Negotiation, Continued II

(Continued from last post.)

Not only are the buyer's choices curtailed by 'no haggling' practices, but the seller, too, is hobbled.  In order to be in business everyone involved in buying and selling must buy low and sell high.  That's how people can make a living.  The value they add is in hunting down, obtaining, transporting, reconditioning, and then offering for sale the items the final customer wants.  Without a financial incentive, they wouldn't be able or willing to do that.

Now, everyone agrees that 'fair prices' are the best outcome.  Fair prices allow people to keep buying and people to keep selling.  Naturally both buyers and sellers have differing opinions on what is 'fair'.  But the free market provides the least problematic solution to the disagreement of any system that we've tried.  If the seller puts the price too high, no one will even look.  Competitors will undercut and still be profitable.  If the seller puts the price too low, she'll be out of business quickly. And by bargaining, haggling, negotiating, buyers and sellers together can sift their way to a price that both can accept.  That's generally the fairest compromise.