Part 20

If you have ever been to Turkey, or to a north African country or have travelled across the Middle East and visited a market or Souq as it is called in Arabic, and shopped a little, you might have come across the art of haggling and might have done it yourself, too. In Saudi it is no different. Except in the supermarket where you have to pay the advertised price and cannot haggle, you can haggle and negotiate the price in any other shop, market, and even in the fruit and vegetable market.

Haggling is not for everyone and not everybody can do it. You have to learn and master it. If you’ve never done it, you should definitively give it a go. But before you do it for the first time, watch someone doing it so you can learn how to do it. It takes a little time and a lot of effort. You need to be cool, tough as nails and put a poker face on. The dealers should not realise that you want something desperately. Be rock hard and say no if you don’t like the price. Don’t worry if you don’t buy the item today, you can always buy it another time. It helps if you do a bit of market research beforehand and compare prices. It will help you to obtain a better price. If you are a beginner when it comes to haggling, it helps to know a bit of the language or have someone with you who speaks it.

I master the art of haggling quite well. My father was a very good teacher and I learnt all the tricks from him. As I child, I always went with him when we were in Greece on holidays and he needed to buy furniture for the house. He saved him- and ourselves a great amount of money. I looked closely when he haggled and negotiated over a washing machine or something else. I have perfected the art of haggling when I was living in Italy and shopped at the various flea markets and shops. Now I can use all this here in Saudi.

For a long time I have wanted to buy an iPhone 5S. Everytime I’m in town, I pass by the mobile phone shops and jot down the prices. It doesn’t really matter that I don’t speak Arabic, we understand each other and communicate with hands and feet. For weeks the prices were stable. But prices started to fall, since the press released the news of the newer model coming out later on this year. I’m pretty certain that today I will buy one.

I take with me my Egyptian colleague and one of the three Bengali. We drive to the mobile phone street and go from shop to shop. We find out that there are price differences. Some dealers offer even two different prices. A higher with warranty, a lower without. I don’t care about the warranty, because if something happens to the device, I will go to an Apple Store with it and have it fixed. You need a warranty for places like this where there is no Apple Store around and will have to seek the dealer you bought it from.

Negotiations start as soon as we find the shops with the lowest prices. At first it doesn’t really work well. Although the dealer goes down with the price, it’s not what I had imagined. So we continue. After the obligatory small-talk (at least 10 minutes), the negotiations start. This dealer goes down, more than the first one does, but then, I throw my joker on the table:

“The one directly opposite has made me a better deal!”

“Really?”
“Yes.”
“How much?
“……”
“Really?”
“Yes, really.”

Then he goes further down with his offer. Superb! Unfortunately I can’t pay by card. That’s why we have to pay the banks in the area a visit. Unfortunately the withdrawal limit is lower outside Europe and I have already reached my weekly limit, so I’m not able to withdraw any money. We go back to the shop and explain the situation to the shop owner. He takes his mobile phone, calls somebody, talks in Arabic, puts the phone down and signalises that I have to follow him. We step outside the shop, he locks the door, goes to an SUV, asks me to have a seat, drives across town, parks outside a shop, as we enter he points at one assistant and tells me to go to him, he goes to somebody who is probably the shop owner and has a chat while I’m paying. The assistant speaks little English. He swipes my card, I sign, we go back to the SUV and back to the shop. Inside he gives me my iPhone 5S Gold for less than 390 Pounds Sterling, we shake hands and as I’m about to leave, he asks if I needed a protection for my display. How much? Oh, that much? I’ll think about it. The dealer across the street has an offer for less than 2 quid, not 8 quid. So I go and get it across the street.

My colleagues are thrilled and so is my father when I tell him the story.

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                                                       Where's the best offer again? hmm...

                                 Small-talk, haggling and negotiations.