In Reply to: sneakin in :) posted by trubluemoo on Thursday, 16. December 2010 at 22:48 Bali Time:
Balinese traders are incredibly good at "pigeon holing" people, and have memories of an elephant to match.
They seem to have a sixth sense when it comes to reading people.
However, they have a regular spiel of questions that they will ask you.....Where are you from?, Where are you staying?, When did you arrive? etc etc.
These questions are asked because they are naturally interested to know who is doing what, but also to determine the likelyhood of a sale and what sort of budget you may have.
However, do not be intimidated by all this.
In earlier visits I simply asked the same questions back and found that this then developed into a chat and a much nicer exchange than just the bargaining side of things.
They WILL know that you have not long been in Bali......just accept it because it's no big deal.
Just remember some cardinal rules.
1) Do not do a deal and then reneg on it.
2) Do not say that you will "buy tommorrow" unless you intend to do so.
3) Accept the fact that you will pay more for the same item as someone else has.
4) Relax, enjoy and engage with the locals.
5) Delay buying if you can till you have chatted with people who have more experience to get a ballpark idea of pricing etc.
Good luck with it.