sufficient practice with. Until that technology becomes more mainstream, though, here’s how a typical conversation tends to go when I go shopping with the professional hagglers who abound in my family.
Shopkeeper (cheekily): That will be Dh100, please.
Me (falteringly): Oh … that is too much …
Shopkeeper (wolfishly): Best price for you, madam.
Me (resignedly): Oh, alright, go on then.
The haggler I am with (sternly): Not OK. Give me a better price, my friend.
Shopkeeper (craftily): I can do Dh95, last just for you.
Me (hesitantly): Can you make it Dh90, please? That was our budget.
The haggler (throwing me a dirty look): We’ll pay Dh60.
Shopkeeper (pleadingly): Dh60 impossible. You pay Dh75, that is cost price.
Me (exuberantly): Thank you so much.
The haggler (unbudgingly): Let’s go to the next shop.
Shopkeeper (cheerily): Dh65, done, kallas.
My inability to bargain is down to a combination of lack of expertise, embarrassment and, often, indifference. Much to my husband’s chagrin (and my mum and late grandma’s dismay), I’ll often pay the first price quoted just to avoid engaging in or prolonging the painful conversation that inevitably causes me to lose not just my dirhams, but also – in my mind, at least – my dignity.
As with animals, I often feel vendors can almost sniff out my fear of bargaining. It’s right there, in their toothy grins and knowing smiles as they quote prices that sound ridiculous even to my untrained ear. And yet, I pay.
It also does not help that I am married to a haggling hustler. Be it camps when the child is on break from school or souvenirs when we’re travelling, my husband expects, nay demands, he gets a better price. And he succeeds more often than not.
From wrangling out early-bird discounts long after the canary has leapt off the calendar, to getting “a staff discount, just for you, sir”, the man is a money-saving machine.
I’m very grateful for this, mind. He is, after all, saving our own hard-earned dirhams. And, let’s face it, nobody is going out of business after jacking up prices by 20 per cent and then reducing them by 10. But I am simply not skilled enough.
Despite, or perhaps because of this, I often prefer to shop on my lonesome. Neither pity nor disdain have any place in my version of retail therapy. And if I have shell out a little extra for this perceived shortcoming, I prefer to pay and smile. Sorry, grandma.
