Bargain Hunting

Posted by Cynical Sarah on March 26, 2007

In case I didn’t make it obvious enough with my last update to the site, I took a nice little vacation last week to the Dominican Republic. It was a long-awaited (nearly a year and a half after marrying) honeymoon for my husband and me.

We had an amazing time, and I would definitely recommend the all-inclusive resort we stayed at. The rooms were great, the food was good, the beach was awesome, and you really can’t go wrong with beautiful, warm weather and water when it’s cold and dreary back home.

Of course, one of my favorite things about going on vacation is finding cool things from where I’m visiting as souvenirs for myself and family and friends. So part of my research on the Dominican before we left was to see what kind of “special” things they have on the island that I can look for – and then find where I can get them for the best prices while I’m there.

In a country like the Dominican Republic, though, the best prices can only be found pretty much in flee markets and little shops where you can barter for things. In my case, that pretty much means that I’m doomed to have to paying too much for things because I am not a barterer at all.

I’m the kind of person that I prefer to see merchandise with prices clearly market on it, and then if I don’t like the price, I just don’t buy it. It’s as simple as that.

If I’d gone to the Dominican on my own, I would have stuck with the stores and the official gift shops at the resort. But since I was there with my hubby who really has some crazy love for bartering, we ventured into the shanty gift shops at the end of the beach at the resort.

To give you a little idea what we were up against, this shanty gift shopping strip was made up of about 20 little shacks filled with relatively the same types of goods. The first shacks in the strip had prime position, and you could tell because the further down the row you made it, the more desperate the sales pitches became.

The first day we got sucked into the shops, we only made it to shack number four before we gave up and got out of there as fast as we could. We started out in shack number two because the guy snagged us off the side of the beach and sucked us in. Then when we were done in his shop, the guy in number four snagged us before we could get out of there.

We ended up with a free painting from that guy and he told us all about how we were his first customers of the day so this was his chance to make a sale and he would give us a good deal. We’d already bought some stuff from the first guy though and just wanted to find a way out of there without more merchandise piled on us.

We made two more trips to do some shanty shopping and each time, Mr. Booth Number Four would try to lure us in and would say, “Now is my chance to sell to you.”

On the second trip in, the furthest we made it was booth number six. We’d had time to check out the “official” gift shops at the resort to get a better idea of pricing, and my husband had also worked out some of his bargaining strategy.

It took the third trip to finally make it through all the shops and to really get the hang of all the different selling strategies people use on you. Tactic one is that every one of them promises they’ll give you the best deal. Plus they emphasize the no tax part of the pricing and many of them point to their badges that have red maple leafs on them to show they’re somehow special for the Canadians.

Another tactic, and one of my least favorite, was that they’d focus on me. Since I’m the woman, I’m supposed to be “the boss” and tell my husband what to buy for me. I would be plied with “free gifts with purchase” in an effort to get me to convince my husband to buy from them.

What they don’t realize of course is that since I’m not a bargainer, if it was my choice, we would walk out as soon as they mentioned a price I wasn’t happy with. But I did end up with a couple of pretty anklets, and we did get a free painting out of their belief that working me would help them get what they wanted for pricing.

Another tactic, which my husband later informed me is one of the biggest no-noes of bargaining, was that they would eventually start talking about their families and how much they need the money.

If they felt a sale slipping away, they’d switch from focusing strictly on the merchandise to talking about how many kids they have at home who depend on their sales, or sick family members or some other sad story. One shop keeper went so far as to tell me a whole story about how he had to take his sick brother to the doctor earlier that day so he couldn’t open his shop until after noon and was behind on his daily sales.

It’s really hard to give into the sob story though when I know the prices they’re quoting me are even more than what the overpriced gift shops on the resort are listing things for.

I suppose what I really learned from this experience is that I’m willing to pay more for items at the official gift shops just so I don’t have to put up with the hassle and sales pitch from the hagglers. Or just send me to a regular department store with good old-fashioned sales racks where I can really find a good bargain without having to fight for it.

- Sarah L. Polson

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Tags: humor, shopping, travel, vacation

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