Bargaining aunt turns to the Internet

> > #This article is produced by the "Original Incentive Program". > > > In the past, when I went to offline stores to buy things, every time I saw the aunts bargaining with their tongues, I admired them and bought high-quality and cheap products with their skills. With the advent of online shopping, when everyone is used to buying one price, the aunts actually shifted the bargaining position to the online. In the face of the aggressive bargaining aunt, e-commerce platforms and stores are also ready. > > >

#This article is produced by the "Original Incentive Program".

In the past, when I went to offline stores to buy things, every time I saw the aunts bargaining with their tongues, I admired them and bought high-quality and cheap products with their skills. With the advent of online shopping, when everyone is used to buying one price, the aunts actually shifted the bargaining position to the online. In the face of the aggressive bargaining aunt, e-commerce platforms and stores are also ready.

I have been living in the shadow of the bargain aunt.

As a person who is not good at talking and soft-hearted, he has no advantage in bargaining. And the existence of those haggling aunts in my life made me even more troubled:

• In some occasions where bargaining is common, merchants deliberately put a lot of false prices in response to bargaining experts. For someone like me who dare not cut the price, I unknowingly suffered a big loss.
• Just after buying a piece of clothing, you may be able to see other people and buy them for half the price or less. In order to avoid making myself look stupid and naive, and to avoid paying an unknown amount of "bargaining tax", I will never go to those shopping malls that clearly test their bargaining ability.
• People who are good at haggling always get a little extra, even if it's just a simple purchase of food. Although sometimes it's just a few cents and a few coriander, but seeing others buy cheaper than you, always makes people feel uncomfortable.

Since there is a convenient Internet, my life seems to be bright. Even in front of the invincible aunt, I have a little sense of superiority: you need to talk to people in person for half a day to get the price, I just need to place an order online and get it, which is easy and epidemic prevention.

However, this sense of superiority did not last long. With the popularity of smart phones, door-to-door, both the elderly and children, have access to the Internet. When I bought a big brand at a low price on the Internet a moment ago, and I was so excited to show it off, these aunts who have been haggling for a lifetime have already started haggling with the customer service online, and the things they bought are still cheaper than me!

1. The online battle situation of the haggling aunt 1. Haggling stores online

The owner of an online store has complained to me more than once that nowadays, the work of e-commerce customer service is getting more and more difficult.

In the past, it was generally young people who came into contact with the Internet. When they saw a suitable product and price, they directly placed an order to buy it, and asked at most two product-related questions.

Even if there are occasionally a few people bargaining, they can basically solve it in one or two sentences, and they can be satisfied with a little discount.

But now with a group of professional haggling households accessing the Internet and learning to shop online, it is no longer easy for e-commerce customer service to receive users who haggle every day.

They have the ruthlessness of making massive bargains. Unlike young people who want a discount, they open their mouths directly at an impossible price.

They have high-level bargaining skills. Although they may not have been taught in a class, they are the result of years of practice and training.

They also have the patience to not give up until they reach their goals, and if they don't give the right price, they can entangle from morning to night.

These people who used to be amazed in the market, came to the Internet, and faced the customer service of the online store.

2. Online hacking platform

Haggling in the store can no longer satisfy the ambitions of these haggling experts, and they turn their attention to the platform again.

Learn to pull with Jingdong customer service, you can get more Jingdou.

After tangling with the customer service of Meituan for a while, you can get unlimited red envelopes with a higher amount.

Talk to the customer service of Vipshop. During the price guarantee, you can get the difference after the discount of some special coupons. If you just refund the difference in the system, this part cannot be directly refunded.

No matter which platform, in order to be able to solve daily problems, customer service also has certain spending authority.

And these spending rights have just become the goals of the aunts, using their unparalleled bargaining power to take all the benefits that may be touched without leaking.

3. Online and offline

When you think that the aunts have already bargained to the extreme online, the aunts start to use the online price to chase the offline.

