For those of you raising your prices just so you can discount it,
in my book this is at best ambiguously unethical (at worst
downright unethical).
Bargaining is cultural for some. There also is a social aspect.
Negotiation is a skill. It can be pleasant interaction with another
human where you both feel like it was a win-win. Play the game anyway
you want. That is all business is. A game where we move stuff around.
Smoke and mirrors. Some people were raised to bargain. Not to long
ago negotiating the price of a new automobile was common practice.
This subject gets so blown out of proportion. When I bought my house,
my real estate agent got the price down by $5000 from what was being
asked. Day of closing he negotiated another $5000 discount because of
work that was going to be needed to be done.
Setting the price that you want and being able to have a little
leeway is hardly “ambiguously unethical”.
There was a news program, they sent men and women to get car repair
estimates. guess who got higher prices? Seems like a smart woman
would at least consider bargaining if she thought it was possible
that whether intended or not, she was getting a higher price than a
man would.
Perhaps it is just being able to be flexible rather than ridgid. It
is not life or death. If it was such a moral issue tell your customer
to feed the poor instead of buying a bauble.
Maybe it is just me, but the way things are going in this country
with our economy, it might become necessary to negotiate. I have been
planning to get a long term lease on the property I rent for my
business, and I will be asking for a short term freeze on my rent. My
business is down quite a bit from last year. In my first post about
this I mentioned I told my staff not to discount now because metal
prices are so high we cannot replace at the same price. In effect if
we do not reprice all the jewelry they are getting a discount. When
some have asked if we can do better that is what they are told.
What would be interesting would be if there was some way to track who
does better in the long run, those that discount or those that do
not. When the economy was better a few years ago, if someone bought
$300 of sterling jewelry, there were times I would give them a
discount without them asking. Perhaps it is just my imagination, but
I feel people get warmer towards me when I am nice to them, and a
discount seems to qualify as nice thing to do.
I do not know if could make more money by not discounting, but I am
really clear about how many repeat and loyal customers I have.
Crossed my mind recently that because I am flexible, people will
come to me when times are not good as they know I will do what I can
to try to make things easier. I have told some people that I give
discounts too that something they are looking at cannot be
discounted. They are always fine with that.
If a customer seems really interested in something and it is a high
enough dollar value, I have closed many sales by waiting as long as
I could to see if I can close them without discounting and to move
toward closing, I would offer a discount either to get the person to
commit, to get them to purchase two items they cannot make up their
mind which one to chose, or my time is more valuable then the small
amount I lose in discounting just to get them out of my store.
I do not confuse bagaining with self worth or self esteem. Just the
way I roll. Good food, rock and roll, make jewelry. I look forward to
going to work every day.
Richard Hart