What is the best way to bargain in Thailand?

With a smile and a friendly attitude. The point of bargaining is not to make sure the merchant loses money but rather to get a price that you are both satisfied with. Be warned that in popular tourist areas, such as say Chaweng Beach on Ko Samui, the mark-up can be as much as 600-800%. In cases like this it's almost impossible to get a reasonable price compared to what you may pay in Chatuchak market in Bangkok, for instance. The simple solution is not to shop at Chaweng! But if you must, do bargain hard. Often bargaining in Thai - all you really need to know are the numbers, cheap (thuuk) and expensive (phaeng) - will reap greater rewards.

Once you've determined that bargaining is expected, you need a sense of how much you can expect to drive down the price. Make a counter-offer too low, and you look bad. Too high, and you'll pay more than you need to.

Typically, at an outdoor market you can expect to get the price down by 10-30%. However, if you’ve been pegged as a rich farang, a merchant might have raised the price by a factor of 2 or 3. Don’t buy the first thing you see. Look around. Get prices from a few merchants. You’ll soon get a sense of what’s reasonable.

Some other tips:

  • You'll do better if you learn the Thai language for the numbers needed to name a price.
  • If you don't know Thai numbers, be alert to one potential confusion: The Thai-accented pronunciations of twenty and seventy  — tsventy — are easily mistaken.
  • It's never appropriate to get overly emotional about bargaining, nor to insult the merchandise or seller.
  • Don’t let it become a point of pride to get the lowest possible price. This is business; perhaps it's a game; it's certainly not a war.
  • If you make an offer and the merchant accepts it, the unwritten rules require that you make the purchase at that price. Same as Priceline.com — but Thailand had the system first.