In the past, offline transactions often had information asymmetry. It is difficult for customers to know the cost of goods, and bidding can only be judged according to habits and experience.

However, online prices make up for these missing information, and you can easily find relatively low prices on the Internet for the products you see in the store.

If it is given to young people, it is nothing more than optimistic about offline things, and then buy them online.

The aunts, on the other hand, took the price comparison to the extreme, took the price they found online, and then went to the store to bargain with the owner. Use the price on the line to force the line down.

In order to sell things, shopkeepers sometimes have to bleed, pushing prices far beyond the daily discounts.

Even if you encounter a store with high labor costs and can no longer reduce the price, the aunts have nothing to lose, it is nothing more than a few words.

2. Haggling addiction syndrome

When the consumption scene changed from offline to online, aunts also cut prices online.

The scene is changing, human nature remains the same, and the instinct to seek profits and shape images drives people to continue to cut prices.

The existence of bargaining space has also made people gain from bargaining behavior again and again, prompting the beginning of the next bargaining.

1. Bargaining space

If your store encounters such a user, will you give out the price limited by the event?

In the old days, shopkeepers had more confidence not to give prices.

In a physical mall, the items of a certain store are likely to be unique within a certain range. As long as the store owner can bite the price and not let go, customers who can't find similar products after turning around can only return to buy.

But now the online world has given customers more choices. When users can't get the desired price in a store, they can easily find many substitutes, even the same product.

Coupled with the customer service staff of each store, the bargaining power is also uneven. The customer service of store A does not reduce the price, but the customer service of store B may easily let go and give a lower price.

Faced with such a competitive situation, it is acceptable for merchants to give up some profits in order to capture trading opportunities. After all, if the prospect walks away, there's nothing left. Earning less is better than nothing.

2. Seek profit

There is room for bargaining, which can only be regarded as an objective factor. Everyone's profit-seeking instinct is the fundamental source of bargaining.

In society, the survival resources at the disposal of each person are limited, and everyone hopes that their own survival resources will become more and more, and their living conditions will continue to improve. And this process is nothing more than two points, open source and reduce expenditure, and it can be said to make more money and spend less money.

Businesses stand on the standpoint of making more money. In the past, traditional stores only made money when the selling price was higher than the comprehensive cost. If the selling price was higher, they could make more money. In today's online business, although the sources of income are becoming more and more diverse, and you can even focus on financing and listing, so as to restrain the desire to make money in front of you, for most small and medium-sized stores, sales profits are still the core economic source.

Therefore, improving profit margins is one of the main means for businesses to make profits.

It is also profit-seeking, and consumers are on the side of spending less. Money is just a general equivalent, and it must be exchanged for commodities through transactions in order to meet the various needs of people's lives. In this process, spending less money in exchange for more survival resources is the driving force behind people bargaining for profit.

Therefore, even if the shopping mall becomes an online store, the merchants want to make more money and the customers want to spend less, and the phenomenon of haggling will still occur.

3. Image

Sometimes, through bargaining, the benefits that can be obtained may be insignificant.

Just like the few cents chopped off from grocery shopping, even if it is accumulated for a year, it may not be 20 or 30; if you get an extra handful of shriveled leeks, you may even dislike it when you take it home and throw it away.

What's more, in the process of bargaining, a lot of time and energy are wasted.

But people still enjoy it.

Because, after the low-spending behavior controlled by the profit-seeking instinct has been upheld by human beings for many years, this kind of bargaining ability and attitude has gradually been recognized and praised by the public.

If you live in the dormitory of the old factory, you must often hear such conversations: whoever's daughter-in-law has a good life, and whose family's kid spends a lot of money.

When people talk about short-term parents, they all regard bargaining ability and bargaining record as an excellent quality, and then give a person a good evaluation of being careful, smart and capable.

When a person who was praised for being frugal and housekeeping in the past entered the Internet, how could he not continue to maintain and promote his style, bargain in the online store, and get cheaper prices, thereby enhancing his image. stable.

