Shopping time

Regulation

Some business have shopping hours are open 24 hours 7 days-a-week. Some nations regulate the operation of businesses for religious reasons and do not allow Sunday shopping.

Shopping seasons

Shopping seasons are periods where a burst of spending occurs typically near holidays in the United States, where Christmas shopping is the biggest shopping spending season. Some famous target dates are Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Some religions regard such spending seasons against their religion and dismiss the practice. Many question the over-commercialization and the response by stores who downplay the shopping season often cited in the Christmas controversy or War on Christmas.

Pricing and negotiation

The pricing technique used by most retailers is cost-plus pricing. This involves adding a markup amount (or percentage) to the retailers cost. Another common technique is manufacturers suggested list pricing. This simply involves charging the amount suggested by the manufacturer and usually printed on the product by the manufacturer.

In Western countries, retail prices are often so-called psychological prices or odd prices: a little less than a round number, e.g. $ 6.95. In Chinese societies, prices are generally either a round number or sometimes some lucky number. This creates price points.

Often prices are fixed and displayed on signs or labels. Alternatively, there can be price discrimination for a variety of reasons. The retailer charges higher prices to some customers and lower prices to others. For example, a customer may have to pay more if the seller determines that he or she is willing to. The retailer may conclude this due to the customer's wealth, carelessness, lack of knowledge, or eagerness to buy.

Price discrimination can lead to a bargaining situation often called haggling, a negotiation about the price. Economists see this as determining how the transaction's total surplus will be divided into consumer and producer surplus. Neither party has a clear advantage, because the threat of no sale exists, whence the surplus vanishes for both.

In popular culture

There was a television shopping game show called Shop 'Til You Drop.

The Pet Shop Boys wrote a song called "Shopping" for their 1987 album Actually. It takes the totally consumerist approach many shoppers have, and turns it into a satire on the privatisation culture of Britain in the 1980s.

In the Gilmore Girls fourth season episode "Scene in a Mall," a significant part of the episode is devoted to window shopping, which is Lorelai and Rory's main plan for the day.

In the famous shopping quote by Bo Derek, "whoever said money can't by happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping."
Pricing is one of the four p's of the marketing mix. The other three aspects are product management, promotion, and place. It is also a key variable in microeconomic price allocation theory.

Pricing

Pricing is the manual or automatic process of applying prices to purchase and sales orders, based on factors such as: a fixed amount, quantity break, promotion or sales campaign, specific vendor quote, price prevailing on entry, shipment or invoice date, combination of multiple orders or lines, and many others. Automated systems require more setup and maintenance but may prevent pricing errors.

Negotiation
Broadly speaking, negotiation is an interaction of influences. Such interactions, for example, include the process of resolving disputes, agreeing upon courses of action, bargaining for individual or collective advantage, or crafting outcomes to satisfy various interests. Negotiation is thus a form of alternative dispute resolution.

Negotiation involves two basic elements: the process and the substance. The process refers to how the parties negotiate: the context of the negotiations, the parties to the negotiations, the relationships among these parties, the communication between these parties, the tactics used by the parties, and the sequence and stages in which all of these play out. The substance, however, refers to what the parties negotiate over: the agenda, the issues, the options, and the agreement(s) reached at the end.

Skilled negotiators may use a variety of tactics ranging from a straight forward presentation of demands or setting of preconditions to more deceptive approaches such as cherry picking. Intimidation and salami tactics may also play a part in swaying the outcome of negotiations.