The more you can do to convince the other party that his or her costs of delay or aborting negotiations will be costly, the more likely he or she will be to establish a modest resistance point.

Distributive bargaining is a negotiation strategy where two parties compete to divide a fixed resource. It's also known as "claiming value," "zero-sum," or "win-lose" bargaining.  In distributive bargaining, the parties assume that there's not enough to go around. The more one side gets, the less the other side gets. This is also known as a zero-sum game in game theory.  Distributive bargaining is a realistic approach to some situations. For example, an American tourist shopping for a rug in Istanbul is often thought of as a classic distributive bargain. The tourist and the rug merchant... Show more

Distributive bargaining is a negotiation strategy where two parties compete to divide a fixed resource. It's also known as "claiming value," "zero-sum," or "win-lose" bargaining. 

In distributive bargaining, the parties assume that there's not enough to go around. The more one side gets, the less the other side gets. This is also known as a zero-sum game in game theory. 
Distributive bargaining is a realistic approach to some situations. For example, an American tourist shopping for a rug in Istanbul is often thought of as a classic distributive bargain. The tourist and the rug merchant have no previous relationship and will probably never see each other again, and there are no posted prices in the shop. 
Distributive bargaining can be seen as aggressive, and drawbacks include damaged business relationships and tense negotiations. However, some say that a more reasonable, cooperative approach may work. 

Show less