Desperate Serbwife

Running the Carpet Buying Gauntlet

Hi everybody! I hope you had a nice vacation and shopped till you dropped - I know I did in Istanbul!

So I thought I'd relay one of my shopping experiences in Istanbul's Grand Bazzar. For those of you who have never been to Istanbul, the Grand Bazzar is a HUGE (and I mean, get lost and scared you'll never find your way out kind of huge) shopping area. It has thousands of little stalls and shops selling everything from carpets, to belly-dancer costumes, to jewelry, to more pashminas than you've ever seen. The Bazzar began as a simple market area a long time ago (like hundreds of years ago) and slowly has evolved into this huge maze of shops all under one roof (well, more like tons of little roofs all put together). And the good thing about having so many shops means there is an abudance of products to chose from at low prices - the bad thing is that the shopkeepers really have to hustle you to get you to choose their shop. This means that upon entering the Grand Bazzar, you must be ready to (pleasantly) fight off the aggressive shopkeepers and keep your bargaining wits about you - or else they will take you for a ride. But if you're in the right mood and ready for a little challenge, it can be quite entertaining to play their game.

The carpet buyers are, by far, the most aggressive and hardest to deal with. If you cross the threashold of their shop, you will leave with a carpet. This is a rule and there is no use trying to escape. They will continue talking with you and serving you tea until you either wet yourself or buy a carpet - and then if you wet yourself they will insist that you buy a carpet to make up for the mess. My advice is that carpet dealers should be avoided like the plague, unless you actually want a carpet and then you should bring your nerves of steel with you into the shop.

Well, Mike and I arrived in Istanbul knowing that we wanted to buy one carpet - and having already been accosted by carpet sellers in Morocco a few years ago, we knew to bring our bargaining skills with us when we went. The second day we were there, we decided that we had built up the nerve to do it and went with the first carpet dealer that smelled our carpet-buying blood in the water. We were immediately invited into his shop (his name was Joy - don't ask, I have no idea why a man was named Joy - but this man would have been more appropriately named "All Business" or "As Slick as they come").

We were invited to sit on his little couch while Joy began to ask us lots of questions about where we are from and tell us all about his trips to America (yeah, like we really care about the summer he spent in Ft. Lauderdale). About half way through his life-story, I asked if we could see some carpets (since we are surrounded by piles of carpets and yet this guy didn't seem interested in showing us any). He says, oh, yes, my friend, of course, let me see if I can get you some tea first. [Side note: There must be a rule taught at Carpet Seller's University that says that customers can not buy carpets unless they have tea first because I have never met anyone that has bought a carpet in Morocco or Turkey that was not given tea almost immediately upon entering the shop]. Tea in hand, Joy starts ordering two young boys (about 15 years old) to run all over the shop and get this carpet or that carpet - and immediately carpets are thrown, one top of the other, in front of us while Joy continues to ask questions about what colors we like and size we want to buy. We see a couple that we like and I ask how much they cost and Joy pretends not to hear me. I ask again and Joy says that we should find some that we like and then we will talk prices. So there we sit, drinking our tea, saying yes to some, yuck to others. And Joy slowly tries to figure us out. He asks how many rooms we have in our house - we answer 3 (there are really five). He asks how many rugs we need, and we say only have space for one in the living room (the living room is so huge it needs two). He asks about our work and Mike says he works for an NGO and I don't work. We are clearly building our picture of poverty. I am sure he knows this, but I think we are doing a pretty good job. Joy brags to us about the carpets he sold to Antonin Scalia when he and his wife came to Istanbul. Joy tells about how Scalia is his friend and when he was in the US the last time he saw his picture in a newspaper and called him up. Mike and I are meanwhile squelching our desire to explain why we are completely unimpressed with Joy's "friendship" with the most conservative judge on the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the boys are still throwing down carpets in front of us - at one point I see a carpet that I particularly like and ask "Oh, how much is that one?" Joy replies that price is not important because we could all die tomorrow and then it wouldn't matter how much money we had (um, yeah, then why don't you give it to me for free and we can all stop playing this game........I, of course, didn't say that).

Joy continues to try to kiss our butts by telling us that we don't act like typical Americans (that is a compliment, by the way, since so many Americans act loud and ignorant when they are abroad). We begin to take the bait and allow him to describe how respectful and pleseant we are....ahh, yes, we really are so great and considerate....tell us more.....but luckily we were brought back to reality as the boys run out of rugs to stack in front of us. At this point I ask how much one of the rugs costs. Joy only laughs, shakes his head and tells me that it is very high quality.

He asks which ones we like and we pick out two in particular. The boys then start re-rolling all the others. There are now two rugs sitting in front of us and I say somewhat sheepishly, "Can we discuss price now?" He has clearly worn me down and I am now shyly asking permission to find out the prices of these two rugs - as if I were Oliver Twist asking "Please sir, can you tell me the price?" He is clearly winning.

He flips the corners of the rugs and says, "That one is $850 and the other (our favorite) is $650." GULP!!!! Are you kidding me? Mikes eyes grew very large and I just kind of sat there. He asks what we think and I say that we had thought it would be between the $200-300 range. He says, well, I can knock your favorite down to $450 and that's the lowest I can go.

Hmmmm (I think to myself), he just knocked $200 off in one fell swoop....now our bargaining confidence is back. Let the games begin......

"Welllll, hmmmm, I don't know, that's still a lot, Mike what do you think?" says I.

"Hmmmm, don't know, still out of our budget......" says Mike.

"Ok, how about $380 and you pay with credit card," says Joy.

"Hmmm, I don't know, Joy, can you leave us for a second so we can discuss?" I say.

"Of course," says Joy. And he runs (runs!!) out of the room and shuts the door.

"So, whatcha think?" I say to Mike.

"I betcha we can get him to go to $350," says Mike.

"No way, he's as low as he will go," I say.

"C'mon, just try," says Mike.

"Ok, but I betcha the $30 difference that he says no," I say.

"Deal," says Mike.

I walk over to the door and he comes bursting in. I say, "$350 and we buy it right this second."

"Done, and done," says Joy. (damn, now I owe Mike $30, but I'm still happy).

Mike and I walked away with a beautiful carpet and renewed pride in our bargaining skills.

But as we lay awake that night, we could not help but wonder if we could have bargained him any lower. Was the carpet really only worth $100 and he still took us for a ride? Oh, gosh, did we get ripped off? I love the carpet but, dang it!, I hate getting ripped off. There goes my bargaining confidence again......

posted by Brooke @ 10:15 AM