Negotiate! Why spend more for the exact same thing if you do not have to, right?
Sellers and landlords will look for all possible leverage when offering you a price. They aim to charge you the absolute maximum that they think that they can get from you. The price that you are charged is commonly influenced on biases – they will charge you as much as they perceive can get from you. They may treat you honestly and fairly, but this is a common occurrence that is dominant in SE Asia – it’s just the culture and way of handling things. Sometimes, it is simply how you carry yourself and interact with them – they try to gauge what you consider “expensive”.
* CONTROVERSIAL ALERT * : The price that you are charged is commonly influenced on your nationality and skin color. If they perceive that you are “rich” then the price goes up. Even if you are poor, they will push a higher price based on biases such as, “You are from __ country, so you are rich. Rich people can pay more [than the fair rate]”.
Tip
Always default to having the reaction that “that’s expensive!”.
This will set how they, the locals, guage your willingness to pay. You would be very surprised at what true, honest, local prices are – much lower that what you imagine!
About Pricing in SEA
No Hidden Fees : The price listed is the price – no extra taxes/tip(gratuity)/hidden fees get added onto the price at checkout.
Rounding – rounded numbers : The numbers are nice & simple, the are rounded. Some common prices —> 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 50, 55 (in Thai Baht, or Vietnam Dong in thousands). It’s great – there is no “price is 32.99 not including tax and not including fees” – the price is nice & rounded.
Great Idea!
Learn the numbers in (click the below link):
-> Thai #s
-> Cambodia (Khmer) #s
-> Vietnamese #s
Negotiation
If you are happy with the price, then you are happy with the price :). But, you will never win as a foreigner – you will at best pay the local price, or more, but never less than the local price. Whenever you feel like you got a good deal in local terms – good for you :), but you did not.
Coming to know the true local prices takes a lot of effort (i.e. spending a lot of time in the country, speaking with local people about what they pay, read and/or speak the language, etc.).
Economics Of Negotiation In SE Asia
Negotiation is rarely about trying to find a happy win-win deal in Southeast Asia. There is, however, a seller/landlord take all mentality.
The most honest people are the ones that have to be, i.e. the sellers who need to make a sell. Unfortunately, you may come across sellers who do not think long term, wanting a sale not at the expense of returning customers. This opens the door to deeper cultural investigation of where this mindset stems from. GemsOfTravel will not be digging any deeper on this topic in this post. The barter culture is a turn-off for many Western foreigners, and the sellers lack stability in their business because of it.