History Main / DoYouWantToHaggle

* In ''ComicStrip/{{Dilbert}}'', Dogbert became a used car salesman. One customer thought he'd done a good job talking Dogbert down to $3,500. Dogbert replied to his brag, "[[WhatAnIdiot It's the first time someone's bought the car they came in.]]"

** In the same strip, Elan tries the same thing. He's offered a Belt of Charisma for 6,000. [[WhatAnIdiot He pays 8,000, and thinks he's so good that he got it in one try.]] It then turns out Haley had actually budgeted for this kind of thing.

** Peter tries to haggle with Brian over [[WhatAnIdiot an item he already owns at his own yard sale]].

* ''Series/CarryOnBehind'': A haggling scene occurs when Roland and Anna rent the filthy caravan of Henry Barnes.

A common variation is when a character, frequently TheDitz or a {{Cloudcuckoolander}}, drives the price ''up'' when buying, or drives it ''down'' when selling. Another has the party that holds all the power responding to any attempt to haggle by keeping her offer exactly the same, or even ''worsening'' it.

** He sold another car by claiming it belonged to an infamous diamond smuggler, but handled poorly, almost as if there were hidden weights in the doors...

* In the ''Series/{{Friends}}'' episode "The One with the Ring", Phoebe tries this when she goes ring shopping with Chandler (for Monica):
-->'''Chandler:''' Oh my God that’s it, that’s the ring! How much is it?\\

'''Chandler:''' Uh, credit card. Oh no! No-no, but I left my credit card with Joey. ''[to Phoebe]'' Okay, I’ll go get it. You guard the ring.\\

* Several times in ''VideoGame/MarcoPolo''.

* Averted in the first ''VideoGame/DragonQuest'' - [[AllThereInTheManual the manual clearly explains]] that you, the player, can't haggle the price of sold items. In other words, Alefgard merchants [[KarlMarxHatesYourGuts will accept your old equipment for half its original price]] and won't haggle because they are very stubborn.

* Ethan tries this in ''Theatre/BlackFriday'' when he can't afford a couple of movie tickets for himself and Hannah. The kid behind the counter exasperatedly points out that this is a chain movie theater in a shopping mall; [[RealityEnsues not exactly the sort of place you can haggle]]. (Ethan also tries physical threats, but that doesn't work, either.)

* Haggling also used to be customary in British stores, along with adjusting the price based on the customer. When Harry Selfridge opened his London department store and said all items must be sold for the listed price, one salesman quit on the spot and predicted he'd be out of business within a month.

* Hotels are among the few modern industries where prices for rooms are never fixed, as they vary based on a variety of conditions, with prices going up if there is a perceived increase in demand on the hotel's end, and decreasing if it's near the end of the day and they haven't sold out yet. (And if there's a major conference in town, $500 for one night even for the most bare-bones of lodging establishments is not unheard of!) If one is trying to rent a hotel room at the front desk or over the phone, this can happen; the one who's handling the reservation may try to upsell the room to increase revenue for the hotel (or just try to subtlely discourage seedy-looking guests from renting), while the one trying to get the room may want it at a lower price. With the advent of online services to streamline the booking process and reduce the amount of time guests interact with employees before they fork over the money, this has somewhat gone by the wayside, and a savvy guest can easily kill the haggle game by price-matching ("You quoted me $120 for the night, but on Priceline/Expedia/etc it says it's $100"), but it can still happen amongst prospective guests who don't know better, as well as those trying to rent rooms after midnight since online room inventories typically close at that time to make way for the next day's inventory -- but rooms for the current night are still rentable, just not online -- thus preventing people from having evidence that the employee is trying to rip them off.

* Hotels are among the few modern industries where prices for rooms are never fixed, as they vary based on a variety of conditions, with prices going up if there is a perceived increase in demand on the hotel's end, and decreasing if it's near the end of the day and they haven't sold out yet. (And if there's a major conference in town, $500 for one night even for the most bare-bones of lodging establishments is not unheard of!) If one is trying to rent a hotel room at the front desk or over the phone, this can happen; the one who's handling the reservation may try to upsell the room to increase revenue for the hotel (or just try to subtlely discourage seedy-looking guests from renting), while the one trying to get the room may want it at a lower price. With the advent of online services to streamline the booking process and reduce the amount of time guests interact with employees before they fork over the money, this has somewhat gone by the wayside, and a savvy guest can easily kill the haggle game by price-matching ("You quoted me $120 for the night, but on Priceline/Expedia/etc it says it's $100"), but it can still happen amongst prospective guests who don't know better, as well as those trying to rent rooms after midnight since online room inventories typically close at that time to make way for the next day's inventory, thus preventing people from having evidence that the employee is trying to rip them off.

