Bargaining

One of the most alien things here to me is that there are markets or stores where you haggle for the price of things. I am quit possibly the world's worst negotiator (even worse than Homer Simpson), so I'm at a big disadvantage here. I was thinking about this though, and I have decided that it is the manner of the bargining that is different.

In America, we bargin as a group and silently. If merchant A is offering a product at too high a price, we just refuse to buy it until the price comes down rather than individually ask for a lower price. It would be interesting to see if both methods would result in roughly the same average price for products (which would be my guess). But the American method does reward bad negotiators like me.