Bargaining Tips

If you want to learn to bargain like a Pro, come to Ghana!

Thursday we went to Koforidua, the capital of the Eastern Region to visit the Thursday Bead Market. The drive there looked like my home county back in California (Sonoma County) minus the vineyards. There were beautiful green pastures for miles. Life in Accra does not allow for much access to greenery. Most of the areas where there would be grass, people walk on too frequently so there are a lot of dirt patches instead. 

We went to the Bead Market on a field trip for my Twi class. Twi is the most common local language spoken here in Ghana, and we went to the market to try our chances with bargaining. Usually supermarkets and malls have fixed prices for merchandise in Ghana, but everything else can be bargained for, from the taxi rides to the people selling toilet paper and live animals on the streets in between the traffic lights. In order to bargaining, it is best to know the local language. Twi comes in handy for two main reasons. First, because I am white, people assume I am a rich foreigner. Telling them in the local dialect that I am a poor student helps because they realise that my ability to speak Twi likely means that I am in fact living in Ghana (rather than a tourist trying to get a deal). Secondly, Twi is helpful because not everyone (especially not all merchants) speaks English, so in order to bargain it helps tremendously to communicate in Twi.  

To bargain in Ghana, there are a couple things to keep in mind:

1.    Just like everywhere, the seller is always trying to make a profit. If you look or sound foreign, be prepared to spend longer getting the price down because it started much higher than it might for  a local person. When setting the starting price, merchants hope that foreigners don’t know the value of a fair price, so they often set the price exceedingly high, hoping that even if you bargain it down, they will still get a large return on the profit. This happened to me my first week in Ghana (all study abroad students have to have at least one memory of getting cheated in a sale, right!? ). The merchant was selling beautiful elephant oil paintings. He started the price at 60 Ghana cedis (approximately $14). Earlier we learned to try and cut the initial starting price in half. After some bargaining I got it down to 40 cedis ($10) and I was very proud of myself. I had bargained and gotten a deal! Or so I thought. A friend of mine got on the bus with the same painting… that she only paid 10 Ghana cedis for. Now every time I look at the painting, it makes me grateful that I have improved my bargaining skills.

2.   It’s not rude to tell people “ Mepaakyew mepe se wo sisi me!” or “Please, you’re cheating me!” Other common expressions include “Te so” (Reduce the price) and “To so” (or give me a dash, meaning now that we have agreed to a set price for a set number of items, be sure to throw in a little something extra for free). A little bit a Twi goes a long way! 

3.   Remember, you always have the power to walk away. Just because you started bargaining does not mean you have to purchase the item. And the best part is, often walking away will force the seller to give you the price you wanted.

Using these tips I spent 37 Ghana cedis for the whole day (just over $9). If I had simply paid the original prices stated by the merchants, I would have paid over 100 Ghana cedis for the day! 

I’m proud to say that I have learned a lot from my past bargaining mistakes and that I now know how to scope out a good deal here. Though I am worried about when I go back to flea markets in California… I don’t think people would appreciate me trying to cut the prices in half or me telling them that they’re cheating me!