Even if we don't haggle very often, we're bound to have similar desires. If you get a super-value product in seconds, if you grab a special group purchase coupon, you will share it with the people around you to show your ability, vision, and luck.

Third, the price difference varies

Although it comes to the Internet, the aunts who haggle are still active. However, the specific behavior of bargaining is also different from the past.

This is not necessarily how many new features the Internet has given to haggling, but a continuation and development of past haggling differences - even in the age of underdeveloped networks, people will still show different haggling in different scenarios. state.

Just like an aunt who kills all directions in a vegetable market, she doesn't talk too much at the supermarket checkout.

This different performance depends on people's cognition, willingness and ability to bargain.

1. Cognition

Whether a scene can be bargained is not only the rules of the scene itself, but also buried in people's cognition after a long time.

Just like no one is bargaining in supermarkets now, people's cognition has determined that supermarkets cannot bargain.

Maybe this was not the case at first. When the supermarket first appeared, someone would definitely stand in front of the cashier and ask the cashier to give a discount and wipe a zero. However, the cashier adhered to the rules of the supermarket and did not open the channel for bargaining.

As time goes by, people all know that haggling in the supermarket is fruitless.

The stability of price rules is maintained in every transaction.

It's like no one asks the Ministry of Railways to bargain, because no one wins the bargain when buying train tickets, so in people's cognition, the train fare should be as much as it is, and there is no need to waste time bargaining.

However, many online stores have not adhered to the price rules.

At the beginning, people generally didn’t know and didn’t think that online shopping could be bargained, so after choosing the products they liked and comparing the prices of different stores, they placed the order directly.

But after someone brought the habit of haggling online, pulled the customer service to ask for a price cut, and the haggling succeeded, people learned that they could still haggle on Taobao.

Precedents will eventually become routines, and information will gradually form cognition.

Those who have successfully bargained continue to repeat, and those who have not bargained have begun to imitate and try, making online shopping bargaining gradually become a routine.

2. Willing

After seeing others bargaining with Taobao customer service, many people will be curious to try it, but not everyone will insist on bargaining every time.

Whether or not to bargain depends on a person's will, whether the bargain is worth it or not.

The so-called value or not, is to look at the expected benefits of bargaining, whether it is worth the extra effort.

If you buy a large quantity and buy a large amount of goods, then it is worthwhile and necessary to spend time haggling.

But if you buy 5 small things with free shipping, and only buy one, the number of people who have the desire to bargain must be greatly reduced.

From the point of view of actual income, most people do not look down on the income of a few cents.

From the point of view of intangible value, not everyone needs a frugal household identity.

This also involves a question of identity matching.

For a housewife who has been with her for many years, the haggling price that must be divided into hair is in line with her identity.

But for a person who wears a famous brand and drives a luxury car, if he really haggles for a piece or two, people will doubt whether you bought the Rolex from a street stall?

3. Ability

Then there is the bargaining power, which is a problem that makes perfect.

In the past, there were many relatively shy young people on the Internet. They are ashamed to haggle. Even if they see others haggling, they try to haggle with them, and it is often difficult to get the best price. Businesses give a little discount, they are often embarrassed to further bargain.

And now, when the big wave of haggling veterans floods into the network. Their bargaining power has been honed for decades, and they continue to benefit from bargaining. Even in the face of unfamiliar consumption scenarios, they have the ability and willingness to try to see if they can bargain.

In the face of these masters who believe that they can bargain online, have a strong willingness to bargain, and have excellent bargaining ability, merchants have begun to tremble.

However, whether this trembling is fear or excitement is another question.

4. What can be bought and sold?

When the real bargaining masters flood into the Internet, it not only means that online stores have to face more bargaining, but also more people will trade at low prices. It also means that more people are involved in the purchase.

For these aunts who bargain hard, merchants also have their own ways to offset their bargaining power.

1. Attitude

No bargaining is allowed, and strict adherence to the rules is the best way to prevent bargaining.

