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Q: Do you still bargain as hard for things here as you did at the beginning?
When I first came here I was overcome with a fear of being ripped off and was resolute to get the lowest possible price. Since then, I've lost my motivation and drive to fight so hard for each kuai. I do still bargain but not nearly as ferociously (or long) as I did when I first came here.
No, not anymore. Lost all the interest and fun in doing it. At the beginning I was enjoying it a lot, now I go straight on speaking in chinese and saying: I do not want to bargain, I'm in China since long time, this is the price, take it or leave it.
If the seller is a little bit clever, they do not insist, if they try, well, it's stuff I can live without it anyway.
Of course
I am more afraid of my wife than any store vendors
Same here. I bargain when the price is high but I don't even bother for 10 RMB.
After being cheated too many times and constantly witnessing the locals demand much more because I'm a foreigner, I became a Nimitz-class Douchemuffin / hard-line negotiator.
My stance is "Take it or leave it." I give them 1-2 chances to accept my prices. If they refuse to accept, someone else will eventually accept, and everyone is selling the same shit anyway.
In Zhuzhou near the train station, I went upstairs in one of the malls and looked for maternity clothing. The first store near the entrance refused to haggle. They demanded 49 RMB, and I offered 40. They refused to even bargain down to 45, so I left and didn't argue.
Then I went to the next store upstairs, and they also refused to bargain. I went upstairs to the third floor and they wouldn't bargain either, but their prices were much lower -- 19-35 RMB each, which is what I usually go for). I bought tons of stuff, and went back downstairs to buy more.
They again refused to haggle down to 35 RMB per pair of pants. I took out my bag and receipt and showed them that I already bought pants for 35 RMB or less, and they still refused (they were initially demanding 80, but "agreed" on 60. No thanks). I walked off. The shop owner chased me outside the building (I flew down the stairs, so they needed to catch up to me) and begged me to buy it for 35 RMB. Too late, newbies! You only get 2 chances. I simply said "fork off" and kept walking.
You can't let shop owners second-guess you or rip you off. I used to punish cheaters by buying from their competitors at lower prices every single day, and totally ignoring them. Eventually, they would offer me things for free to get me as a customer. I ignored one shop keeper for almost a year... and he realized he screwed up by trying to cheat us. Guy went out of his way to get us to buy from him.
i buy most my stuff i need on Taobao its a lot easier than trying to bargain for 5-10 mins and getting ripped of as you are a foreigner. If i ever go shopping first i search for how much it's on Taobao and know what price i should be paying and maybe willing to pay a extra 10-15 quai as you pay that for postage anyway. My haggling normally goes along the lines of telling them its to expensive, how much i can get that online and normally the price drops dramatically.
Of course i still bargain especially when i already knows the price and the seller tries to rip me off then i speak my weird Chinese explaining to him/her that I've bought the same item before at a lesser price than his/hers, so either he/she reduce it or i don't mind going to get it from where i bought it before. Mostly after saying that, they go like "hahahaha, but you have a lot of money, ok i will reduce the price"
Hulk:
Exactly, andy! "But it's not the same quality! Look, much different!" 
No big Red I don't bargain anymore...like I said before I don't go to those bargaining places anymore..I'll give you an example I bought a chess set for around 10 kuai on the street I guess you could call it a bargain street. I go to the silk market ask how much there chess set cost and they told me 1000 kuai. Get the point?
