I lived in China from 2004 to 2006. In that part of the world, many products are bought and sold on the street. Prices are rarely fixed. If you see something you want to buy, you have to ask how much it is. The seller gives you a quick once-over, tries to predict how much they can get out of you, and names a price. It didn’t take me long to realize that I was often paying well above market price for pretty much everything I was buying, from tangerines to computer speakers. I needed to learn how to bargain.

I got really good at it. It became something like a sport to me. My Chinese friends were often impressed and would tell me that I, a foreigner, was arriving at prices that were lower than they would have paid. I loved hearing that. Sometimes when I needed something – a pair of gloves, perhaps – I’d hear the initial price and set my mind on a much lower number, usually about forty percent of the first thing they said. Usually I’d get the item but sometimes I’d walk away frustrated that I’d lost the game. And then I’d kick myself for not having accepted the vendor’s perfectly acceptable lowest offer, since my hands were numb from the cold and I really would have been willing to pay that amount to keep them warm. When I first began bargaining, it was merely because I felt foolish when I got swindled. As my skills progressed, I really just wanted to win.

Now I’m running my own business and in the early stages of it I have a lot of slow days. I jump at any opportunity to work and build my reputation in the community. I try to keep my prices very competitive. My pricing is based on an unusual formula. Most locksmiths set their price points with profit maximization in mind. I’ve aimed at achieving a middle-class salary through a 55-hour work week, and calculated my prices accordingly. Even though it would be hard to find a licensed locksmith willing to work for less than I do, people still try to bargain me down. Sometimes it’s because they genuinely can’t afford the unanticipated expense of hiring a locksmith. Other times my customers bargain with me for sport, just for the good feeling that comes from winning a battle of wills against another human, and the bragging rights that accompany that.

It makes me think back to my time in Nanjing, when I would work hard to get a vendor at the night market, shoulders slumped, to slash five more yuan from the price of a good. That five yuan, which I wouldn’t have picked up if I’d dropped on the street, might have been the better part of the vendor’s profit margin for that item. I’d walk back to my nice apartment, feeling victorious. The vendor would probably quietly curse me as she wrapped up her wares in a tarp and head home to rest up for the next long day of work on the horizon. I sometimes wish now that I had not exploited their poverty to get my jollies.

But I shouldn’t forget that it wasn’t the desire to win that started this off; it was the fear of being suckered. Unless you’re very familiar with a market, it’s hard to know what a fair price is. All you can do is hope and trust that you’re paying the right amount for a good product. Nobody knows what a locksmith is supposed to charge. Heck, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to charge. I’d like to earn a living wage and I’d hate for my customers to feel after the fact that I had gotten one over on them. In our culture, most people aren’t comfortable probing for wiggle room on prices, so it’s my responsibility to set a fair price from the start. For those that are prone to bargaining, all I can say is that the price is the price, and I’ve done my best to make it fair.