haggling in Japan

after having resisted for years, i decided to enter the digital age and treat myself while in the hotspot of all such innovations and bought myself a digital camera (or digicame, in Japanese). i asked my savvy friend to meet me in Akihabara and that's when i found out: you can haggle the price of electronics here! i didn't believe it, but i saw it with my own eyes.　

we started in a shop where the guy explained everything about this one camera - the 2nd best on the market here　(i.e. not out in Europe for at least another year). their original price was around 37,000, but it was marked down as a special offer for around Y32,000, and they' then give you a credit of Y6,000 worth of points (which you could use to buy the memory card and case). my budget just for the camera was Y30,000, so that was fine by me. but AD1 was adamant we visit another shop.

in the second shop, we told them about the first shop's price, so the camera got reduced a bit more. i could get it for Y29,000 plus points (although slightly less). i was once again happy with that, but AD1 insisted we go to a third place. this was a major store, though, and here the price of the camera not marked down and was actually slightly more expensive, i believe, maybe Y39,000. it looked like a failure waiting to happen, but AD1 wanted to try anyway. and he did it! i left the shop with the camera, memory card and a case all for Y27,000! well done AD1!