Eric's Beijing Diary

This afternoon, I stopped by the cell phone store with some church friends. I usually don't like to do this, because if you involve local people who don't know the real price, sometimes the salesman can convince them that their price is a bargain (especially for a foreigner), and that really weakens your bargaining position. I prefer to operate alone. But today it turned out to be really helpful, because the sales lady did want to sell the phone, and she was happy to talk about it with my friends. She started giving out a bunch of information. I had told them before we went in there what I had seen it for online, so they were not about to be swayed. She finally told me to look around at other stores and see that her price was good. I thought that was actually a good idea. I went next door. The guy would not come down to my price, but he was determined to be a little lower than her price, which is exactly what I wanted.