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Is haggling an individualized price? What's stopping companies from allowing arbitrary bids on any item they can choose to reject? What if the future of the grocery store is eBay, a true nightmare.

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Culturally, Americans do not haggle and do not to well in cultures where haggling is the norm. It would take a massive cultural shift before negotiating price is even close to normal. Part of this is why so many employees do poorly when negotiating salary during the interview process.

Disclaimer: my father was in the oil business and we lived a lot in the Middle East among other places.

Americans don't do well with anything perceived as confrontation, speaking in general terms. Haggling is on that list. It's why my son sold so damn much popcorn sitting outside of a grocery store for the boy scouts. He asked everyone, and a wide majority of people are too polite to just say no thank you.

I don't know why it is, because Americans are also pretty aggressive about certain topics. But confrontation, even low stakes like price haggling, is a problem.

or you will ask bids for your shopping list, and get replies from several retail chains (or, rather their AI agents).

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