When the Deal is Right The Price Doesn't Matter!

The Merchant of Florence

Years ago, just before the euro was adopted by Italy, my wife and I visited the ancient city of Florence. The place was amazing: churches, cathedrals, plazas, and streets a thousand years old in better shape than Highway 200 near my Florida home! And shops, lots of shops. Florence is famous for its leather goods, and it was only a matter of time until my wife fell under its spell and just had to take something back home to remind her of the visit.

I quickly dashed my hopes that a T-shirt with “I’ve been to Florence” on it might suffice. So too was the hope that a handbag or leather belt might do! Both were in great supply and at very reasonable prices. By coincidence, the hotel my wife had picked was just one turn away from the street market that wound in and out along the ancient streets for miles.

We wandered for hours down the twisting stone streets that reeked of history. I must admit that I, too fell under its spell, and after street upon street of leather jackets, belts, handbags, and T-shirts, I?finally stopped at a stall selling leather belts.

Once I had purchased my belt, the die had been cast, and my wife, sensing the spending moratorium that I had established early on in the trip was already broken, started looking at the area’s leather goods with renewed interest. I suggested a belt or perhaps a nice leather handbag, but it seems a leather jacket had caught her eye.

On this particular day, I had made the mistake of wearing a bright yellow shirt embroidered with a Ferrari logo. As we walked on, a young man spotted it and immediately told me in English that a better deal waited beyond the stall for anyone who would wear the Ferrari name with pride. We fought our way through the leather coats in the stall into the store behind. The young salesman had assumed we were Americans and started speaking English. He told us how all the stuff you could?find in the market was the same but that inside the store of Rosso, the goods were truly one of a kind and still at incredible prices.

My Wife Had Told me to Negotiate.?

Now let me digress. Before embarking on this trip, my wife—as with most women, embodied with a keen shopping gene—advised me about Italians. I was not to accept the price they offered but instead was to hem and haw, plead poverty, and keep asking for a better price no matter what they said. To help me in my quest for a better deal, my wife quickly found a peach-colored leather jacket that was exceptionally nice. Once she saw it, she announced that she liked it. She tried it on and found it felt wonderful. To “help” my negotiating stance even further, she went into a monologue about how as soon as you see something that looks like it was made for you, it’s bound to be a match made in heaven.

I unenthusiastically asked the young salesman for the price. He responded with a laugh and a smile and brought out his calculator. It seems that Italians don’t believe in price tags. He came back with a?figure of 500,000 lire which, of course, was quite unacceptable, even though it was half of what it would have cost in any American store. (A cup of coffee was 8,000 lira back then!)

I told him that I could never afford such a price, at which point he laughed at my predicament and pointed at my Ferrari shirt (I knew I shouldn’t have worn it). I said I needed a better deal. He instantly offered discounts for not using American Express and for using cash. “Come on, you can do better than this. I can buy this in America for that price,” my wife said with all the conviction of Barney accepting a free vacation in Jurassic Park.

The Merchant of Florence?

The astute young man asked if it were not so that we were English. We explained that we were but lived in America and thus still qualified as poor Brits, not rich Americans. At this point, he decided to hand us over to the owner, Rosso, a charming, handsome man in his late forties with every bit the?finesse of the nice Greek gentleman who sold my wife the $500 Roman earrings while the taxi driver babysat my kids with a bottle of ouzo!

The calculator magically appeared in his hand again, and picking up on what he had already heard, he delivered the price in pounds. (Which I had to calculate back into dollars in my head to avoid more confusion.) He had lowered the price by 16,000 lire—the price of two cups of coffee, a fact that I quickly pointed out to him. “My friend,” he said, “the jacket is one of a kind; it’s the only one of its color in all of Florence. It is handmade and at a very fair price. You don’t care about the discount any more than I do. But because it’s the marketplace, you want to haggle. It’s expected, but we both know that the price is really not important.”

I laughed out loud; I love a professional salesperson. I gave in on the spot, and the truth of the matter is the price was already very fair. My wife, of course, was delighted with her purchase, and we adjourned to the nearest restaurant for lunch, where frowning, she asked,?“Why didn’t you beat him up for a better deal?”

Great salespeople realize that there are customers for whom you don’t have to cut prices. Understand these customers, and they’ll appreciate a good deal without grinding you down.

The fact of the matter is, when the deal is right, the price really doesn’t matter!