Bargaining and the nature of war

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: As the retail revolution sweeps India—with shopping becoming the national past time and malls and stores shouting hoarse through discount stickers and posters—Indian consumers are desperately trying to come to terms with a traditional itch: the itch to bargain. What is the big deal in bargain? What does it say about us as consumers? Can big players in retail exploit this itch to win in the world of cut-throat retail competition?

Let’s first try to understand what bargain actually means and then try to fathom the mystic passion this word unlocks in our minds. I referred to the lexicon to get the varying nuances of the word. The dictionary definition of ‘bargain’ as a noun is good buy/good deal; as a verb this word denotes haggling.

In other words, if you want to convert the activity of buying into a feel-good emotion, you need the act of haggling. Bargain is backed by a sense of victory. The act of buying remains incomplete if you don’t win.

Winning is a powerful universal emotion; for Indians it is more so because this commodity/emotion is desperately in short supply in our lives. Bargain in the marketplace is one small tournament, which we feel we have a fair chance of winning, and thus we should, by all means. “Just guess how much I paid for this article,” is the common guessing game in an Indian household.

The idea of bargaining is probably inherent in our Indian sense of valuation. The worth of a thing or of a being is not in the appearance. The true value needs to be fathomed, arrived at and understood. Valuation is a mind game that needs to be played with argument and counter argument, logic and judgement. Deny your consumer this drama and you are depriving him of the fundamental flavour of shopping.

Ask any marketer and he will agree with the adage, consumer is the king. Discount never makes one feel like one. Discount appears as a cold, one-sided instrument. It is like an ex parte judgement. It is decided in your absence and it will continue to be there in your absence. That’s why, in spite of its attraction, there is always an air of resentment and mistrust around discount offers: “Do you think they are actually giving 50% discount?” “Have they inflated the price? Is it a gimmick?”