Today began with a site visit to the Cat Lai Terminal, a port where international shipments are received and unloaded. This was one of the more interesting site visits, and it focused heavily on operations, which is one of my interests within business. Hearing our tour guide talk about the massive complex network of plans that must be put together to achieve the reception, unloading, and inspection of the shipments made the terminal seem like the perfect case study for an operations class. Even just hearing about the number of subsidiary companies that the terminal has for every activity from logistics to trucking gave a solid view of the complexity of a port.
After finishing at the terminal, we headed over to the Ben Thanh market to buy souvenirs and practice bargaining. Showing up as obvious foreigners in nice business casual clothing, we knew we were going to get up charged for everything, which made it a perfect place to practice the bargaining skills. Aside from the new experience of having shop owners try their best to get you into their stores, the market was interesting because you could see how well versed the shop owners were in human nature. Having worked to sell their products for many years, they have clearly built up a knowledge of how best to sell someone on something. For example, it was clear that they could immediately tell which object you truly wanted and which you didn’t, as the price for two similar objects could differ significantly depending on their estimate of how much you desired it. Additionally, each shop owner seemed to have their own unique strategy, whether it was asking personal connections to build some type of brief relationship or aggressively and emotionally trying to sell you. This was my first experience in a bargaining situation, and, after paying too much in my first attempt, I learned plenty about how to better negotiate.