I have always been fascinated by people who advertise something for sale and then add, “price is negotiable.”
Like dude, why don’t you just sell the thing outright at a lower price and save everyone time?
But of course, there is a trick to this madness.
Let’s say you are selling a phone and you want K500,000 for it. Instead of advertising it at K500,000, you put K650,000 and add those magical words, “slightly negotiable.”
Then, someone comes along, bargains you down to K550,000 and walks away feeling like a CIA hostage negotiator who has just secured the release of 30 hostages. Meanwhile, you have made K50,000 more than you originally wanted. Hahaha!
And then there are people who will simply pay K650,000 without questioning the price. Those ones are your Christmas bonus for sure.
But the funny thing is, though some people who do this may not even know why they do it, this is actually a pricing strategy called price anchoring. You see, our brains tend to rely heavily on the first price we encounter when judging whether something is expensive or cheap. That initial price becomes our reference point, or anchor, against which we measure every subsequent offer.
This is why a shirt marked down from K100,000 to K60,000 can feel like a bargain, even when you wouldn’t have considered buying it for K60,000 in the first place. With this strategy, the seller shifts your attention from what the product is actually worth to how much you think you are saving. And that is the psychology behind many discounts.
Of course, some sellers are genuinely flexible. But obviously many already know exactly how much they want before you even negotiate.
So next time you see “price is negotiable,” remember, you might just be negotiating how much extra profit the seller makes off you.
You will walk away celebrating a K100,000 discount, while the seller walks away celebrating your K50,000 donation. Shop wise, pun intended.
