Haggling

“ The Oriental method of chaffering and bargaining was largely in vogue. The buyer got as high a price as he could in each case. Among merchants, A. T. Stewart was probably the first to abolish this practice of haggling, and to mark his goods in plain figures. ”

“ Never think, however, that you get the best of him, for there is always a limit below which he will never go. Friends of mine have reached this limit, and their most persistent efforts have never succeeded in making the shopkeeper less firm. They would drop into the shop morning after morning and renew their offer; the merchant would smile, but remain unshaken. If you stay very long in Japan you will become so accustomed to this haggling practice, that you will acquire a habit you will have difficulty in shaking off. ”

“ Said the merchant, “Pluck out thine eye, and I will pluck out mine: then we will weigh them, and if they are equal in weight, I will acknowledge thy truth, and pay thee the price of thine eye; but, if they differ, thou liest and I will sue thee for the price of mine eye.” Quoth the one-eyed man, “Grant me time;” but the merchant answered, saying, “I am a stranger and grant time to none, nor will I part from thee till thou pay.” So the sharper ransomed his eye by paying him an hundred ducats and went away. Last of all came the buyer of the chanders-wood and said, “Take the price of thy ware.” ”

“ Then the merchants came and opened the gate of bidding for the wood and bid against one another till its price reached a thousand dinars, when they left bidding and my host said to me, “Hear, O my son, this is the current price of thy goods in hard times like these: wilt thou sell them for this or shall I lay them up for thee in my storehouses, till such time as prices rise?” “O my lord,” answered I, “the business is in thy hands: do as thou wilt.” Then asked he, “Wilt thou sell the wood to me, O my son, for an hundred gold pieces over and above what the merchants have bidden for it?” ”

“ Once I offered her some "tea-money" in the shape of a basket of raspberries, which she wished to preserve and drink in her tea, with the privilege of purchasing them herself. As an experiment to determine whether bargaining is the outcome of thrift and economy alone, or a distinct pleasure in itself, it was a success. I followed her from vender to vender, and waited with exemplary patience while she scrutinized their wares and beat down prices with feverish eagerness, despite the fact that she was not to pay the bill. ”

“ Those brutes of keepers who beat you told me that at the first touch of the lash you gave a terrible jump the length of your chain. But, you see, friend Bull, if I offer you to the purchasers with the dangerous account which you give, I shall find few customers. An honest merchant should not boast his merchandise too much, no more should he underestimate it. ”

“ Here is more poor stuff; for when I know the current prices of my Wares, both here and beyond the Seas, I may easily conjecture whether the profit of the Exchange or the gain which I expect upon my Wares will be greater. And again, as every Merchant knows well what he gains upon the Wares he buyeth and selleth, so may any other man do the like that can tell how the said Merchant hath proceeded: But what is all this to make us admire the Exchange? ”

“ The buyers surged against the barricade of counters, shouting their orders, contesting the ground inch by inch as they fought for the value of a penny. And they emerged staggering under the weight of their plunder, laden like ants with food for hungry mouths—the insatiable maw of the people. ”

“ Matilall.-- Ah, a brilliant notion! I am daily in need of money. Does commerce flourish in the bazar, or does it grow in an office? Is it merely the buying and selling that goes on in a sweetmeat-maker's shop? My business will lack all importance unless I am to be the chief agent of some English merchant. ”

“ People sold what they should have clung to, and bought what they did not need. Manufacturers heaped up goods for which there was no demand, and farmers ploughed where they had not drained and drained, where they were never fated to plough. The small dealer enlarged his business with more haste than judgment, and the widow drew her mite from the bank of savings to buy land on which she was destined never to set foot. ”

“ The merchant or importer, who pays the duty at first, will not consent to be so much money out of pocket. He therefore proportionably raises the price of his goods. It may then be said to be a contest between him and the person offering to buy, who shall lose the duty. ”

“ The purchaser, who is not asking for a soap he has used before, has some hazy suspicion that the shopkeeper will try to sell, not the article best worth the price, but the article which leaves the largest margin of profit; and the purchaser imagines that he in some measure secures himself against a bad bargain when he exercises his authority by asking for some specific brand or make of the commodity he seeks. ”

“ Some, however, among them, more sanguine and adventurous than the rest, availed themselves of their credit with the importers and wholesale dealers, for purchasing quantities much beyond the estimated demand in their own business. As the purchases were made in the first instance ostensibly, and perhaps really, for the legitimate purposes and within the limits of their regular business, the parties were enabled to buy without the condition of any deposit; whereas speculators, known to be such, are required to pay 2l. ”

“ The last quality of a merchant I shall advert to is the taking care to be properly prepared, in cash or goods in the ordinary course of sale, for the bills which are drawn on them. Now I ask, whether they have ever calculated the clear produce of any given sales, to make them tally with the four million of bills which are come and coming upon them, so as at the proper periods to enable the one to liquidate the other. ”

“ When a merchant treated with a seller who had come into the town, any of his fellows who happened to come in at the moment when the earnest-money was paid and the striking of hands in ratification of the bargain took place, had the right to claim a share in the transaction and to obtain the goods in question at the same price. ”

“ But for the most part it is the first, namely, the effort on the part of the merchant to obtain larger profit (so called) by buying cheap and selling dear. Some part, indeed, of this larger gain is deserved, and might be openly demanded, because it is the reward of the merchant's knowledge, and foresight of probable necessity; but the greater part of such gain is unjust; and unjust in this most fatal way, that it depends first on keeping the exchangers ignorant of the exchange value of the articles, and secondly, on taking advantage of the buyer's need and the seller's poverty. ”

