# All we do is click a button, right?



## SoulfulRecover (Nov 5, 2015)

Watch People in Other Industries React Hilariously to Being Asked for Free Spec Work

Thought it was a decent little video that applies to us as photographers.


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## 480sparky (Nov 5, 2015)




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## Derrel (Nov 5, 2015)

SoulfulRecover said:


> Watch People in Other Industries React Hilariously to Being Asked for Free Spec Work
> 
> Thought it was a decent little video that applies to us as photographers.



I LOVE the old guy at the Greek cafe!!!! Basically telling him to Get out!


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## JacaRanda (Nov 5, 2015)

I like pay for trim.  Where's Runnah man?


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## JDB1911 (Nov 8, 2015)

The barista's face is priceless!


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## Overread (Nov 8, 2015)

We must all remember that the price marked on a product is generally considered not its actual value; but the first offer to trade at that price. Any customer is fully within their right to offer an alternative amount than the advertised value; just as anyone offering a product for sale is free to agree with the newly proposed price; counter with their own adjusted value; or flat out refuse and insist upon the advertised amount. 

Of course haggling is a fine art and in general its not done as much these days; its got areas where it still functions; but in general we don't haggle all that much and I suspect with online buying (where its basically impossible) and with printed barcodes and companies where employees have less and less say/capacity to haggle we could see it near vanish altogether. 



So interestingly I see these more as failed haggling attempts than outright insulting for not accepting the advertised price for produce/services.


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## Buckster (Nov 9, 2015)

Overread said:


> We must all remember that the price marked on a product is generally considered not its actual value; but the first offer to trade at that price.


Not in the United States, it's not, unless you're at a yard sale or something like that.

Real estate and car dealerships aside, in the US, the price marked is almost always the price expected by the vendor.  We don't have the time or patience to play haggling games with this stuff, and very little interest in that sort of thing.  In the US it's more like, "There's the price right there on the tag - take or leave it - you're holding up the line."


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## 480sparky (Nov 9, 2015)

Buckster said:


> Overread said:
> 
> 
> > We must all remember that the price marked on a product is generally considered not its actual value; but the first offer to trade at that price.
> ...




If I had a dollar for every job I priced, only to be countered with haggling, I'd be a very rich man.


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## Buckster (Nov 9, 2015)

480sparky said:


> Buckster said:
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> > Overread said:
> ...


I realize you have a compulsion to try to counter anything I say because of some deep animosity over something in our long ago past here on the forum that's still stuck in your craw, but what do you say we put that aside for a moment?

Put yourself in the situations in the videos, and tell me that you haggle over the bills at the restaurants and win; that you haggle over the totals at grocery stores and win; that you haggle over the prices of items in stores wherever you go and win.  Tell me how it gets you anywhere here in the US.

Tell me that what we see in those videos are not the typical kinds of reactions from vendors in the US if you try those tactics to haggle.

Yeah, I react much like those vendors in the videos.  When people try that with me, I look at them like they just offered me a poop sandwich (as seen in the videos), point to the quoted price again, and ask politely if they want it or not.

But hey, you just go right ahead and bend over if that's the business model that works for you.  If you want to let people chop your prices down for your services, that's entirely up to you, but that doesn't make it the norm in the US.


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## 480sparky (Nov 9, 2015)

Buckster said:


> 480sparky said:
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> 
> > Buckster said:
> ...



I realize that you like to counter my posts with stuff you just pull out of your azz, maybe due to your bringing up some long-ago encounter here on the forum that you seem to not be able to let go of due to animosity on your part, but let's put that aside for a moment.

_Never once did I ever state I haggle my prices_. Fact is: I do not budge on them.  I do, however, offer to start removing portions of the bid in an attempt to get down to the customers' expectations and/or budget.  If removing parts of the job is not something the prospect is willing to do, they're entirely free to seek someone else's services.

No, not everyone goes into a grocery store and starts in with the cashier about the price of milk.  But haggling does get initiated, mostly with _service-based_ industries.

But hey, if assuming you know how everyone else acts in the real world works for you, go ahead and continue assuming things.  No skin off my nose.  But until you're the one sitting on the side of the desk with the drawers, you'll be speaking through your hat.


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## Buckster (Nov 9, 2015)

480sparky said:


> I realize that you like to counter my posts with stuff you just pull out of your azz


What, exactly, did I "pull out of my azz?"  Use quotes.



