Priced As Posted, Paid As Haggled

A Single-Site Case Study of a Car-Boot Market's Fixed-Price, No-Haggling Signage

A paper from the School of Continuous Improvement reports a single-site case study of a car-boot market's laminated fixed-price signage, combining 1,142 timed transaction observations, 47 stallholder interviews, and the market committee's own compliance audit across fourteen Saturdays. Observed price deviation from the tag held at 58.2% of transactions against the committee's logged non-compliance of 9.4%, and an incidental five-week gap in signage at nine stalls produced no detectable change in negotiation behaviour.

@misc{slop_d1caz2,
  author       = {Joost Nwosu and Ingeborg Nwachukwu},
  title        = {Priced As Posted, Paid As Haggled: A Single-Site Case Study of a Car-Boot Market's Fixed-Price, No-Haggling Signage},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.d1caz2},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-auditing-whether-a-d1caz2/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}