Driving a Hard Bargain

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Bargaining is an inescapable part of life in the Arab World, where very few shops and no markets have fixed prices. I was never very good at it, as was brought home to me when a group of us teachers from International House Beirut traveled to Cairo for Christmas.


One day, after visiting the Pyramids, Sue and I went into the village that is located next to the Sphinx. We popped into a souvenir shop and we both fell in love with a wall-hanging of an Egyptian scene.

“How much is that hanging?” I asked.
“Six Egyptian pounds.”

Having watched how Beirutis bargain, I knew better than to accept this opening price.
“I’ll give you three pounds for it.”
“No, the price is six pounds.”

Hmm. He was supposed to bring the price down but he hadn’t.
“Okay,” I said. “Four pounds. Agreed?”
He just looked at me and repeated, “Six pounds.”

He was clearly a tough bargainer.
“All right, five pounds. And that’s my final offer.”
“The price is six pounds,” he said.

Refusing to give in and pay such an outrageous price, we left the shop and went back into Cairo.

When we got to our hotel room, we realized that we were being ridiculous. The hanging was one of the best we’d ever seen and even at six pounds it was a real bargain. Luckily, one of our friends was going to the Pyramids and Sphinx the following day and so we asked her to buy the hanging for us. I carefully explained where the shop was and exactly where the hanging was inside the shop.

“He’ll ask for six pounds,” I told her. “That’s fine. Just pay what he asks.”

That evening she came to our room with the hanging.

“I suppose he asked for six pounds,” I said.
“Oh, no,” she told us. “He started by asking for four pounds but I quickly bargained him down to three.”

Go figure!
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