Europeans who come to West Africa at first cannot understand the African custom of bargaining before buying or selling. They start off by buying at the price asked in the market, and then when they learn from friends that they have paid far too much, they are angry at having been cheated. Later on, when they know more about the African way of life, they realise that it is only when one judges such an incident from the point of view of a different society that one feels one has been cheated.
he truth is that there is no word like ‘Cheating’ in the African market, or, if there is, it is not applied to open market negotiations like bargaining. It is considered perfectly legitimate for the market-woman to ask 5 kobo-it is worth whatever a customer is prepared to pay for it, as long as this is above a certain minimum price sufficient to reward the farmer for the work done to produce the fruit. If 5 kobo seems a reasonable price to you, and you pay it, the seller is happy at having found a rich customer, and does not think she ought to tell you that she has been selling the same kind of fruit all day for 2 kobo.
Bargaining is a kind of buying and selling by consent- both buyers and seller working towards a price which both can happily consent to. Only when a child is sent to the market, or someone equally incapable of bargaining, will the seller consider it her duty to sell at the lowest acceptable price, without any bargianing of haggling of any kind.
Bargaining methods vary from area to area. In some parts the seller starts at too high a price, the buyer at too low, and, gradually, one moving up and the other moving down, they work towards a price which is acceptable to both. In other areas, this method would lead to a quarrel or even a fight, the seller’s reaction to too low a price being to call the buyer all sorts of names, such as ‘Scoundrel!’, ‘Rogue!’ Daytime robber!’ In such areas the acceptable method is for the buyer to offer the seller a slight lower price than the one asked; the seller agrees to this, then another offer, still lower, is made and agreed to, and this goes on until atlast a price is reached which is the least to which the seller will agree. If this suits the buyer, the sale is made. If not, after a final unsuccessful attempt to beat down the price, he may go away to another seller, hoping tha one will agree to a more reasonable price.
On the other hand, African students who go to Europe discover, sometimes to their embarrassment, that prices are generally fixed. A newly-arrived student goes into a shop, and, being told that an article is 50 pence,offers to pay 40. The shopkeeper, unused to haggling, replies very rudely that 50 pence is his price, and he(the student) may take it or leave it. The poor student is embarrassed at having made such a mistake, and either leaves the shop without buying what he had come for, or else buys far more than he had intended, in an awkward effort to show the shopkeeper that it was not poverty that made him offer a lower price.
Sometimes, the bargain-hunting student thinks he has at last discovered a place where he can use his experience in bargaining to advantage. This is when he goes to one of those special markets, like Petticoat Lane in East London, where goods seem to be offered at very low prices, and the sellers are prepared to listen to bargianing and accept a lower price.
But he may soon find out he is wrong again. Traders of this kind are very persuasive talkers, and will talk the buyer into thinking he has found a real bargain: but on reaching home and carefully examining the goods, he may find that there is something wrong with them and they are not worth what he paid for them.
After an experience of this kind, the average student is only too happy to return to the fixed-price shops, where at any rate he is sure he is paying a fair price for his purchases, and getting a reliable quality in return. He can suspend his liking for bargianing until he is back home again in Africa.
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