Mon Aug 18 – Shopping in Beijing (part 2)

We walked by some more clothing booths and then came upon another booth with women’s clothing – only this time, there was a longer, tailed overcoat that looked even cuter than the first. This time, we were staying in the middle of the corridor so that we could really be “looking”. Again, Emily made a slight mention of it to me and our eyes and body stopped for a brief moment to eye the overcoat. Again, we were immediately “accosted” by another even more aggressive female sales person. Very quickly, Emily was pulled into the booth, the coat came off the hanger, and in no time, Emily was looking at it. It was even cuter than the first. Since we had just experienced the sales pitch a couple of minutes earlier, we braced ourselves for what was to happen, but thought we would get a better idea of what price she would truly be willing to sell it to us – and as we did the other, we would continue looking and come back tomorrow. But the girl defines the embodiment of “tenacious”. Quickly, the sales pitch started. How wonderful the coat, how exquisite the tailoring, but yet she had a special price just for us. So we listened for the opening price – which she quoted at something around $200. Of course, we really both said “No” – way above what we were looking for anyway and tried to walk away. Of course, we knew she’d pull us back and offer us some lower prices. She tried to get us to commit to some type of price – and we initially declined and told her the story of just looking. She wouldn’t have any of that, so thinking a good way to get rid of her, Emily told her we were looking for something more in the $20 range, but maybe $30 max. She got immediately offended and spouted off how insulting a price that was, how it couldn’t cover any of her costs, how we needed to be serious about doing any business with her. We reminded her that we weren’t intending to do any business today, but we were looking for coats in that range and would come back tomorrow. As we walked away, she literally grabbed my hand by the wrist and spun me around and pulled me back into the booth. Startled, I started to laugh and look at Emily, who was also surprised. From then on, she wouldn’t let go of my hand. She “counteroffered” my non-offer, coming down to $130. I told her thank you and that we weren’t interested. She grabbed the coat and put it into my one free hand and asked me how could I not want to spend such money on a beautiful outfit for my beautiful wife. I told her this was not my wife but my daughter. Then she told me all the reasons why my beautiful daughter needed this coat and that she would give me a final price of $100. I told her very clearly now that I wasn’t interested today and tried to giver her coat back. She then grabbed both of my wrists (she was strong) so that I could not move nor give her the coat back. I then tried to lay the coat down but she said “no” and wouldn’t let go of my wrists and grabbed the coat and put it over my arm, Since she had a vice lock on my wrists I couldn’t put the coat down. Her price came down to $60 dollars and I still said “no – we are just looking. By now, I was kind of laughing in incredulity – with Emily standing looking wide eyed at me. It felt like she was literally wrestling me as I tried to put the coat down, or pull back my hands. She handed me a calculator asking me to enter in my price – I tried to put the calculator down on the floor but she just grabbed my other wrist again and bent down with me stopping me from doing that. We were now literally in an arm wrestle in her booth – she was not going to let me go. I started feeling the only way I could get out would be to either twist her arm or punch her (of course I wouldn’t do that). I started laughing at how funny this must look. Finally, I had to almost pry her fingers away from me, letting her know that her price – would had now come down to $35 dollars – was getting to be a good price, but that I meant it when I said we were just looking today and that I would remember her tomorrow when I came back to buy. I felt exhausted – like I had just been in a wrestling match – and finally felt like I could walk away -- when she finally said, “Alright – you can have your price -- $30”, and started putting the coat in a package. I said, ‘wait a minute – I told you 10 times that I am not going to buy today – that I’m just looking”. Upon which she then got defensive and said, “what do you mean – you gave me the price – I matched it – you need to buy it from me”. For the umpteenth time, I told her what we were doing and we were finally able to walk away. Sheesh – that’s a tenacious sales person. I know where to recruit great sales reps if I ever need to do business in China. My biggest regret is not asking Emily to take a picture when we she was wrestling me for a price… J
Anyway, we walked around having learned our lesson. We didn’t answer back to any of the sales people, walked in the middle of the aisle, didn’t make the mistake of stepping into any of the booths with the female sales representatives (interestingly enough, none of the men were that aggressive), and scouted out some opportunities for the next day