Curley Lee Lecture

[laira314]

For one of my business classes, I watched a previously videotaped lecture by Curly Lee, a local Ford salesperson. It's the best business lecture I've seen in this class so far. But it was also interesting from a personal point of view. Evidently, I and my parents buy cars and other expensive items in a competely different way than salespeople here

Comments

[questioncurl]

This is interesting, because in India we follow the same bargaining rules while out buying say vegetables, or purses, or clothes -- try not to look too eager, have some other option up your sleeve, if need be, shrug and pretend to walk away etc -- but people don't bargain for high-end goods like cars or computers or fridges. And my sense is that there is a feeling that the more it costs, the more prestigious it is, when it comes to things like that -- but in the social context, they are already status symbols, and so bargaining the price down would look cheap or ill-bred, thereby reducing whatever prestige you'd get out of buying the fancy thing anyway. I do agree wholeheartedly about the few things of very very good quality mentality though.

[laira314]

I think cars are unique here in the West in that they are very expensive, but you do bargain for them. The other things you mentioned I don't bargain directly for with any individual store, but I think of it as a negotiation with the marketplace for that product as a whole with an eye on opportunities for playing salespeople off of each other. Most often, it would be inappropriate to bargain, but I will shop around for the best cost/performance ratio, willing to not buy anything if I can't find something i find acceptable. I assume in doing this that store owners know consumers do this, and will make efforts at staying competitive

[laira314]

I should add one thing - when it comes to craftmanship, like jewelry, fine watches, and hand-made (and I really mean hand-made) fine items, bargaining the price down would seem ill-bred to me too. Now reflecting even further, I guess whatever I see as a commodity can be bargained/shopped around for, but luxuries cannot. I'd never dream of shopping for prices on jewlery - I shop for specific designs, prime quality likely to last generations, and the like. You can't comparison shop when every item is unique. (And therefore I'd never dream of buying jewelry at Zales. Umm.. "diamond sale"? No thanks.) That would also include the bleeding-edge technology products - if there only is one such product on the marketplace, or only a few similar but different priducts, you can't really comparison shop, can you?