It’s no real deal, if it ain’t a big steal

The story goes that when a passer-by asked the time of day, a salesman replied, “It’s a quarter to four, but for you I’ll make it three forty-five.” Such a pitch would be well received by the growing band of bargain-hunters whose ceaseless search — both online and offline — for deals that are a steal has added a new word to the lexicon of commercial negotiation — freebonomy, or a business model based on a wide range of products and services — from food to movie tickets being promoted through the offer of a variety of freebies. Not only has this version of the ‘parallel economy’ disproved the concept that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but has gone on to show that, free lunches apart, there can also be free breakfasts, elevenses and dinners, thanks to ‘bogof ’, ‘buy one, get one free’, schemes.

Indeed, such competitive cost-cutting has led to a freebie-feud between food order aggregators and hotel and restaurant associations who feel that their pockets aren’t deep enough for some of the deep discounts being offered on their behalf by the former. Bargaining too follows the law of diminishing returns, as vouchsafed by a visitor, who, haggling with a Cairo vendor seeking a queen’s ransom for ‘Cleopatra’s skull’, was made the half-price counter-offer of the Queen of the Nile’s cranium when she’d been five years old.