That’s the question I found asking myself in Thailand. I was out to dinner with friends from back home that I’d run into. As we chowed down on pad thai, they told me they’d been backpacking for six weeks on a budget of $20 per day. The secret, they bragged, was making sure you got “local” prices.
Then the bill came. They began to haggle, and our server became visibly uncomfortable. The meal had already been consumed, putting him in a corner. As we left, the restaurant’s staff glowered at us. The couple, however, glowed. They’d managed to stay under budget yet another day.
According to Collin, an American YouTuber with nearly 1.5 million subscribers who vlogs about his global shopping exploits, it’s not difficult maths to figure out when you’re lowballing sellers. He suggests starting negotiations around 20 to 30 per cent of a vendor’s asking price, but in doing so, pay careful attention to their body language.
“They know what their profit margins are,” he says. “They have the power to say, ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ But you need to let the seller drive the negotiations.”
And although the couple had rationalised they were simply paying the “local” price for our meal, that too, was problematic. Before you head to market, you need to be aware of the history of colonialism in your country, says Mary Blair, an American living abroad in Senegal, on her blog, BlackbirdBlair.com.
“It reeks of privilege…to expect to pay the same price as folks who live in material conditions drastically different than the ones that allow you to travel in the first place,” writes Blair. “Set your ego aside and accept that you should not expect — nor do you deserve — the local price.”
It’s a critical point. One billion people live on less than US$1 per day, according to the United Nations. In regions that have an economy based on tourism, sellers typically factor the inflated price foreigners will pay into their business model. When you pay more, you’re also making it possible for vendors to offer a lower price to locals, who need the discount more than you.
Finally, it’s worth considering just what you’re haggling over the price on, suggests Bianca Caruana, who blogs at TheAltruisticTraveller.com.
“The real question should be what’s the actual value of what you’re paying for, and why is the item so cheap in the first place?” she says. If it’s a good deal, chances are someone has paid the price, including those who toil in unsafe or unfair working conditions. According to the International Labour Organisation, 700 million people continue to live in extreme or moderate poverty, despite having employment.
But that’s not to say you should just give up on shopping or haggling altogether.
“It’s detrimental to local producers to not buy anything, because tourism does bring in money for them,” says Caruana. “It’s just a matter of checking your privilege and understanding the socio-economic conditions of the places you’re travelling to from a point of compassion and empathy.”
Instead, look for locally produced goods, do your research to determine what you should expect to pay for services like taxi rides, and shop around to get a sense of what’s a fair price.
As Collin points out, haggling is a unique chance to interact with locals in their environment. He says it connects people across cultures — and it’s this quality that he believes attracts viewers to his YouTube channel.
“Through chatting with people, you learn more about their culture and their home lives,” he says. “It makes you realise, ‘People in this country aren’t really different than me.’”
