Souks and Bargaining – In Search of a Moroccan Lamp

Even though I’m no stranger to haggling my way through a market or two, I found that the Moroccans drive a hard bargain. I read blog upon blog that said it was in their culture to haggle, and that the first price offered was almost always ridiculous. I read guides on how to bargain, what to offer when someone offered you a certain amount, I researched the crap out of it. I felt ready.
And yet the day that we carved out as my shopping day, where I set out determined to buy a Moroccan lamp at the very least, I came back to our riad utterly defeated. They weren’t picking up what I was putting down, and I didn’t understand why. I read that usually whatever you’re offered, the real price you can expect to pay is about 50% of the starting price. So to give myself wiggle room I’d offer them a third of the asking price expecting that we’d go back and forth and meet in the middle.
Except we didn’t. One guy gave me some ‘friendly’ advice and told me to stop looking for lamps. And to leave Morocco. Not quite those words exactly, since I think that it was more colorful the way he put it. But still.
I tried different techniques. I tried in English and I tried in Spanish. I found it was easier in Spanish – probably because as a language it’s friendlier. I tried explaining that the Canadian dollar was low. I tried telling them that I was sure it was worth what they were asking, but I just didn’t have that kind of money and all I could pay was what I was offering. I tried telling them that the person a couple stalls down had X as a starting price, which was much lower than their starting price. I tried the walk away. I even tried being humble and when they’d ask me for my counter offer to their ridiculous opening price I’d tell them that I didn’t wan’t to offend them with something too low, but there it was. I came home empty handed that day.
By the time we left Marrakesh I didn’t have my lamps and Jordan could see I was bummed. I had told him that I wanted desperately to buy Moroccan lamps – silly as it may sound I had always imagined owning one and being able to say “oh, I bought that in Marrakesh”. A high school friend’s mother had one in their house that she had bought in Morocco and since then I was hooked. I have always bought things to decorate my home with from abroad to remind me of my travels.
We hadn’t bought any souvenirs thus far but I was fixated on my dream of owning a lamp so when we got to Fez we tried again. One last time.

Maybe it was because no one was shouting at us to come in to their stall (“looking is free, buy no buy, come see”), or maybe it was because the medina of Fez has no motorcycles so it immediately feels less chaotic. Maybe it was because we were nearing the end of our Moroccan adventure; but we started out the same way we had many times before, wandering the souks and asking the prices. We found a lamp I loved and the shop keeper was kind. He was warm. He was friendly. He was understanding when we told him we’d have to think about it and come back. As we left the shop Jordan asked me how much I would be willing to pay for the lamp – the shop keeper had asked for 700 dirhams. That was almost $100. I told him I’d pay 350 – half the asking price, but begrudgingly since I was stubborn and wanted to be able to beat the standard haggling bar that had been set online and get everything for less than half the asking price.
Jordan asked me why I hadn’t bargained with the lamp shopkeeper, but I had felt so defeated in Marrakesh that in truth I simply didn’t want to offend the guy and end up on the rough end of a confrontation. So Jordan offered to take care of it. He said “do you want to go back, and do you want me to offer him 250?”. Yes. Yes I did. I very much did. So we weaved our way back and tried again. Somehow this ended up with us talking about the price of 2 lamps, but still we couldn’t get him down enough. He would sell us 2 for 1000 dirhams. 500 was still too much per lamp, and Jordan was trying so hard when I told him that we should just leave it.
Defeated, again, we started looking for food. We still looked in each lamp shop and asked the prices but it was half-hearted. Then we saw one that was similar to the one we had spent so much time fussing over, but twice the size. When we were told the price was 600 dirhams we grew optimistic. How was this one 100 dirhams lower when it was twice the size and the same level of detail in the metal work? It seemed so much better priced! We had somewhere to start!
In the meantime we had devised a scheme for communicating pricing. Jordan wanted to know what I’d be willing to pay for something without directly asking me in front of the vendor – so we decided to use the months of the year as numbers. January was 100 dirhams, February was 200, and so on. So I’d look at something and tell him “well, we can always buy it when we come back in mid february” and Jordan would know that I didn’t want to spend more than 250, and plan his attack accordingly. I don’t know if it’s because he’s a man and Morocco is a sexist society that likes dealing with the men of the household, or if it’s because he’s just a calm, cool, collected guy who has a poker face to rival a stone; but it seemed to work. We bought those two extra large lamps for 900 dirhams. 450 each was still not fantastic, but I had resigned myself to the fact that we weren’t going to get this illusive 50% off and at the end of the day it was still less than the cost of buying a fake one in Homesense.
Finally we could go and get (an albeit late, as it was now 3:30pm) lunch. Except on the way I saw another lamp I liked – more exotic looking than the 2 we had just bought and I couldn’t resist asking. How much? 300 dirham. The work wasn’t as good – I could see that immediately. The weld joins were sloppy, there was some glue that definitely shouldn’t have been there, and even the shop keeper couldn’t open the little latch door to put a light in. I could have taken it or left it, so when he gave me the price I was half-hearted in offering him 120. I almost hoped he wouldn’t accept it.

But he countered with 220 and by now Jordan had walked in. We could buy it when we came back in mid January, I told him. Mid January – 150 dirhams. So Jordan offered him 150 and the guy came down to 200. Jordan looked at me since this would mean passing mid January, and offered him 160. He came down to 170 and we took it. I now had 3 lamps and this last one cost me a whopping $22.69 Canadian. It wasn’t worth a penny more, to be honest, but I was happy to give it a good clean and have it hanging in some non-existent room in our non-existent home.
In the end I bought those 3 lamps, one pair of hand made leather ballet flats and one large leather duffel bag. The ballet flats I was asked 90 and bought them at 70. The leather bag I was asked 400 and bought it at 300. Neither of these were that illusive 50% I had read about – but both of them were beyond reasonable. Where in Canada can you buy leather shoes for less than $10 and a massive leather duffel bag for $40? Nowhere. Though the work on the leather bag wasn’t awesome and I knew I’d have to replace the rivets and reinforce the stitching in a few places, it was still insane. If I had made that bag it would have cost $400, not $40. It’s easily 10 hours of labour, even if the leather is cheaper because it’s camel rather than cow. All in all even though it was a hit to my ego as a (what I thought to be) skilled haggler, I’m happy with what we bought and how much we paid – though a better deal is always welcome.