American consumers are great at comparison shopping in order to hunt down the best deal, but despite their desire to save money most never try their luck at haggling. Haggling is time-consuming and sometimes stressful. Consumers have also been conditioned by retailers to accept the sticker price as the final, no-haggle price. Large purchases such as cars and homes have always been the exception, but now with the recession putting pressure on consumers to save money - and on retailers to make sales - Americans are starting to warm up to the practice. The Economist reports:

“According to America’s Research Group, a market-research firm, 72% of American consumers have haggled in the past four months, compared with 56% a year earlier. Britt Beemer, the firm’s chief executive, estimates that they are successful 80% of the time.”

The trend is likely to grow as the recession continues. For retailers, a discounted sale is better than no sale. For consumers, saving money might be worth more than keeping up appearances.

Want to increase your success rate in haggling?

According to Esquire’s Tom Chiarella there is no substitute for practice, practice, practice. Tom made an effort to haggle for anything and everything in his day-to-day life and came up with, “Haggling for Hot Dogs” - a sort of how-to guide for everyday haggling in America. It’s also interesting to note that he wrote this account back in January 2005 - almost four years before our current recession kicked off - so if the retailers of 2005 were willing to cut a deal then surely today’s hard up retailers will be happy to hammer something out.