* Hotels are among the few modern industries where prices for rooms are never fixed, as they vary based on a variety of conditions, with prices going up if there is a perceived increase in demand on the hotel's end, and decreasing if it's near the end of the day and they haven't sold out yet. (And if there's a major conference in town, $500 for one night even for the most bare-bones of lodging establishments is not unheard of!) If one is trying to rent a hotel room at the front desk or over the phone, this can happen; the one who's handling the reservation may try to upsell the room to increase revenue for the hotel (or just try to subtlely discourage seedy-looking guests from renting), while the one trying to get the room may want it at a lower price. With the advent of online services to streamline the booking process and reduce the amount of time guests interact with employees before they fork over the money, this has somewhat gone by the wayside, and a savvy guest can easily kill the haggle game by price-matching ("You quoted me $120 for the night, but on Priceline/Expedia/etc it says it's $100", but it can still happen amongst prospective guests who don't know better, as well as those trying to rent rooms after midnight since online room inventories typically close at that time to make way for the next day's inventory, thus preventing people from having evidence that the employee is trying to rip them off.

* Hotels are among the few industires where prices for rooms are never fixed, as they vary based on a variety of conditions, with prices going up if there is a perceived increase in demand on the hotel's end, and decreasing if it's near the end of the day and they haven't sold out yet. If one is trying to rent a hotel room at the front desk or over the phone, this can happen; the one who's handling the reservation may try to upsell the room to increase revenue for the hotel (or just try to subtlely discourage seedy-looking guests from renting), while the one trying to get the room may want it at a lower price. With the advent of online services to streamline the booking process and reduce the amount of time guests interact with employees before they fork over the money, this has somewhat gone by the wayside, and a savvy guest can easily kill the haggle game by price-matching ("You quoted me $120 for the night, but on Priceline/Expedia/etc it says it's $100", but it can still happen amongst prospective guests who don't know better, as well as those trying to rent rooms after midnight since online room inventories typically close at that time to make way for the next day's inventory, thus preventing people from having evidence that the employee is trying to rip them off.

* Hotels are among the few industires where prices for rooms are never fixed, as they vary based on a variety of conditions, with prices going up if there is a perceived increase in demand on the hotel's end, and decreasing if it's near the end of the day and they haven't sold out yet. If one is trying to rent a hotel room at the front desk or over the phone, this can happen; the one who's handling the reservation may try to upsell the room to increase revenue for the hotel (or just try to subtlely discourage seedy-looking guests from saying), while the one trying to get the room may want it at a lower price. With the advent of online services to streamline the booking process and reduce the amount of time guests interact with employees before they fork over the money, this has somewhat gone by the wayside, and a savvy guest can easily kill the haggle game by price-matching ("You quoted me $120 for the night, but on Priceline/Expedia/etc it says it's $100", but it can still happen amongst prospective guests who don't know better, as well as those trying to rent rooms after midnight since online room inventories typically close at that time to make way for the next day's inventory, thus preventing people from trying to prove that the employee is trying to rip them off.

* Hotels are among the few industires where prices for rooms are not fixed, as they vary based on a variety of conditions, with prices going up if there is a perceived increase in demand on the hotel's end, and decreasing if it's near the end of the day and they haven't sold out yet. If one is trying to rent a hotel room at the front desk or over the phone, this can happen; the one who's handling the reservation may try to upsell the room to increase revenue for the hotel (or just try to subtlely discourage seedy-looking guests from saying), while the one trying to get the room may want it at a lower price. With the advent of online services to streamline the booking process and reduce the amount of time guests interact with employees before they fork over the money, this has somewhat gone by the wayside, and a savvy guest can easily kill the haggle game by price-matching ("You quoted me $120 for the night, but on Priceline/Expedia/etc it says it's $100", but it can still happen amongst prospective guests who don't know better, as well as those trying to rent rooms after midnight since online room inventories typically close at that time to make way for the next day's inventory, thus preventing people from trying to prove that the employee is trying to rip them off.

* In {{Porridge}}, the prisoners frequently haggle between themselves, as real prisoners do. The timid prison officer Barrowclough is given the task of bargaining with the confident Fletcher for the return of Mckay's false teeth.

* ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' uses this in games 2 and 3, which take place in [[FantasyCounterpartCulture fantasy versions]] of [[ArabianNightsDays Arabia]] and Africa respectively. Generally, it's best to get the price right in one go, as failures will cause the vendor to raise their minimum. The sole exception to this is the meat merchant in 3, who is such an ExtremeDoormat that you buy his wares at 1 gold coin a pop and he'll ''still'' kiss your butt and call you "Master".

* Near the end of the second episode of the first season of ''Manga/KOn'', [[SpoiledSweet Mugi]] politely asks the music store clerk if she could haggle over the price of a 250,000-yen Les Paul guitar, way beyond the 50,000-yen budget Yui had. She succeeds once the clerk sees Mugi's BigOlEyebrows and recognizes her as the daughter of the president of the conglomerate that owns the store.

** [[GenkiGirl Ritsu]] did the same thing to the same clerk when she bought her drumset. Mio noted she nearly drove him to tears.

* In an episode of ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'', Peter offers completely random prices with no rhyme or reason. As Brian explains to the salesman, "He doesn't know how to haggle."
** In another episode, he tries to haggle with Brian over [[WhatAnIdiot an item he already owns at his own yard sale]].

** Another episode has Zapp Brannigan asking Leela out on a double date. Leela tells him to forget it, leading to this exchange: