Things I hate 1: Nigerian styled pricing
Posted by trae_z on June 3rd, 2007
Note: 1) pricing as used here is not the dictionary meaning of the seller fixing a sum for a good/service but the Nigerian parlance meaning of a buyer bargaining for a good/service. 2) To dash someone something means to give that thing away. 3) Aboki is a word used to mean a poor Hausa man involved in a low income trade/job.
Finding a blog that suits my taste in the Nigerian blogosphere makes me really happy. The feeling is almost as if I won a lottery. So yesterday I “discovered” the blog Aijuswanarite owned by a guy called “Snazzy”; a 2006 Batch B youth corper like me; and I spent the better part of the night and this morning reading his entries (at this point the Jiminy Cricket side of my conscience gives me knocks for wrong use of time). And one of the entries titled “People are Cheap, Things are Expensive” struck an inspirational cord in me. The summary of the entry is that some Nigerians don’t mind being over-charged for ostentatious goods or services but would haggle like a church rat when buying goods or services from poor sellers.
Very true, so let me highlight two of such cases that I’ve witnessed that stuck to me for a very long time and made me really sick.
Sometime in November last year in the early days of my youth service when I was still settling down into my place of primary assignment and equipping myself with bachelorhood skills I went to the market with two of my female corper colleagues. The way one haggled over frozen fish disgusted me. The fish was cost at 70 Naira but she spoke “long grammar” in a nose-in-the-air manner, broke into vernacular (the seller was also Igbo) and used the we’re-poor-corpers line just to buy the fish at 60 Naira. The seller pleaded with her to be considerate and that the price was worth it at 70 Naira but in the end she left her to buy from a rival seller at 60 Naira. I’m pretty sure that in her mind the turned down seller cursed my colleague and that the rival sold out just to make sure she made some sales for the day.
The second incident was at a cyber café about two years ago. An over-weight, Igbo guy in his early thirties was seated near me (a customer as well) and in the manner he carried himself and spoke he fit the bill of the wealthy womanizing type. He was making life miserable for a poor Hausa shoe shiner over change. Apparently they had agreed on 15 Naira as the price for the service but he refused to give the aboki the 50 Naira note he had in his hands until the aboki found him 35 Naira change. Here’s a guy that’ll probably later on spend thousands on beer and on his girlfriend but didn’t deem it right to dash the poor aboki 50 Naira. The annoying part was that he felt smart ass about whole thing. I swear that day I wanted to puke.
That’s why although I’ve not got much I take it easy with the pricing bit. Yes when I see sellers displaying their wares in the hot sun who’re not smiling I try not to be a cheap ass.
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Naija sef you have to bargain everything in the market ..its very tiresome !
Hmm…so whats ur point? Are u saying people should buy things at the price the seller says just because he/she looks poorer than the buyer? I didnt get ur first example either, if ur friend wants her fish at N60, she should be able to get it at that price. Of course everyone is trying to make a living, its every man for himself and god for us all. If the goods were really worth the price being asked, then you wont find other traders trying to sell it cheaper, why? because they would be seeling at a loss. So please if you go to the market, and they give u a price for a good and haggling is encouraged, u better take advantage of it. because u have the money doesnt mean you should dash it out, afterall isnt everyone working hard for their money? if we all had money bearing trees, wont we all be rich? If i no want give aboki my 50 naira, na by force?
@Agaracha: na so we see am oh…the good thing is that we’re used to it. it’d probably freak a foreigner out.
@rj:the point looks perfectly clear to me. but all the same let me reiterate.
1)in a lot of cases the seller sells below the cost price because it’s better to sell and break even than to forever keep waiting for a profit.
2)in a lot of other cases people are just plain stingy. here’s an example: a man spending millions on the up keep of his Alsatian dog but paying his driver a very meager salary and bargaining for chewing gum like a 10 year old.
I have to agree with ri…since you feel so badly about this, why not start the charity at home and make sure in all your dealings you pay the cost price or more and you allocate the amount of your income you feel comfortable with to your domestic help?
I really dont think its anyone’s place to be so judgemental especially over how other people choose to allocate their resources(so you automatically knew that the igbo guy was a womanizer??)or what? or the fact that your friend haggled (whether with phonetics or pidgin!)with the market women makes a terrible person?
I kind of understand your point in that we could go to numetro to watch a N2500 movie and not want to give the beggars on rollerskates N20…still how eac person chooses to spend their money is entirely up to them…o your bit and keep moving abeg
My guy have you ever been cheated? Don’t always be fooled by pity face o! But its gud to have a heart anyway