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Comment by esperent | Hacker News Reader

If you're a tourist in many developing countries you're gonna get charged 200 - 500% of the price a local would pay anyway, so haggle away. Whatever you end up paying is almost certainly going to be way over the going rate, especially in a tourist area. If you're outside the tourist area then things might be different and people are more chill, likely to treat you as a customer instead of a mark. Also depends on the country of course. And should go without saying to treat the people you're haggling with with respect and kindness - if they don't reciprocate then bring your business elsewhere. Don't reward shitty behavior just because someone is poor.

Source: I've lived in a developing country for long enough to work out how much things actually cost.

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Yeah but the thing is the money doesn't really matter to me.

I remember being at a stall (I think it was in Istanbul) and picking out these beautiful scarves for some people back home.

They probably were marked up 500% from the local price but they were still super cheap, like $5/each. When the guy gave me the final price I rounded up and gave him bills in the local currency (it was probably an extra dollar or two USD) but the guy was just super super happy.

The extra couple of bucks for me was meaningless, but, definitely improved his mood and hopefully improved his life.

Plus, now, each gift came with a story to tell.

On the other hand, I bought a rug while there and did not negotiate enough and when I got home my turkish colleagues laughed at me :(

Good, just be you.

Sadly I notice some haggling tourism, people are being misled by blog posts and vlogs that the culture there is to haggle and that the seller respect you more when you haggle. I find that to be totally unsettling.

I am a local in a developing country, with an upper middle class income, I do not haggle, I give extra tips, my friends from similar income level do so too, some do for things I do not tip for. If you are a tourist and wanna have a local authentic experience you probably should match the behavior of the people of that nation with same income level as you not of the vast majority that can happen to be poor.

Also I won't trust diaspora colleagues, just like how Italians will always insist that the pizza you've ate in Italy was not up to standard and not a real pizza just a round piece of bread with vegetables on top of it and the real pizza is on mr mario's pizzeria in the luigi street in Milan, all diaspora of the world do the same.

In places where tourism season only lasts for a few months, cost of living for the off-season is included in that 200-500% inflation.

The dealer will not charge less than he can afford. He’s not being coerced into beggary. There is clearly a market. And tourists will still overpay as they always do.

It’s not the tourist’s job to worry about the knick knack dealer’s finances. That’s patronizing, presumptuous, and shows a lack of boundaries. Unless you’re dealing with a beggar where a transaction may be merely symbolic, I don’t even see a legitimate opportunity for charity here. Even then, you could still contribute to entrenching poverty by encouraging a tourist culture that inculcates dependence on charity. Authentic charity and generosity are governed by reason, not sentiment.

So the locals can’t work on something else in the off season?

That is, unfortunately, correct in many instances. Jobs are not an infinite resource.

They “can”, but have you asked yourself why are they working shitty precarious jobs in the first place?

It’s not like their economies are that dynamic and have the liquidity to absorb most of them with decent stable jobs.

We like to forget but it only takes a year like 2008 to remind us.

Local people live in these places too and they stay there all year round. The woman selling crispy snacks to tourists at 500% markup will also sell them to locals for the normal price all year round, just as crispy snack sellers do in non tourist areas. It's different for the souvenir sellers of course.

This doesn't discount the real poverty that exists in many countries, and I'm not dismissing that. But if you're seeing poverty in a tourist area it probably means it's ten times worse in the places where tourists don't go and you're not going to solve that by stressing out over whether you should feel guilty for haggling or not. It's not your job to solve poverty in places you visit and feeling like you should is more a case of "Western guilt" than anything else.

You'll have a much more lasting impact, and gain much more, by seeking out human interactions that are not purely financial, sharing your culture and experiences with theirs, than you ever will by buying tourist crap in every place you go.

Adding to that, the worst part is if you're living in a developing country and are paid just a local salary. You're still charged >300% because everyone assumes you're some rich western dude, but I certainly wasn't. It was a real drag.

The struggle is real. But something that made me feel a bit better was learning that my partner also gets overcharged even though she's local - but she comes from another region with a different accent. Not quite as badly overcharged as me, maybe she gets charged 200% while I get 300%, but still.

There's also a few street vendors who don't overcharge, they're lovely and I make sure to remember them and go back. Not something you can do as a tourist though.

I still disagree with excessive haggling in developing countries, as a tourist. Whatever you haggle, it’s never more than a few dollars - like GP said, worth nothing to you, but everything to them.

This doesn't change the original point whatsoever.

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