Negotiating price is extremely common in corporate environments. If I had to guess what it accomplishes, I’d say building a relationship with your trading partner.
Many / most corporate negotiations are legitimately necessary because every contract being negotiated is unique. Negotiations allow both parties to set terms and come to an agreeable price when there is no preset price.
A market vendor who knows an apple should cost $2 but charges $5 in the hopes of screwing over a tourist is just an asshole. I can't imagine how that builds relationships.
There is a standard price, or at least there could be. It would be trivial for the apple seller to calculate the average price he ends up negotiating, and setting that as the published, firm price.
That is what's frustrating about negotiating for commodities like food. The seller is taking advantage of information asymmetry. They know what the standard price is, and they hope that you don't. It's scummy.
It is different when there isn't a set price, i.e. if you are trying to buy a one of a kind item. In that case even in the Western world some negotiation would be acceptable, (buying an original painting from an artist, for example). But this does not justify having to haggle for everything you want to buy, every time.
> That is what's frustrating about negotiating for commodities like food.
While I generally agree with you, if you're buying fresh food at a market, such as the apples in your example, it isn't necessarily a commodity. Quality and size will vary from one item to the next; why must they all be the same price? Places where goods tend to be more standardized seem to rely less on haggling and more on sorting: you don't haggle over the price of an apple out of a mixed lot, you pay a set price for a certain grade of apple which has been separated out in advance.
You’re biased against the seller and even your example of “fair” price is arrived at after negotiations! Where would that come from if there is no haggling?
Even a published price is nothing more than a free option for buyers. It’s a ceiling. There’s nothing that prevents the seller from offering a lower unpublished price.
Through the conversation, you learn the idiosyncrasies of the other person. In a culture where haggling is normal, their “style” gives you insight into their personality and how they might act in other scenarios. And it identifies you as an insider or outsider to the culture. At the very least, you’ve learned their name and face.
I also hate haggling, and since I’m not from a culture where it’s a norm I can’t use it to read deeper into a person. (Or them into me.) But it’s not too hard to imagine how it helps to build relationships.
