In Brazil buying a pair of children's sunglasses requires an elaborate bargaining ritual complete with coffee service and multiple sales staff, as London School of Economics professor Christopher Sandmann discovered during a family vacation.
Writing on The Holdup Problem, Sandmann describes entering a high-end optical shop with his two-year-old son, where they were greeted by no fewer than six employees. One held the door, another walked them to a table, a third shook hands, while others offered water, lemonade, and coffee. "By now, I had lost track of the total number of vendors present," Sandmann writes, "but I was on a first-name basis with three of them."
The real education came during price negotiations. The initial price tag of £100 (700 Reais) for toddlers' metal(!) sunglasses was the starting point for a series of offers and counteroffers. The key insight? Brazilian vendors have mastered a proven psychological tactic — they restore their bargaining power by deferring the final decision to an absent store owner via phone call. This transforms the adversarial negotiation into a collaborative effort, with buyer and seller suddenly allied in hoping for the owner's approval.
"Calling the owner is a clever tactic," Sandmann explains. "First, it ties their hands; they will not call their boss twice on my behalf. It is also psychologically astute in that it turns [the vendor] and me into allies. Previously, all the pampering with coffee and lemonade had glossed over the fact that we were engaged in a tug-of-war over the price."
[Via The Browser]
Previously:
• Black sand, hot beaches: Welcome to Brazil's radioactive beach town
• Helicopter cops in Brazil blow sand at beachgoers to make them go home
• The English Method: UK taught modern torture to Brazil's dictators
