Every credit in Probably Stolen is negotiated. Suppliers open high, buyers open low, and the panel between you and the customer is where the game's economy is actually played. Haggling badly is not a neutral outcome — it moves reputations as well as prices. This guide explains what the bargain panel is telling you and how to use it, based on the demo.
1. The panel is the negotiation
When a deal opens, the panel lists what is on the table — every item, its value, and the running total — next to the customer's budget. That budget is a hard fact of the negotiation: push a buyer past it and the deal does not get better, it dies. Experienced players read the panel before they read the customer's face: the numbers tell you how much room exists; the face only tells you how it will feel to use it.
The same panel handles both directions. Selling eight items to one customer, as in the screenshot above the introduction, is a single negotiation with a single budget — which is why batching related goods into one deal can close sales that item-by-item haggling would stall.
2. Buy-side and sell-side pressure are different games
The game's reputation system tracks how you bargain, and it does not treat the two directions as one behavior: bargaining carries separate reputation multipliers on the buy side and the sell side. In practice that means the squeeze that is merely sharp practice when you are buying from a supplier can read very differently when you apply it to a customer — and both are being recorded, in a game where the factions guide in this column shows exactly who keeps the records.
Two more levers sit beside cash. Bartering — goods for goods — is a standing option when credits are tight on either side. And the display case sells without negotiation at all: stock placed there moves at its own pace while your panel time goes to the deals that need judgment.
3. What actually moves a price
Beyond the panel itself, prices in the demo respond to the item's own record and to the station around you:
Labels and state. A [TESTED] water batch, a [Label] retail markup, a "Five Finger Discount" tag on stolen stock — the item's fields are part of its price, and they are visible before you commit.
Market events. Station news moves whole categories: screenshots show a Household Relief Drive cutting household-goods prices and a Water Supply Crisis raising drink prices. Selling into a crisis and buying into a glut is the quiet engine of the mid-game.
Heat. Stolen goods price their risk in. The discount on a hot item is not generosity — it is the market charging you for holding it.
4. When to walk away
Refusal is a complete move, not a failed negotiation. Walk when:
The only acceptable price sits above the customer's budget — the panel has already told you the ending.
The item has not been inspected. Any price is the wrong price for an unknown fake risk.
The deal needs you to hold hot stock into a rent week. A margin that evaporates under inspection was never a margin.
The customer is wrong for the goods. Georgio brings his latest finds to your counter; a supplier with a story that changes between visits is pricing your gullibility, not his goods.
Pushback is information, too. When a customer like Basemeter accuses you of pulling a fast one, the relationship has moved — note it, adjust, and remember that this station remembers faces longer than it remembers prices.
5. A haggling routine that holds up
1. Appraise first — category check, labels, heat, tested state. (See the inspection guide.)
2. Read the budget before naming any number.
3. Anchor near value, not near hope — the tooltip's estimated and base values are the honest frame.
4. Spend reputation deliberately — know which side of the counter you are squeezing, and what that side's record is worth to you.
5. Let the case close the easy sales — panel time is for judgment calls.
FAQ
Can a customer run out of money mid-negotiation?
Effectively, yes — the panel tracks the deal against their budget, and a total they cannot cover ends the negotiation. The budget is shown precisely so you can price inside it.
Does haggling hurt my reputation?
It can. Bargaining applies reputation multipliers, and they differ between buying and selling. Occasional firmness is business; a pattern of squeezing becomes your record.
Is bartering better than credits?
When either side is cash-poor, barter keeps goods moving — and goods in the display case tend to sell. When rent is close, credits are the only currency the landlord takes, so weight deals accordingly.
Why did a price change between two days?
Station events move category prices — relief drives, supply crises, and similar news. Check the item's labels and the day's news before assuming a supplier is cheating you.