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Comment by ryanwaggoner | Hacker News Reader

I'm one of those people who has a really hard time with the idea of having left money on the table. When I'm in foreign countries, I love to haggle in the markets, but no matter how big a reduction in price I get, I always walk away wondering if they're laughing at me behind my back because I still paid 10x the going rate.

Anyway, working for a large corporation with an opaque salary system was an exercise in frustration. I moved to SF and took a job at a midsize company making what I thought was a very decent salary. I was just out of college and making more than my parents, so I thought I was doing really well. However, after a bit of digging and research, I discovered that the "going rate" for my position was actually 20 - 30% higher. Ugh.

I can totally see the appeal of a transparent salary system, especially when you throw profit-sharing into the mix.

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"I always walk away wondering if they're laughing at me behind my back"

They're probably not laughing at you. They are either confused because the foreigner got a decent price out of them, or grateful you didn't hold on for a lower rate. It's the ones that don't haggle that they're laughing at...

My brother gets immense satisfaction about haggling in China. "Don't you give me the foreign devil price! I grew up in Hong Kong, I know how this game is played! This T-shirt is shoddy and only worth 1/6th of what you are charging, I will pay 1/5th and curse your name!"

He can pull it off, despite having grown up in Chicago and being white as the driven snow. Personally I'm glad that Japan is largely a sticker-price society, the stress would wreck me.

I once haggled off a lot of the price on a purse (gift for my mom) by accident: I told the merchant I was checking out the rest of the market first and would come back later. He just kept going down until I felt no reason not to buy the item.

Or wondering why an obviously-rich foreigner is so stingy as to haggle down a few cents that mean nothing to him.

Very simple: I'm a greedy bastard.

Because no matter what you pay, the person who actually made it gets almost nothing all the same.

If you pay a lot you reward the person who sells it to you for high balling the price, lying usually and aggressive selling manor.

In addition you make the price high for others who can't afford high prices such as people travelling for 6months+ which have low budgets.

It's easy to think that things in non-Westernized countries cost peanuts, but it's rarely true. Haggling is almost never over "a few cents" (certainly in no example I've seen - someone who haggles over less than a dollar for a >$10 purchase is probably just a dick).

Take Morocco, for example. They'll try and charge you hundreds (or thousands) of dollars for a carpet ( http://www.ehow.com/how_2318956_moroccan-carpet-less-than-mi... ). Even t-shirts in China will go for a few bucks or more.

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