I would like to swap "people" in your sentence for "americans". It's a cultural thing, not a human thing.
In the latter case the price starts high (to catch the people who will just pay anyway) then the price goes down, or there is a bait & switch (the bargain item advertised in the window is sold out, could we interest you in this instead?), or both. Perhaps the poster above is conflating "loud, brash, confident tourists bargaining" with "American tourists" - a pair of populations that certainly do intersect though not as much as commonly held stereotypes would suggest.
American customers usually have a reason for asking for a discount ("do you have educational discounts" or "we're just a startup").
Generally larger businesses don't ask for any discounts, although that could just be because my prices are low for them.