Subscribe Feed (RSS)Hoe NOT to buy a rug in Turkey or anywhere else
August 9th, 2008 by eyal | Filed under Asia. |
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Just read this interesting story What I Learned Buying a Rug in Turkey (via Maoxian). Those sellers targeting tourists are masters in this art of influencing people. I’ve come across many of them in my travels in Asia, the best ones I met were in India. Anyway I thought I’d compile my list of rules that helped me in the past: how NOT to buy a rug in Turkey, or an artwork in India or gemstones in Thailand, etc.
Rule number 1: Never, ever, respond to a conversation or any kind of interaction with those shills or sellers unless you’re already well educated in the area you’re considering a purchase in and are ready to buy right now. Preferably, I try to even avoid any eye contact as this minimizes those “where are you from?” questions.
Rule number 2: refer to rule number 1, can’t be reiterated enough. If you do nothing else then just observing the above will get you out of most trouble. For “advanced” users, I’m already quite immune to those shills so sometimes I do crack a joke with them, often in such a way that makes them realize I’m not going to buy anything from them and gets (some of) them off my back.
Rule number 3: Never, ever, buy in the first shop you get into. If by design or by breaking rule number 1 (tsk tsk) you do get into a shop and start discussing an item, even if you like something and the price seems right, do not buy yet. Why? You can almost always come back later, it’s very rare that only one seller has this item, stepping away puts you in control and the shop owner is more likely to reveal their lowest selling price.
Rule number 4: Plan in advance for any pruchase worth more than just pocket money. Do your research, start with online shops - almost anything is sold online too these days, with friends who’ve been to the place, travel forums, hotel stafff (depending no what kind of hotel you’re in this is sometimes not a great idea) and multiple shops in the destination. When checking prices it’s best to check in different kinds of shops including those that seem expensive like in shopping malls, main street, and then markets. Will give you some good reference points.
Rule number 5: Coordinate with travel partner(s). Discuss in advance with your travel partner(s) on what stage you’re in: checking things out or ready to buy and what items and prices you’re aiming for. It also helps if no one goes into a shop saying: “yes I really love it, it’s the best item I’ve ever seen and we’ll surely never find anything better and cheaper anywhere else” ;-)
Rule number 6: Negotiate. It’s impossible to teach negotiation in a blog post. Nevertheless knowing how to neogtiate helps tremendously of course. If you’ve done your homework in steps 4 and 5 you should know what sort of prices to expect and everyone should be on the same page with regards to how to approach the seller. When I don’t feel comfortable in my research of step 4 then if the item is expensive I won’t buy yet but negotiate to find out prices, if it isn’t expensive and/or worth the time then I go for rule of thumb of cutting the price in half and seeing how that goes.
P.S. I actually did buy a beautiful rug in the past, in Nepal. Let’s just say I didn’t pay $1,100 for it, or even a tenth of that price.
P.S.S. Two books I recommend if you want to up your game in this area are the classics: You Can Negotiate Anything
If readers have any other suggestions then feel free to add them in the comments.