Just like supermarkets and train tickets, there is no room for bargaining, and no one will continue to chatter after a setback.

This attitude is particularly important for some large-scale business entities.

If it is just a small store, even if a user is given a price that is much lower than others, it will not cause too many adverse reactions.

If Zhang San was offered a low price in a physical store in the past, Zhang San would go back and tell Li Si that Li Si might return the items he bought the next day. Or after giving Zhang San a low price, Zhang San turned his head and told the whole village, and the whole village asked to buy at a low price, which directly lowered the profit of the store by a notch.

The users of online stores are relatively scattered, and they will not be as close as traditional brick-and-mortar stores. Therefore, occasional low prices are not too serious.

But for larger commercial entities, the whole world is a village, the opportunities for connection between users are greatly increased, and the possibility of sharing price information is also greatly increased.

Occasionally revealing a low price, it is possible to enter the situation of not buying at this price. Not only the price system is disrupted, but it may also damage the brand. Therefore, for larger commercial entities, it is extremely important to regulate the price authority of customer service.

2. Price space

The price strategy that never compromises must also have its flaws, that is, low inclusiveness.

For commercial entities with relatively unique products and stable user relationships, it is possible to strictly adhere to a price.

But for those small shops and brands entering the market, such a price system is extremely unfavorable for development.

As a result, the flexible price space has a place to be used.

Products or stores, you can set up coupons with many grades for a long time.

If there are users who don’t pay attention to the price and don’t care about the price, if they buy directly, the store can earn more profits.

When a user who cares about the price comes, enter the customer service interface and try to bargain, the machine customer service can directly push the discount activities and coupons in the store, so that the user can get a part of the discount and be satisfied.

If this part of the discount cannot satisfy the aunts who haggle fiercely, the store can also come up with secretly prepared coupons to make them satisfied with the payment.

The biggest difference between this kind of progressive preferential treatment and the customer service manual price is that all preferential behaviors are covered by the price system.

On the one hand, the customer service staff cannot give a price cut that exceeds the specified amount.

On the other hand, the time limit, limit, and limit of the coupon will also add a protection to the offer itself - even if it is spread out, this is only a limited time coupon, only available for a certain period of time, not customer service can give it at will of. Therefore, after the price has been adjusted, other people will be prevented from asking for low prices again, which will affect the stability of the price system.

3. Catharsis

The behavior of haggling is driven by instinct, and a rejection that is too strong may not be emotionally comfortable. And too many excess discounts, even if they are secretly given in the form of coupons, will damage the store's own price system and affect the brand's own image over time.

In the face of the aggressive bargaining aunt, if the price reduction is inevitable, it is better to make the cut price more meaningful.

Such as stacking cats, such as cutting a knife.

For users, it not only gets a lower price, but also meets the demand for bargaining, and vents the energy of bargaining.

For the product, it not only meets the needs of users, but also makes the user's bargaining behavior, which provides more benefits for the product. Instead of just a few words, you can get cheap cheap.

Best of both worlds, hello and hello. Especially when the customer service is facing the user's bargaining, there is more soft conviction: if you want a low price, we can provide it, as long as you do XXX, you can get a low price, or even a prostitution product. If you do not want to participate, you can also purchase the product at the original price.

As a result, the user's request for bargaining has become a choice of payment or trouble, rather than simply refusing or agreeing. It not only alleviates the challenge from bargaining masters, but also better realizes price discrimination.

Five, the end

After talking about the price haggling for a long time, I found that, before I knew it, Double 11 was not far away.

When I saw that the aunts spoke to the customer service, they could get the price that I could only get by staying overnight on Double 11, and I couldn't help but feel a little sad.

Does anyone have a haggling training class? I am the first to participate!

columnist

Mo Tao, columnist, network marketer, psychological consultant. Good at consumer behavior, text communication, marketing and other fields.

This article is produced by the "Original Incentive Program".

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol