Why is it that American stores do not allow consumers to bargain?

Question

Say for instance, you buy furniture or something else in most Chinese stores, you never have to pay full price. Is it American culture wants to everyone to pay 100% retail or what? Today I was in a furniture store and decided on 3 pieces of furniture totaling $1000, and the guy was charging full sales tax and $100 delivery fee and after some major haggling, he agreed to give me a gasp "whopping $22 off? which equated to just about 2%? This is a deal?

Answer 1

The motto...."you get what you pay for" goes in this question.

Why would you wanna pay less than $1000 for a furniture..when it will break later or easily tear or the furnture store...has a hidden agenda for the delicate ness of the material holding it together.

Why?

Furniture is important in your household and if you can't afford the big bucks go search for stores with low prices but it will a lot of times be low quality furniture.

Would you  want something that you paid $50-%500..that broke down within a month or 5 months?

or something that cost you $1000 or more..that lasted for over 5 yrs...or longer.

Would you want to keep spending $50 to $500 bucks on furniture over and over again.Or pay $1000 or more once or  twice in a lifetime?Some people update their furniture every three yrs because they want something new.Some people have had their furniture for over 20 yrs.Go to a furniture store that has quality furniture and it may be a bit pricey but in the end...its worth it and you're at home in a great deal of comfort.

There are bargain stores for furniture...however $1000 or a lil less than that and close to it  is a bargain to most furniture stores.And for the fact that you can get a percentage off...is a bargain.Don't expect high quality if you paid...something..next to nothing.

Answer 2

The reason that there is no haggling is because competition keeps the prices as low as possible.  The $22 you talked the salesman out of probably came out of his commission.  If you want to haggle over prices the US just isn't the place to live.

Answer 3

I would guess that it's mainly because most of the stores in America are huge corporate giants, and the person you're dealing with has no authority to negotiate or bargain with the customer. They have probably never met the owner of the company, or even know his/her name.

If you were to shop at smaller, independently owned stores, the employees probably know the owner personally, and know what kind of deal he/she would approve of, or can at the very least call him/her on the phone and get an "okay" go give you a deal.

Of course, smaller family owned stores don't have the buying power that the big box corporate stores do, so chances are that even if you could negotiate with the smaller store, you'd still end up paying more than you would have if you had just gone to the big box store to begin with.

I also think that Americans want convenience...they don't want to be bothered with going from store to store to see who will give them the best deal. If they were more willing to take the effort, then more companies would be willing to give their employees the authority to approve a percentage off, or offer incentives like free delivery, or throw in a set of matching pillows at no charge. When he only agreed to the $22 discount, you should have said that you'd think about it and get back to him. Then you should have gone to another store and seen if they would be willing to negotiate a better deal.