In May 2024 Ankit Sawant posted on X: “Mom got a mini heart attack because she had to pay for dhaniya on Blinkit.” At a vegetable stall, a little coriander, dhaniya, often comes free. His mother suggested that the delivery app should bundle it free “with a certain amount of veggies.”
Blinkit’s chief executive, Albinder Dhindsa, replied that he would. Soon after he posted: “It’s live! Everyone, please thank Ankit’s mom.”
Packaged goods in India must carry a printed maximum retail price, the MRP. The government made it mandatory in 1990. Under Rule 18(2) of the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, a seller may not charge more than the printed price. A seller may charge less.
“Retailers also enjoy the legal freedom to underprice a product, the government having fixed only the upper limit,” Outlook explained in 2022. Companies began quoting a lower market operating price as well, because “customers have always bargained on MRP and sought discounts.”
At the Sunday market in Garbada, in the Dahod district of Gujarat, cattle are sold through brokers called koydiyas. Two brokers clasp hands and cover them with a handkerchief. They settle the price through “a series of coded finger movements,” Gujarat Samachar reported in November 2025.
Only the people involved know the code.
Bohni is the first sale of the day. Many shopkeepers believe that it “establishes the seller’s luck” for the rest of the day. Some hold out for full price in cash. Others lower the price to close the first sale quickly.
Buyers have duties too. “Unless the price is egregious, it is considered good manners for customers to be generous,” Wikipedia notes. A trusted customer may even be allowed to name the price.
On Linking Road in Bandra, Mumbai, the street stalls sell sandals and other goods at prices that are open to bargaining. “You bargain, you pout, you make an offer and casually stroll away, hoping to be called back,” Business Standard described it in 2012. One shopper brought a pair of sandals down from 100 rupees to 75.
“It’s a game, and both sides know it.”
In 2011 and 2012 Indonesia barred the export of its coal below a benchmark price. Adani Power, with a plant at Mundra in Gujarat, and Coastal Gujarat Power, a subsidiary of Tata Power, then “filed petitions before the CERC seeking compensatory tariff,” a higher price than their power purchase agreements set. On April 11, 2017, the Supreme Court ruled on the matter in Energy Watchdog v. CERC.
The matter did not end there. In 2018 the Gujarat government formed a high-power committee, which recommended changes to the tariffs. “The Gujarat government has approached the Supreme Court seeking to amend the PPAs,” the trade journal Power Line reported in October 2018.
“Last price kya hai, bhaiya?” What is the last price, brother? The Indian news site The Quint lists the question among the things every Indian says to a shopkeeper. Its caption sums up the scene: “Indians = BARGAINING!”
Mol-tol. Bargaining, haggling, valuation, concession, in the Rekhta dictionary.
Mol-bhaav. To bargain, to make a bargain. Rekhta’s Hindi definition adds the talk that settles a deal and the fixing of a price.
In a field experiment among pen wholesalers in Chennai, buyers were matched at random with sellers. Buyers matched with a seller from their own ethnic group received a discounted price.
The sellers did not ask these buyers for smaller advance payments, however. The researchers concluded that the discount came from preference for the group, not from greater trust.