Probably Stolen: How to Bargain and Negotiate Maximum Customer Prices

Negotiating every credit out of your customers in Probably Stolen requires balancing retail markups against client budgets and faction reputation. Knowing when to buy full lots for 24% to 33% wholesale discounts, when to offer a discount to expand a buyer's wallet, and who you can haggle with penalty-free keeps cash flowing on both standard and hard modes.

Counter Space Rules, Retail Markup, and Customer Budgets

Every trade in Probably Stolen takes place across the negotiation counter, where dragging items into the center panel reveals total price, active market modifiers, and the client's spending limit. Always keep both the inside and outside counter grids clear during business hours so incoming sellers have space to place their wares, and never leave items sitting on the outside counter overnight or thieves will steal them.

On standard markup difficulty, your shop automatically sells items with a 15% retail markup above estimated base value—calculated using modifiers from the appraisal guide—(and Jackson's stock markup was lowered from 25% to 15% on Normal), whereas hard mode removes the 15% retail markup and raises weekly rent by 10%. Every customer arrives with a strict credit budget—if your proposed sale total (such as 75 credits against a 50-credit budget) exceeds their limit, the sell button will not complete until you remove items, swap in cheaper goods like cotton or junk, or buy items from them first to put more cash in their pocket. To attract normal expected customers with larger starting budgets, stock a wider range of items in your display case, keep the shop clean, and install attractiveness upgrades, Joe Barlow display cases, or a projector.

Wholesale Lot Discounts, Variety Buyers, and Chilled Bonuses

When scavengers, junkers, or upper-level contacts offer multiple items for sale, purchasing the entire lot triggers an automatic wholesale discount—commonly 24%, 25%, or 33% off the total price. Watch the conversation recorder for buyer preferences: variety buyers looking for snacks, beverages, or repair materials pay a variety markup bonus, but they refuse to buy two of the same item (such as two sodas) in a single transaction.

Contraband goods naturally command higher retail markups than legal wares, and storing beverages or food inside an upgraded refrigerator adds a 20% chilled price bonus that helps offset the 0% base markup on hard mode. Note that premium and discount buyers apply their price modifier once to boxed contents, and items placed inside a container when bribing the trade board official count their full value toward the bribe.

Haggling Odds, Budget Expansion Discounts, and the Aug Loophole

Using the haggle controls to demand an extra markup (such as +10% or +50%) or request a 25% buying discount displays a percentage acceptance roll (such as a 50% chance to accept). Pushing markups too aggressively damages your faction status and can cause a buyer to reject a 10% markup and march out of the store without buying anything.

Conversely, offering a customer a small discount improves their disposition and can expand their total spending budget, which is especially useful when an upper-level water wholesaler arrives to buy jugs produced from water purification with 2,560 credits and you want to stretch their order even further. One risk-free exception to haggling penalties involves disguised rogue AI augs: when you spot an aug by mismatched clothing or suspicious dialogue, haggle with them as hard as possible while buying and selling first, because haggling with an aug never deducts faction reputation before you draw your weapon and shoot them for the security bounty.