Haggling Through the Apocalypse

Mark Lennihan / AP Photo In today's pushcart economy, every price is negotiable—from cars and electronics to cashmere sweaters and fine jewelry. Lee Eisenberg bargains his way up Michigan Avenue.

One of the thousands of market-research firms that routinely survey consumer behavior, America’s Research Group, recently issued fresh findings on the mental state of the US buyer. The survey found that the number of us who are buying things not on sale is “almost nil.” And that there are three reasons we give for postponing all but the most basic purchases: 1) ain’t in the mood; 2) worried about job security; 3) there are plenty of things we want but they cost more than we wish to spend right now. The research firm’s CEO, C. Britt Beemer (not many of those being sold either), offered an earnest and entirely unnecessary observation that “consumers are in deep hibernation” and there’s “no sign that they will wake up this spring or that the retail outlook will pick up any time soon."

What else is new? Well, there was one finding that did grab my attention: Americans are haggling more. The survey says that over the past holiday buying season, some 72 percent of respondents admitted to having haggled—or as my forebears put it, “hondled”—with various retailers, compared to just 56 percent who haggled the year before. And about 80 percent of those who screwed up the courage, or dialed up the chutzpah, to haggle said that they came away with a better deal than if they hadn’t, compared to just a 50 percent hit rate the year before.

In fully developed haggling societies, hagglers approach everyday bargaining sessions knowing that both sides are honor-bound to make concessions. Our goal is to win, even if it means breaking a retailer’s balls.

Now, it’s reasonable to suppose that a hefty statistical slab of these self-reported haggles were the usual jousts with used-car salesmen and what’s-to-lose jawboning over asking prices of a Birkin-esque bags on Canal Street. But I’m also quite sure that in recent months intrepid hagglers have dared to go to where few hondlers had gone before: designer boutiques, the glitziest jewelry stores, and other places where indulgences don’t come cheap.

I know this because I just talked to an associate at Neiman Marcus who told me that while her customers weren’t haggling over price, they were haggling like crazy over percentage discounts. No real difference, just more discreet. Not content with 40 percent markdowns, they’re demanding a few hundred more basis points on top of that. I also know that haggling over indulgences is on the upswing because I’ve done it myself. A couple of weeks before Christmas—Chicago being Chicago—I decided I needed a cozy watch cap to keep my head from turning into a fast-frozen melon. What I had in mind was not one of those beefy acrylic watch caps adorned with a Bears or FBI logo. What I wanted was as a soft-as-a-caress version of same: black, finely spun, cat-burglarish, a watch cap worthy of Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief. Having spent the past several years researching a book on the current state of consumer choices, I figured that the best place to find that sine qua non watch cap was at the stately Ralph Lauren flagship store down on Michigan Avenue, otherwise known as the Magnificent Mile. And sure enough, on one frigid day I wandered in and there it was: a silky smooth watch cap with a Purple Label sewn in, a label that read “Made in Italy” and assured me that the cap was made of “100 percent Cashmere/Cachemire.” Aha, bene, bene, I thought, and then checked the pricetag: $170, if I recall. That I don’t recall precisely is because I instantly turned to the salesman, held up the cap between thumb and forefinger (it weighed far less than the tiniest known humming bird), and blurted out a slightly more winsome version of, “Are you fucking kidding? For this?” Then, flashing as disarming a smile as I could muster with frozen facial muscles, added half-jokingly, “Say, do you ever negotiate?”

The salesman chortled and shook his head. But then he promptly informed me that this was—ta-da!— my “lucky day” because today there was “a friends-and-family” sale going on (no signage to that effect, of course) and, hey, since I seemed like a nice enough guy who could imaginably be his friend if not a distant cousin, he’d knock off 40 percent.