[gthank]

That's an interesting point about it never making the price go up. If there were a non-trivial chance that it caused the price to go up, do you think the haggling would be less common?

Since haggling vaguely offends my sense of how the world should work—even though I know that has no bearing on how it does work—it kinds gives me the warm fuzzies to imagine some random procurement person's expression as the price goes up every time s?he asks for a discount.

[noonespecial]

Real life constraints cause this to occur every now and again and when it does, I'm just as tickled by the spectacle as you imagine.

An example I recall was in the bad old days of CD-ROM duplication (when even small orders were still replicated in big plants because CDR's were $40 each). Prices were set by the replicators based on how full their queues were and how fast you wanted the job done. That means prices changed daily. A not so savvy PM type spent three days making a general ass of himself waffling and niggling for an additional 10% discount (beyond our regular volume discount) only to find when the order was actually entered, the replication price had doubled.

I was privileged to deliver the news. I assure you it felt every bit as good as you'd imagine.