CROSSFIRE
Deal Or No Deal? It’s All A
Game Of The Mind
By Herman Githinji
I
t is about midday, I am walking down
the streets of Nairobi. I caught up
with a hawker. He was of middle age
and built. He was selling a handful of
electrical and bits of masonry stuff. The
total worth of his stock was about 7,500
shillings. You always wonder how much
they make at the end of day. He looked
beat and desperate. As a salesman myself,
I emotionally feel for every salesman
especially on a bad day. So, I opened a
discussion with him.
He has been walking whole day and sold
nothing. On a good day, he would have
had money for lunch and some more for
fare back home. I asked him about what
frustrates him most in a day. “Well, I hate
when I try to sell to these rich people, in
big cars, and they negotiate to the lowest
price. They are the worst payers.” He tells
me.
That sounded intriguing as it was
paradoxical. Why is it that these rich
people want to wriggle out every coin
with a bargain from a poor hawker? These
are the same people who give five hundred
shillings as a tip. These are the same people
who may give one hundred thousand
as tithe to a church. These are the same
people who walk into a restaurant and pay
2,000 Shillings for a meal.
The psychology of pricing and what
customers are willing to pay resides in
what marketers’ call “value for money”.
Naturally, all customers or buyers are
looking for a bargain. We all want to
feel that we have gained more than what
we have paid for. That can be real or
psychological. Naturally, in every situation,
we want to win, or feel like we have won.
Buyers want to check three boxes: Can I
afford it? Will it meet my desired needs?
Did I buy at the right price? When
customers willingly and happily buy a
product, at a price they can afford but
later find the same product selling cheaper
elsewhere, they feel cheated. They get
very upset despite deriving the expected
We feel we have had a deal when we get a lower
price than marked, or when we get the lowest
price than you can ever find elsewhere. When
we suspect we are being exploited or taken ad-
vantage of, we won’t buy. We negotiate to get a
bargain. That satisfies a psychological need of
making us look good or smarter. We tell about
it when we win, we shut up and implode when
we lose.
04 MAL25/18 ISSUE
benefits from it.
We feel we have had a deal when we get a
lower price than marked, or when we get
the lowest price than you can ever find
elsewhere. When we suspect we are being
exploited or taken advantage of, we won’t
buy. We negotiate to get a bargain. That
satisfies a psychological need of making
us look good or smarter. We tell about
it when we win, we shut up and implode
when we lose.
That is why free valuable things give most
satisfaction. I mean, best things in life
are free. This is true no matter how rich a
person is. In supermarkets, we all tend to
choose the bundled products. In markets,
we are happy when we get some extra
produce for free. We get that satisfaction
even when we know the price has factored
into that free item.
My teenage son goes to a site for some
Chinos online. He finds one selling at
50 dollars and another 5 dollars extra for
shipping. In another site, he finds same
product selling at 55 dollars and free
shipping. Guess what? He buys the one
for 55 dollars and free shipping. I asked
him why, he said he feels he is getting a