In Reply to: Bartering Etiquette posted by cyberbirth on Tuesday, 16. November 2004 at 18:21 Bali Time:
on my first night there, i paid 50,000 for 2 little silver bracelets. Hubby had to get a pair of pants taken up the next day and guess who was in the tailors? yep the same guy tried to sell me 2 bracelets for 50,000 again... I smiled and said "you only get to rip off this aussie once" he sold me his whole stack of 15 for 15,000 as an apology. I would barter until the seller had reached his lowest and if it was still out of my price range I would apologise and explain that although it was lovely and worth the money I really couldn't afford it. I had many offer me almost half of their "best price" after this and so it would go on until we both were satisfied. Quite often around Poppies 1 at night, I would say to them "I am hot and tired and not in the mood for bartering" and they would give me a very fair price straight up. I did this one night and bought 2 lovely bongo drums for 25,000 the pair.
Another thing I would do is say to the seller,"you tell me how much it cost you and then we negotiate your profit" this also got me some good prices and made them happy. I think they apreciated the honesty and also the fact that when it came down to 10,000 or so I always gave in and said OK a bit extra for a cold drink for you.