Bargaining 101

I don’t know if my mom has talked about shopping with Alphonsus, our driver, in past blogs, but after having had the joy of shopping with him this afternoon, I feel the urge to document it. He’s a funny guy. Getting to the point, this afternoon Alphonsus and I went shopping for soccer cleats and goalie gloves. First of all, Alphonsus is a funny character. He definitely has spunk. Even though my mom is his employer, he doesn’t hesitate to voice his opinion and is also very stubborn. These traits come out particularly in his car-washing habits and in shopping.

Anyways, we went out shopping at Terminus, the downtown market. Now I know absolutely nothing about soccer gear because I’ve never bought it before. Being in Nigeria didn’t really help with knowing what to expect either. So needless to say, I got as much info as I could from fellow students and asked Alphonsus as many questions as possible before we got to the store. But as soon as we arrived, I was immediately unsure of what to ask for. I had been quietly hoping that Alphonsus, being a soccer coach in his free time, would know what to ask for and what price to pay for it. At first he did what I was hoping he would do. He showed me the two types of “boots” that I could buy; my choices were “hard boots” which were cleats with hard plastic or metal spikes or “soft boots” which were cleats with spikes made of the same rubber that bottom of the shoes were made of. Now hard boots are higher quality and thus more expensive, but because of the poor quality of the alternative, I thought that they would be best. Oh, and just as a side note, Alphonsis is very stingy. But getting back to my story, as the guy selling the shoes and gloves named his price, Alphonsus got very quiet. I did my best and managed to barter the sales guy down 2,500 naira from his original price. When I asked Alphonsus if that was a good price he responded with a grunt that I assumed at the time meant yes. So I bought the shoes and gloves.

Then we got into the car. : )

As soon as the door of the car shut, Alphonsus proceeded to tell me how I had been ripped off and how I was “too quick to take the price”. Now before I got in the car I was feeling pretty good for bartering the guy down that much, but by 30 seconds after getting into the car, that happy feeling had diminished to a shame for how much I paid (which I had thought was fine but I guess not). Thinking back though, I was a bit frustrated that he didn’t say anything in the shop. But I guess that’s not in the culture. Sterling told me a similar story of when he bought a jersey at the market and received a similar response from Alphonsus and Shadrack, one of the neighborhood boys. I guess it’s just one of the life lessons that I’m learning for shopping in Nigeria. Never settle, barter your heart out, the price can always be lower.

Hannah (18)