The adventures of Jewelry Girl and Barter Boy.

I thought the shopping experience would be awesome, such that I could possibly get a Rolex or something for a few hundred dollars. Ooh, there’s a store selling some Tag Heuer watches. Hmmm… 5920 dinhars translates to… More than $1000. Wait, I can’t afford that! Alas, guess I’ll be reserved to window shopping for now. I had read that these souks are the place if you like to barter. In fact bartering and haggling were expected in any sale, and when Elizabeth found a jewelry store with a nice “ametrine” necklace (half amethyst, half citrine), I couldn’t help but think about this. The shops all looked like this, about a 7-foot by 15-foot rectangular room with necklaces, rings, earrings enclosed in glass cases on every wall. I always had the thought in the back of my mind that perhaps what these guys are selling isn’t the real thing, how were we to tell? Initially we had wanted to get this necklace for our friend Lisa. Maybe a $100 or a little more, a nice little Christmas gift. Total price for the necklace, over $1000. Gah! Sorry Lisa, you’re a good friend, but not that good, lol! So we decided to keep looking, and Elizabeth made the decision that for something that expensive, it ought to be hers. Eventually she set her eyes on a nice ruby necklace with gold chain. A funny thing I thought that happened is that Elizabeth had asked to see a matching pair of ruby earrings if he had any. Evidently there were none in the store, so he had another store employee (told him in Arabic) to go find one. He totally left the store and went to what I can only assume to be another jewelry store. Were these stores connected? Perhaps another store owned by a family member? Maybe the stores have trade/sale agreements together? I didn’t know. Similarly, another man came into their store, rummaged through his front window display and took a particular ring, and made a waving gesture to the man helping us that he was taking that ring. Then our man pulled out a hand-written ledger and must have made note of what was taken. Very odd. Anyways, Elizabeth seemed to have her mind set on the ruby necklace and earrings, and the man started punching numbers into a calculator. What happened next was, and I expect will be, a recurring theme in any of the souks/shop dealers we happen upon. “Your price is (around) 960 dollars, but for you special…” He punched in a percentage and said “850.” Another recurring theme, all the shop peddlers thought she was special and didn’t really acknowledge me. Oh well… Oh that’s nice, pessimistic me is thinking, how do I know you didn’t just start at the higher price and worked your magic to get back to the original price, or was that even the original price. I’m not the best at bartering, in fact I know nothing about it or how to do it correctly. First off, I thought perhaps the thing to do is just hold out and feign the “it’s too expensive” card and see what happens. Magically, the price started to fall. I thought about if there are particular techniques used to barter/haggle, such as fawning over other less expensive pieces to try and have the store employee try to redirect us to the original piece at a lower price, but in general I leave Elizabeth to her own devices. Don’t get me wrong I try and look out for her as best I can, but she’s a grownup and knows just as well as I do. In the end, she received the necklace and earrings for 2800 dirhams, about $775. He shook both our hands, and deftly reached under the counter to pull out some drinks to celebrate the purchase. It was the most expensive can of orange juice I had ever drunk. He was quick to close up shop and shuffle us along since it was noon and all shops had to be closed, I believe for noon prayer. That probably also helped us move the sale along also.