An American retail event organised around the proposition that prices are movable, announced weeks in advance, and treated as a national occasion. The same goods, the same shops, a different number.
retail
Name Your Own Price
Priceline built a business on inverting the transaction: the customer states a figure and the seller decides whether to take it. The mechanism only makes sense in a market where nobody believes the listed price is the real one.
Haggling
To haggle. A German verb with an unmistakable register — markets, bazaars, small sums, and a slight contempt. No German professional describes their own negotiating as Feilschen. It is what other people do.
The Nordstrom handbook
The American retailer’s employee handbook became famous for its brevity: use good judgment in all situations, and there will be no additional rules. Whether the card was quite that short is argued about. That it became an American business legend tells you what the audience wanted to believe.
OBO
Or Best Offer. Three letters appended to a price in American classified advertising, on Craigslist, in shop windows, on cars parked with a sign. The seller publishes a number and an invitation to ignore it in the same breath.
Disposable
An American product category with its own aisle: razors, cameras, cutlery, containers, contact lenses. The word is a selling point rather than a criticism, and what is being sold is the absence of an obligation.
The refill
Free refills on soft drinks and coffee are standard in American restaurants, and portion sizes are a recognised point of international comparison. Abundance is part of what is being sold.
eBay
A company built on the premise that nobody knows what a thing is worth until people bid on it. The seller sets a starting price, which is understood by everyone involved to be a floor rather than a valuation.
What the customer is buying
The customer is always right. Whatever the customer needs. We’ll make it work. Happy to flex on that. Yes, and we can bill it. American supplier speech accommodates first and prices afterwards. The refusal, where it comes, arrives as a number rather than as a no.
Employee of the month
An American workplace institution with a photograph on the wall, a parking space, a plaque and a public announcement. Nothing about it is private. The recognition is designed to be seen by everyone who was not chosen.