341 Haggling Over The Sales Price In Japan

<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-AU" xml:lang="EN-AU">In Japan we don’t have the custom of haggling when we go to shop.  The price is the price is the price, in the consumer world and if you don’t like it, don’t buy it.  In the B2B world though there is often a price negotiation.  This can be related to volumes being purchased for tangible goods or it could be for services as well.  Tangible products are somehow psychologically easier to price defend than intangibles like service provision.  The item is right there in front of you, you can inspect it, weigh it, feel it.  Services are rather a mystery when it comes to pricing. </span> <span lang="EN-AU" xml:lang= "EN-AU"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-AU" xml:lang="EN-AU">I was coaching a sales team recently for a service offering and this service had a time bound element to it.  Time bound can often drive the price up in the case of tangible goods, because it is the last item in the store or in inventory.  In this instance, the opposite was the case.  They were offering a discount to move the sale forward. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-AU" xml:lang="EN-AU">Whenever I hear salespeople are discounting their offer, the bristles stand up on the back of my neck.  I don’t like to hear this type of talk.  The service has a value and a price has been attached to it and that is what they should be selling.  Untrained salespeople however, are very quick to start conditioning buyers to expect a discount by dropping the price immediately.  I don’t like that unforced error type of sales behaviour either.</span><span lang="EN-AU" xml:lang="EN-AU"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-AU" xml:lang="EN-AU">In this case the service price was four hundred thousand yen as the list price and they started their client contact with an offer of two hundred and fifty thousand yen.  What a massive mistake.  When the price gets dropped so dramatically by 37.5%, without any pushback on the four hundred thousand by the potential buyer, there