480sparky said:


> Never once did I ever state I haggle my prices. Fact is: I do not budge on them.



Then your attempt to counter my post with one about how if you had a dollar for every time someone haggled your prices with you you'd  be rich, was actually pointless.  Instead, it supports MY contention that here in the US, it's NOT normal, NOT "generally considered just the first offer at the start of a haggling ritual", the way overread framed it, and DOESN'T generally get people HERE in the US anywhere, so it's not very common for people to even TRY it.



480sparky said:


> No, not everyone goes into a grocery store and starts in with the cashier about the price of milk.


"Not everyone"???!!!  Who are you trying to kid?  Not ANYONE, unless they're interested in wasting their own time, and everyone else's time with them, from the cashier to the people in line behind them.



480sparky said:


> But haggling does get initiated, mostly with _service-based_ industries.


Re-read my post.  I didn't say "never", so don't try to use that as an intended part of what you're trying to counter, because it doesn't exist.  What I specifically said was, "in the US, the price marked is *almost always* the price expected by the vendor."  I carved out situations like yard sales, real estate and car sales as common ones where negotiations do play a significant role.  One can assume they are not the only ones where that would apply.

Those exceptions do not detract from the fact that they do not constitute the lion's share of transactions that take place in the US, the vast bulk of which do not involve haggling or even the attempt at haggling, counter to overread's assertions on what a price represents, and your attempts to bolster that assertion, even though you now tell us that you never budge on your price when someone tries to haggle with you.



480sparky said:


> But hey, if assuming you know how everyone else acts in the real world works for you, go ahead and continue assuming things.  No skin off my nose.  But until you're the one sitting on the side of the desk with the drawers, you'll be speaking through your hat.


So, you're saying that the reactions in the videos are BS?  That those kinds of reactions are NOT normal?  That those kinds of reactions are unexpected?  That haggling in the US is a common thing?  Good luck with that.

I don't have to "assume" anything at all, when it's quite obvious from living 56+ years in this country and dealing with the realities of vendors, goods, services, prices and haggling or attempts at it - from both sides of the desk - how that all works together here.

It's WHY the videos are relevant - because they show the TRUTH of the situation as it NORMALLY is in the US.

Yes, there are exceptions - they are not the rule, they are not common, they are not the norm.  Not in the US, they're not.

Overread said that "we must all remember" that a given price is just the start of the haggling phase.  No, in the US we DON'T "must all remember" such a thing, because here in the US, that's not true, and that's what I was addressing.

Overread concluded by saying that the videos just showed failed haggling.  Again, not in the US, they don't.  In the US, they show the REALITY of how such attempts at haggling are NORMALLY perceived.

That's not pulled out of my AZZ in any way.


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## NancyMoranG (Nov 20, 2015)

."[/QUOTE]


If I had a dollar for every job I priced, only to be countered with haggling, I'd be a very rich man.[/QUOTE]

 Buckster, really, you took quite a leap there. I had to go back and re-read the thread again and wondered where the heck you felt insulted? 

Jeepers, Sparkys comment was 1 I make a lot also. I volunteer at a Visitor Center, and hear same question/comment by people. I say, boy, if I had a $ for every time I was asked that....(laughingly/engaging)

I think you are too ready to fight all the time, lighten up, enjoy TPF.


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## Scatterbrained (Nov 20, 2015)

In chain settings haggling may not exist, but with small businesses it's quite common.  I come from a background of working at and running small, family owned businesses and I can tell you that haggling/negotiating is pretty much an everyday thing.  Granted it happens more on the B2B side of things than the retail side, but it still happens, daily.  

Want to have some fun?  Start asking for a 10% discount everywhere you go.  Starbucks, Ihop, walmart, Home Despot, it doesn't matter.  While you may get told no most of the time,  you'll find that you will start getting yeses.


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## SoulfulRecover (Nov 20, 2015)

I always ask about student discounts. When I left school, they did not take my ID/Scan Card. It also works great for getting into places to shoot where people would normally say no


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## Vtec44 (Nov 20, 2015)

And the reason why people treat photographers this way is because there's always someone who will take on the job for next to nothing.  The business is getting tougher and tougher, no doubt.  Only the best will survive the industry.


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