One of the main attractions for tourists traveling to distant locals like Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and Egypt are their legendary bazaars. They are exotic, dark and infinitely romantic. The bazaar today looks and operates much as it did one, five, and even ten centuries ago, except for the appalling preponderance of Master-Card and Visa usage. In the bazaar, you can see live chickens, silk fabrics in colors like azure and phalo yellow, a freshly slaughtered lamb, baskets of pistachios and tubs of faceted glass beads. There is something for everyone. It is a serendipitous treasure trove, a perpetual scavenger hunt. Still relevant, Cole Porter in his classic list song “Come to The Supermarket in Old Peking” pays lyrical homage to this classic form of shopping experience.
Bazaar culture is rooted in the concept of “haggling”, or ability to negotiate prices, which has great appeal to savvy shoppers. Without fixed pricing, items can be, and often are sold at mark-ups that would even make Federated and Wal-Mart swoon. Most unschooled tourists visiting the bazaar came away believing they have gotten a deal of a lifetime. In fact, a 40.00 Turkish carpet that is offered at 400.00 is sold to you at 260.00. One might argue that everyone is satisfied. The customer who believes they have saved 140.00 and the salesperson who has made 220.00. Bazaar culture is unique insomuch as the customer and salesperson appear to have equanimity in their relationship, practicing a sort of economic survival of the fittest.
In the bazaar, what an item is worth is greater than the sum of it parts, other factors figure into the equation. What an item is worth is based more on your emotional assessment than a pre-determined ROI (Return On Investment) or price-margin. Fragrance and couture clothing has long relied on this sales principal. What is a designers name worth? How does a particular fragrance or dress make you feel? Does it justify its price point? The fragrance or dress may only cost X amount of dollars to make, but customers are happy to purchase it for 10 to 100 times it is actual worth. At least in the bazaar there is some transparency.
The bazaar culture is an aggressive one. It is not for the faint hearted, or phobic. Defying cultural imperatives salespeople will yell, cry, intimidate, harass, cajole, flirt, beg and even grab your arm to hold you back in order to shame you into a purchase. The bazaar salesperson will offer you deals on multiple purchases knowing you only need one. Rest assured, if you are not interested in a pair of shoes, they have belts and jackets…just try it on…please! If you do not want this, can I offer you this? Salespeople speak directly to you. They cut to the chase. “What do you want, I’ll get it? “What do you want to pay, I can negotiate it?’
While in Turkey, I was offered a flying carpet for 60.00 Euros, which was a deal as I always wanted one. However, the magic word would cost an additional 800.00 Euros. This tells me the market is really for magic words. Anyway, I was already burned once buying magic beans, which you may have already read about.
Many salespeople in the bazaar will promise you anything, like a Greek sales clerk who told me that an icon was hand woven by nuns with real silver treads. (There was a wall full of them) Granted, it was silver colored, but not hand woven; it was milled in China, not Greece, and certainly not by nuns. The concept of truth in advertising, artistic or intellectual property is far more sub-objective overseas. In the bazaar, there are no return policies.
While I consider myself hearty, in some bazaars, the behavior of salespeople is so insistent that I just wanted to get out as fast as I could. Tourists are descended upon. It can be intimidating. If you so much as look at something it is nearly considered your obligation to buy. Do not even try picking it up to inspect.
Challenging cultural preconceptions American’s in particular, and Europeans, in general, are all considered wealthy, not necessarily smart, somewhat malleable, and easily persuaded, easy to “breakdown”. This runs along the cultural assumptions that American’s hold, which are patriarchal in nature, that we are the strongest, the smartest, best educated, and the most generous. In Egypt, salespeople in the bazaar delight in testing American’s who cannot name their Prime Minister…Ahmed Nazif. Americans tend to maintain the Colonial view of the world as being an appendage to the US. The bazaar capitalizes on those assumptions, and exploits them. (Read Franz Fanon “The Wretched of the Earth” for further insight).
While in Egypt, I spent a goodly portion of the day at an Egyptian tourist trap, Merit Bazaar www.meritbazar.com. Each hour, and hour and a half, three to five tour buses of tourists passed through its doors. Indeed, they do a great business. At the Merit Bazaar you can purchase a cartouche with your name in hieroglyphics embossed in sterling silver (sans necklace) for 35.00 Euros, olive wood and faux ivory inlaid jewelry boxes for 4.00 to 40.00 Euros, a hand painted papyrus of Nefertiti, George Washington or David Beckham for 30.00 Euros, unframed.
Proximity and its boundaries vary culture from to culture. The salespeople at Merit Bazaar do not mind invading your personal space. They will get so close to you that you can see their pores. They will shove product in your hands and forcefully tell you to follow them, then they will whisper that they are going to charge you X amount of Euros. They consider the deal set. When you reply that you were only looking, they will be aghast. You will have committed a social crime, and feel like the ugly American. The idea of customers, consumer rights, being a guest, or cultural ambassador are practically foreign. There are only people who buy, and people who sell. The selling climate can be so oppressive, and overwhelming as to turn off potential sales
I made a wager with the Manager of Merit Bazaar that I could sell more product (units) than any of his overly assertive salespeople by approaching customers more softly, voice modulated, interjecting familiar phrases like “Can I help you? versus “What do you want?” and treating customers like guests, welcoming them, and thanking them for their patronage, even when no sale was made. (a shocking concept to the Manager) I am an old (emphasis on the word old) hand at direct selling. Not knowing where anything was or what it cost was not an obstacle. Nothing is priced at Merit Bazaar, indeed in many bazaar environments. With 35 minutes I sold 12 pieces of jewelry, a whopping 85 jewelry boxes, 12 alabaster vases, 2 wooden Sphinx’s and I don’t know how many ceramic dishes, I lost count. The American and English speaking tourists were lined up, and asked for exactly what the prior customer got. I offered one group a quick tour of the store, and pointed out a few suggested items to take home. They were spellbound. The sales staff were circumspect, and did everything they could to interrupt and speak over me. Ingrained views are difficult to change. The Manager of the Merit Bazaar reported it was a fluke, he maintained his contradictory beliefs, and said that I was just lucky to sell so much, because tourists expect to be treated in a harsh manner, and experience had taught him that he was right despite the evidence.
I asked him to look me up if ever he was in New York City for lesson two.