“ The higgling of the market.—The process of reaching an agreement between buyers and sellers is called the higgling of the market, and represents the conflict between [pg 074] the wishes of sellers to get the most possible for their products, and the wishes of buyers to get the most possible for their money. In fact, both buyers and sellers have the same motive: to make their own exertions go as far as possible in supplying their own wants. The fact that money enters into the transaction makes no difference with the bargain. ”

“ I know of one firm in the wholesale hat business, that raised hob in a letter with their best man because he would, in selling dozen lots to customers, specify sizes on the goods that his customer wished,—a most absurd thing for the house to do. The merchant must, of course, keep his own stock clean and not become over-stocked on certain sizes. ”

“ General dealers, it must be remembered, are traders in a large or small way of business who will sell furniture, drapery, clothes, cutlery, or anything you like, on the instalment system. Their methods of trading are tally-men’s methods.
If this list be looked at, it will be seen that the general public make very little use of imprisonment for debt. The substantial shopkeeper and ratepayer is scarcely represented at all, the grocers and a few of the big general dealers being the only people who pay rates. ”

“ Your merchants, however, are, I think, imprudent in crowding in upon us such quantities of goods for sale here, which are not written for by ours, and are beyond the faculties of this country to consume in any reasonable time. This surplus of goods is, therefore, to raise present money, sent to the vendues, or auction houses, of which we have six or seven in and near this city; where they are sold frequently for less than prime cost, to the great loss of the indiscreet adventurers. ”

“ But you have no reason for dealing with them for the purpose of getting the money, because you say you get money from the merchants if you ask it?-Yes; but if a gentleman comes and asks me for a shawl, he has nothing to give me except the money, and I get it all in money then.
1808. Would you rather do with a gentleman or lady in that way than with a merchant?-It is only sometimes that they can take a shawl in that way; but the merchant always takes them. ”

“ Our ancestors were far more alive to the advantages of ready cash, and consequent keen competition among dealers, than we are, although through the medium of Co-operative Stores, &c., we are beginning to learn the lost lesson, but, at all events, they had the acumen to know that large centres of supply were cheaper to the consumer than small, isolated shops, and the Market, was the outcome. ”

“ I bought for cash entirely, going into the lower part of New York City in search of the cheapest market for groceries, often attending auctions of teas, sugars, molasses, etc., watching the sales, noting prices and buyers, and frequently combining with other grocers to bid off large lots, which we subsequently divided, giving each of us the quantity wanted at a lower rate than if the goods had passed into other hands, compelling us to pay another profit. ”

“ Any two shopkeepers, in insufficient employment, who agreed to deal at each other's shops so long as they could there purchase articles of as good a quality as elsewhere, and at as low a price, would render the nation a service. It may be said that they must previously have dealt, to the same amount, with some other dealers ”

“ Every person, therefore, would at all times hasten to dispose of his commodity in exchange for anything which, though it might not be fitted to his own immediate wants, was in great and general demand, and easily divisible, so that he might be sure of being able to purchase with it, whatever was offered for sale. ”

“ But if the merchants did pay all the price of the shawls in money, it would just come back to them, because, as you say very truly, people cannot do without some of the merchants' goods, and the money would return to them in payment for their goods. ”

“ Certes I may speak of them right well as feeling the harm in that I am a buyer, nevertheless I speak generally in each of them.
To conclude therefore, in our markets all things are to be sold necessary for man’s use; and there is our provision made commonly for all the week ensuing. Therefore, as there are no great towns without one weekly market at least, so there are very few of them that have not one or two fairs or more within [Pg 42] the compass of the year, assigned unto them by the prince. ”

“ From the orange-boy and the retailer of seals, razors, glass and other wares, in the public streets, or the collector of
“Old rags, old jags, old bonnets, old bags,”
to the shop-keeper, dealer in wearing apparel, or in silver and gold, the same principles of conduct too generally prevail.
“The itinerants utter base money, to enable them by selling cheap, to dispose of their goods; while those who are stationary, with very few exceptions, receive and purchase at an under price whatever is brought them, [311] without asking questions ”

“ With the bookselling proper was joined a stationery business, and perhaps on the whole it was a little harder to sell a newspaper or a quire of note, or a bottle of gum, than to take an order for a volume or part with one from the shelves; still, no mortal is above satisfaction in receiving cash payment, part whereof is calculable profit, and the very till soon began to be more than endurable in our friend’s eyes. ”

“ I have another reason for that, which is, that as the system exists now, if the merchant makes a good bargain or a good market for his fish, and the man he sells them to does not fail before the price is payable, the merchant never loses, because he never pays the price to us before then which he can afford to pay. ”

“ I know not by what fatality, or by what confederacy, every catalogue of genuine furniture comes to her hand, every advertisement of a warehouse newly opened, is in her pocketbook, and she knows before any of her neighbours when the stock of any man leaving off trade is to be sold cheap for ready money. ”

“ Where the number of workmen living on the same spot is large, it may be thought desirable that they should unite together and have an agent, to purchase by wholesale those articles which are most in demand, as tea, sugar, bacon, &c., and to retail them at prices, which will just repay the wholesale cost, together with the expense of the agent who conducts their sale. ”

“ The seller, with silken manners and brazen countenance, will always name a price four times as large as it should be. Then the real business begins. The buyer offers one half or one fourth of what he finally expects to pay ”

“ The merchants either use them in trading at the mill stores, which are large and complete, or sell them, at a discount of 5 per cent. to parties who engage in building and who use them in paying for lumber, which is sold at the same price for checks as for cash. No one is required to take these checks, which are merely in the nature of an advance payment on wages. ”