> "Thanks for your time, but I'll go see if there's another offer that is maybe 3% better or 2% cheaper" isn't something that feels good to all people.

Not necessarily because they're meek. For me, going to a brick and mortar store, interacting briefly with a human, and taking the first thing that meets my basic needs is a life hack.

The paradox of choice is real. Seeing the bounty of options available on sites like Amazon does allow me to try to carefully optimize what I get for every desire I could have, but, ironically, the process of doing so makes me less happy with whatever I end up with. Because seeing so many options means I've now got all sorts of opportunities to second-guess my choice. And because reading reviews to try and narrow down my choices invariably injects the reviewer's tastes into my thinking, and potentially guides me away from my own. And because pretty soon just seeing how many bells and whistles are available gets me wanting things I don't need and didn't even know I could have when I first decided I wanted whatever I'm shopping for, and therefore creates all sorts of trade-offs to have to weigh.

It's not worth it. "3% better" is a will-o-the-wisp beckoning me off into a quagmire, and "2% cheaper" is invariably a 2% discount on something that turned out to be 30% more expensive than what I originally planned on buying.

Thanks for that perspective, I don't disagree at all. I think all depends on why you buy. If it's a necessity, particularly one that you'd rather not need at all, then it's a lifehack feature. But when you buy out of love/consumerism/geekery it's a bug. I find myself surprisingly often ordering tiny little things that, despite being industrially manufactured, exist only in one or two tiny shops/directories, on the entire searchable web. That's a long tail that simply does not exist in the analog world. But it's good to see value in the other end of that animal as well.

I agree, but as I wrote in another comment here I often fall victim to the same myself. I find it quite paradoxal however, how I spent weeks deciding which sports watch to buy, but how the real estate market here gave us a few hours in deciding which apartment to bid on..

Anyways, I find your point about 30% often apply more to local shops. Price is often a bit higher, but biggest problem is not having a comparable model at the price point I wanted. And with a seller in front of you doing their thing, it's easy to walk out with more than intended.

Haggling is tiring and mostly useless considering the time and energy expended. There's a reason most shopping has gone towards standardized list prices without negotiation, and this happened way before Amazon existed. Even the large purchases like cars and real estate are trending towards upfront pricing now.

Now recommendations by a store expert are a different thing, but local businesses are again limited by recommending only what they have in stock, not what's actually best for you. I've rarely found anyone who would actually tell me to go somewhere else to get what I need.

Is this really true for real estate? In the U.S., I regularly hear how people must offer tens of thousands of dollars over a house’s listed price to get any consideration (Seattle).

> But obviously a total amazonisation of all buying would be terrible nonetheless. What I'd love to see: a site like those price comparison directories but not so much focused on cheapest but on local availability. Current stock, proximity, opening hours and price, they are all important.

Geizhals already does all that and I love it for that, e.g.:

https://geizhals.eu/dell-p2719h-210-apxf-a1849338.html?t=a&h...

It's mainly useful AT/DE though...

People in the US were not haggling for anything less than a car in the decades before the internet.

Not true. As recently the 90s expensive niche gear like a pro audio or video stuff was almost always subject to price negotiation, especially if you were a repeat customer or indicated an interest in possibly purchasing other stuff. It still is to some extent.

In general the more knowledgeable the dealership/salespeople, the more likely negotiation is possible, especially if you present as a knowledgeable customer so that neither of you are wasting each others' time.

I guess I was a kid back then, but I don’t remember any of the adults I hung around haggling in stores like circuit city, and my family are immigrants from a country where you haggle over vegetables.

As far as I understood, it wasn’t in the interest of the big retailers to spend time haggling with individuals.

Exactly! And the same fate is waiting for "thanks for the time you just wasted, but I'd rather check out the competition next door some more".

For most people, this has already happened. It's just not as visible as haggle/no haggle (even to the people doing/not doing themselves)

Sales needs to adjust to the new reality. Recognize that people have options and other sources of information and focus on answering their actual questions instead of trying to sell them on something.

If I walk into a car dealership it's because I need specific information not available online, even if it's just to see the car in person.

What I don't need is a whole sales pitch. That's wasting my time and the salesman's.

> but I'll go see if there's another offer that is maybe 3% better or 2% cheaper

I'll go to 3 stores, and just ask for the price and say "Thank you! I'll come back when I'm decided."

That way, there is minimal haggling, and I know I'm not getting completely ripped off. Still, it's more work than just checking online. But depending on the price of the item, it may be worth it.

That's Google shopping, and the inventory integration is pretty hard. Lots of stores don't or didn't use reliabile inventory systems. I wonder if the pandemic and in person closures have pushed some shops into maintaining their inventory databases.

> you'll likely buy the very first thing a salesperson has invested face-minutes in, if it just gets the easy 80% of requirements/desires right. "Thanks for your time, but I'll go see if there's another offer that is maybe 3% better or 2% cheaper" isn't something that feels good to all people.

This seems like an extremely positive aspect of going to a local store, not a downside.

> 2% cheaper

Unless it's a really big ticket item, going to another store to get it 2% cheaper would almost certainly be a net loss (due to the time involved) vs. just buying the first thing you see at a slightly inflated price.

Even if you are a hard-boiled negotiator, the additional time it takes to visit different stores to make the comparison often isn’t worth it compared to buying the whatever the first floor associate recommends to you.

In that world, what is local availability except that someone happened to already ship some quantity to a location closer to you?

Pretty sure a lot of people just see "Amazon's Choice" and hit Buy Now