Do you have it in you to stand in front of a total stranger, palms sweating, and ask them for a favour? To stand there while a person who has all the power in the transaction of goods in exchange for money looks at you like you are just the very worst type of person?

Well, according to barter baron Dominic Littlewood, haggling is something that we should all do every single day to make sure that we get the very best deal we can, clutching back power from those greedy fat cats in their ivory towers and golden limousines.

Littlewood thinks that we should approach the High Street like a battleground, with such military precision that even Alexander The Great would raise a heavy brow. Reconnoiter the enemy; DFS or some such, and lead a charm offensive against the person who’s just doing their job on a wet and windy Wednesday and won't be prepared for your full on barrage of cheery questions and name using.

Haggling in places that aren’t a marketplace in Mexico or a beach in Barbados is often seen as crass and distinctly un-British, behaviour reserved for environments where you don’t really care what people think of you. Definitely not a multi-billion marketplace where every penny counts and your custom can make or break thousands of people’s jobs. What do Dominic Littlewood and money mogul Martin Lewis know about trying to get money off a £3 pair of socks from Primark?

I took myself off to find the truth behind haggling, and whether it actually works or if it’s just an elaborate myth; like seeing the Great Wall of China from space, chewing gum taking seven years to digest, or James Corden’s appeal. It was just as embarrassing as you’d imagine.

House Of Fraser

Large department stores are empirically more likely to be open to the idea of haggling. With more than 54 per cent of people reporting a successful haggle sesh in John Lewis, I thought that I’d be in for an easy win. A quick boost to start me off on my quest for haggling stardom. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

A very sweet suite

Picking out a pretty swanky looking £2000 suite (in a chic tobacco leather because I still like nice things in my fictional life where I can afford chic tobacco leather suites) the suited floor staff sidled up to us in ill-fitting trousers and slip on mules, and started quizzing us about our budget and what we liked about it. Blatantly lying, as Littlewood encourages us to, I bragged about my £1500 budget, hoping that we could meet in the middle, like you’d see on Dragon’s Den, or Dickinson’s Real Deal.

Unfortunately, whether it was my battered white trainers, or my unsure, slightly squeaky tone, my assistant was having none of it. He saw through us like we were made of glass. Though he did say that he would ring his area manager if we were able to pay entirely in cash that day. I’m not made of money Mr Tobacco Suite Man, so I scuttled off to lick my wounds and regroup. Round One to capitalism and leather look slip ons.

The changing face of the British shopping basket Show all 12 1 /12 The changing face of the British shopping basket The changing face of the British shopping basket The nation's shopping basket The 'shopping basket' of items making up the suite of consumer price inflation indices are reviewed every year. Some items are taken out of the basket, some are brought in, to reflect changes in the market and to make sure the indices are up to date and representative of consumer spending patterns. Over 700 goods and services go in the basket to try and accurately reflect household spending. The prices of each item are then tracked over time to measure inflation, or the rate at which prices are rising or falling. Here is how it has changed since 1947. The changing face of the British shopping basket 1947: Milk, Tea and bread Many items have been in the basket for a very long time: milk, bread and tea have been there since 1947. The changing face of the British shopping basket 1956: The tin kettle If tea has been in our baskets since 1947, the tin kettle dropped out of the list in 1956. It was replaced by the electric kettle in 1987. The changing face of the British shopping basket 1962: The mangle The mangle, used to press or flatten sheets, tablecloths, kitchen towels, or clothing and other laundry, disappeared from the nation's shopping basket in 1962. The changing face of the British shopping basket 1987: The microwave The microwave made its appearance on the list in 1987. It was added with the vacuum cleaner, the washing machine, the hairdryer and the electric kettle among others. The changing face of the British shopping basket 1987: Radiosets Radiosets disappeared from the nation's shopping basket in 1987. The changing face of the British shopping basket 2001: Credit card fees Credit card fees appeared on the list in 2011. The changing face of the British shopping basket 2007: The VHS video recorder The VHS video recorder disappeared in 2007, coincidentally the Blu-Ray player was added to the list in 2010. The changing face of the British shopping basket 2014: DVD recorder The DVD recorder was removed in 2014 due to recording alternatives. The changing face of the British shopping basket 2014: Video-streaming service subscription Kevin Spacey appears in a scene from Netflix series “House of Cards.” A video-streaming service subscription was included in 2014’s virtual shopping basket. The changing face of the British shopping basket 2015: Electronic cigarette refills/liquid Electronic cigarette refills were introduced due to the increase in expenditure as more people are using e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation aid. The changing face of the British shopping basket 2016: Coffee-pods People are making coffee at home rather than buying it out, thanks to the popularity of coffee pods, which made the list for the first time this year.

Boots

Boots, the only place to go for your aftershaves, meal deals and prescriptions was our next port of call, in the hope that we could score some cheap cosmetics by using the time old "well I’ll be going to the airport on Friday, so I’ll get Duty Free" line. It is a lie they must hear all the time, because Karen from Clarins rebounded it like Wonder Woman ricocheting a Nazi’s bullet; she was not interested.

She also seems to have followed Dominic Littlewood’s advice by asking questions and leaving an awkward pause after the answer so someone has to fill in the blanks. Karen from Clarins was a pro at haggling; she probably hasn’t paid full price for something since 1995, and that was only because it was a Special Edition Billy Bass.

We tried every angle we could think of; "my Mam would love that" was a particular favourite, and by the end Karen probably thought we had such a sick fetish for Clarins Beauty Flash Balm she gave us some free samples to take home, but not before taking our details and logging us onto a database. So, not only did we come away with no discount, but we also got a sympathetic look and put on a database.

Models Own

If you’re not aware of Models Own, they’re basically the main provider of metallic and glittery nail varnishes to the general public. Not something I endorse, but a fact nonetheless. Models Own was the last stop of our shopping trip and came about on a whim because the young woman working inside almost dragged us in. This was going to be easy, we thought, as time was getting on and the sun was going down – she was clearly desperate for a sale. We couldn’t have been more wrong.

This woman was the human equivalent of that scene in Aliens where Corporal Hicks suggests they nuke the site from orbit, just to make sure. She was a heat blast of retail professionalism. She knew everything about her products and prompted us to try each one, on the back of my hand for some reason because you can’t have different coloured nails apparently. When the time came to pay, and I noticed a set of something or others reduced to £11.99 and cheekily asked if she’d take a tenner, she smiled at me, sagely, like she’s heard every handsome Northerner do the same, and politely but firmly refused. Not only had I endured an affront on my sensibilities, but she’d also made me realise how completely useless I am at my own job.

Verdict

So as we left the shopping centre, though we’d came away with two free samples from Boots, and a "maybe" from House Of Fraser, we’d also had a knock to our self esteem. If haggling does nothing else, it shows us that the Great British Public need our hard-pushed retail staff more than ever, and that retail staff, millions in number, are excelling like we’ve never seen before, under more and more perilous circumstances.