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Absolutely. They see an opportunity to make some revenue, and they will. This is, in the nicest possible way, the way business is done in Egypt. You start from

Absolutely. They see an opportunity to make some revenue, and they will. This is, in the nicest possible way, the way business is done in Egypt. You start from an absolutely outrageous position, and settle on something both parties are generally happy with. This applies from billion dollar lawsuits to buying a pack of cigarettes. Haggling is an art form there.

f6v 6y ago
I got an impression that any lawsuit goes like that everywhere. A claimant asks for outrageously high compensation and settles for much less.
- ARandomerDude 6y ago
  > This applies from billion dollar lawsuits to buying a pack of cigarettes. Haggling is an art form there.
  - elcritch 6y ago
    Some sellers in markets in the region will get offended if you don’t try and haggle, even it means they’ll make 10x the profit that they’d settle for.
    - manquer 6y ago
      It is not the about the money. Traders would sometimes take a hit even for a good argument. There is no fun in making 10x money that way. They want to earn it. You will find such traders in all over West Asia/arabic world like Egypt, Istanbul and as far off as delhi, not everyone is like that however, plenty will straight up cheat.
SergeAx 6y ago
Do you have even anecdotal example of this behavior on industrial level, or just projecting your own touristic experience?
- manquer 6y ago
  It has nothing to do with cultural reasons. Every lawsuit in the U.S. and other places does the exact same thing, claim very high numbers, then perhaps settle for much less.
- madaxe_again 6y ago
  Yes - my business provided ecommerce infrastructure for a major Egyptian brand. The negotiations were... actually rather fun. It all started by phone and email, they tried to rip us off, we poked fun at their attempts, and returned in kind. Ultimately I flew out to Alexandria and after an afternoon of Very Serious Business we shook on it, and became best friends. Elsewhere, there’s always a degree of horse trading, but the focus is on getting the deal done - here, the focus was very much on doing the deal. The negotiations over terms were far more of an assessment of us than the RFQ and the pitch were, whereas with western brands, the inverse is true.

f6v 6y ago

I got an impression that any lawsuit goes like that everywhere. A claimant asks for outrageously high compensation and settles for much less.

ARandomerDude 6y ago
> This applies from billion dollar lawsuits to buying a pack of cigarettes. Haggling is an art form there.
- elcritch 6y ago
  Some sellers in markets in the region will get offended if you don’t try and haggle, even it means they’ll make 10x the profit that they’d settle for.
  - manquer 6y ago
    It is not the about the money. Traders would sometimes take a hit even for a good argument. There is no fun in making 10x money that way. They want to earn it. You will find such traders in all over West Asia/arabic world like Egypt, Istanbul and as far off as delhi, not everyone is like that however, plenty will straight up cheat.

SergeAx 6y ago

Do you have even anecdotal example of this behavior on industrial level, or just projecting your own touristic experience?

manquer 6y ago
It has nothing to do with cultural reasons. Every lawsuit in the U.S. and other places does the exact same thing, claim very high numbers, then perhaps settle for much less.
madaxe_again 6y ago
Yes - my business provided ecommerce infrastructure for a major Egyptian brand. The negotiations were... actually rather fun. It all started by phone and email, they tried to rip us off, we poked fun at their attempts, and returned in kind. Ultimately I flew out to Alexandria and after an afternoon of Very Serious Business we shook on it, and became best friends. Elsewhere, there’s always a degree of horse trading, but the focus is on getting the deal done - here, the focus was very much on doing the deal. The negotiations over terms were far more of an assessment of us than the RFQ and the pitch were, whereas with western brands, the inverse is true.