Sunday, 8 January 2017

How to be Nigerian No. 3

No. 3 Negotiate. Never pay as you are told
As a true Nigerian buyer, when you are given a price for a product/service, simply say “How much last-last?” Even you are told still say “ahan, it’s too expensive nah, give me the last price.” We pass a store that sells fabrics and we see a beautiful yellow fabric, let’s go get it.
We enter and a young lady politely welcomes us. We point at the fabric, she brings it to us, we touch it, we feel it, we hold it against our skin, we hold it towards sunlight, and we hold it against another yellow fabric. We ask if other colours of the same fabric are available, she says no. We ponder if it won’t fade once washed, we check other fabrics in the store, we peruse everything. We settle back on the yellow fabric and ask for the price. Its 15,000. “Ah.15, 000 ke? For what now? Abeg give us last price jare.” “It’s 15,000, but I will give you for 14,500. “That’s too much. We’ll pay 8,000.” “Ah, no. pay 13,000.” “We’ll pay 10,000.” “It’s 13,000 last.” We keep asking to pay 10,000 for another five minutes, she disagrees, so we start leaving the store. She calls us back and says we can pay 11,000 which we pay, get our fabric and leave. Do you get it now? As a buyer, don’t pay as you are told, as a seller, you don’t give the actual price as they would always bargain.
Might I tell you though that if you are buying let’s say a bunch of banana from a 6-10 year old child hawker and he says it costs N200, stay on your high horse and insist you would pay N80. If he refuses, send him away irritatingly. But when you get to big malls and you find same sized bunch of banana for N500, buy it, you don’t want to be embarrassed after all.


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