Great ‘salespeople, tell us the best time to haggle’ Hunt

The best time to haggle is usually on the day a salesperson has to hit their target. Often it’s then volume, more than price, that counts. So if you’re a MoneySaver working in any form of sales, whether high street, mobile phones or holidays, please tell us the best time to haggle for your industry.

Are there any standard month end or year end dates? Hopefully this’ll up your volume and cut our costs.

Please tell us:

Where you work (put the type of service, if you don’t want to name the company)
Best time of the week/month/year to haggle
How much you’re allowed to discount
Any other top tips

Click reply to share your suggestions.


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Comments

  • Epiphone
    Epiphone Posts: 223 Forumite
    Will be watching this thread with interest as we're going to look at a new car tonight.
  • skibster
    skibster Posts: 3,808 Forumite
    Epiphone wrote: »
    Will be watching this thread with interest as we're going to look at a new car tonight.

    It's the first of the month, which in my experience is a bad time to buy a car. I've gotten a couple of really good deals by waiting until the end of the month. Early in the month, the salesperson won't want to let you haggle him down too much because he's trying to get as much of a commission on the sale as he can. By the end of the month, however, he is probably getting concerned about his overall sales totals, which can be considered for things like bonuses or having the most sales for the month (which may mean a bonus or valuable prize of some kind), etc. So at the end of the month he may be more willing to lose more of his commission on an individual sale because it pumps up his overall sales total. At least that's why I think I was able to get much better deals when I bought cars at the end of the month. The best car deal I ever got was bought on the last day of the month at closing time. I made an offer that was very low, but it's all I could afford and I figured I'd give it a shot before heading over to another dealer to buy the only new car in my price range (that I didn't really like). My timing was right and I got a real bargain.;)
  • nikaso
    nikaso Posts: 74 Forumite
    Similar to the car situation mentioned above, I bought a sports bike (VFR 800 for those interested) on the 28th December a few years ago, bikes don't sell well in Winter fullstop and with year end (for this Honda main dealer it was December) looming they were desperate for another sale to go on the board. Ended up getting a very good deal on the bike.

    I would say if you can find out when a companies year end is it maybe even more effective than month end.
  • knightsy
    knightsy Posts: 48
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    Dixons store group (currys, dixons, pcworld) has weekly and period targets.

    Always end on a Saturday night. If you go for there "easiplan method" they make 10% profit ontop and if you go for there coverplan/whatever happens/pc plan they make even more.

    The thing is they offer discounts off your item if you haggle and want to take these things, but legally they arent allowed to do that (as I understand). So take the discounts, put it on these methods. A couple days later go back, change from easiplan to your credit card (with your interest free balance deals), and cancel the extened warranty. Because on your receipt they discount off your items they dont have a leg to stand on.

    Couple that with the fact that Currys and Pcworld match their own websites and you can pickup a bargain!

    (please delete this if wrong mods, but from friends working their I understand this to be true)
  • mandi
    mandi Posts: 11,932
    First Anniversary Combo Breaker Stoptober Survivor
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    If your buying a car ,, ask for car mats, a full tank of petrol, and 6 months tax to be included in the price... Its never failed for me ..

    ( thats after ive negotiated on the asking price :D )
  • JMio_2
    JMio_2 Posts: 6 Forumite
    Vodafone's targets are monthly, the last few days (Saturdays especially) at the end of the month is when the stores are normally given deals and sweeteners to hit their targets. Xmas time is the worst time to be mobile phone shopping, or any other electrical gadget, because the shops all know that the goods are going to sell anyway.
  • top tips for buying a new car or used.


    There is no better time to purchase a used car than the end of the month, this is because all dealers have to hit acertain target every month and sometimes they will be prepared to give an amazing deal if you are prepared to order, pay and collect the car before the end of the month. and for all of you out there who have just asked yourself the question of "but i'll lose out on my tax won't i?", the dealer can tax the car into the following month on the last day of that month or compensate you for the lost months tax with the fuel equivelent.

    Now the tip i will give you will save you hundreds if not thousands on a brand spanking new car, unlike a used car, don't wait until the end of the month to buy a new car but at the end of the quarter! New cars attract quarterly targets from the manufacturers and as such all sorts of bonuses as well. To give you an idea i work for the largest car retailer in the uk selling both new and used cars to you all, so the advice i give comes from experience on a day to day basis. Our periods end in june, end of september and end of december. In the last few weeks of each quarter we were doing stupid deals to be able to hit our targets, half of the time sellng these cars for less than we paid, but getting the registration bonus from the manufacturer to ensure we made a profit.

    always look at the whatcar target price and as a bare minimum the dealer can beat this!!!!! however you can also get money knocked off if you have finance mainly because we earn commission from it, to give you an idea £10,000 borrowed at an APR of 11/12% will earn the dealer approximately £550.00 in commision (this does not apply to the low rates however which are subsidised by the manufacturer)

    Also sites such as drive the deal etc will give you a price and if the dealer wants your business enough (and in these times he probably will) ask him to match the internet brokers too!!!!


    And finally............ once the dealer looks hot and flustered and has started to get the violins out.... if he cannot discount any more ask him to throw in things such as the paintwork and fabric protection, to him it's £50 or so and he would charge approx £200 - £250 for it.


    Hope this is of help and will keep updating and tips i can help to save you money on your new wheels
  • I'm not sure if it is still the case but about 10 years ago the major housebuilders set targets for their regional offices in terms of number of houses sold. These were usually counted end of June and December. If you wanted to buy in the week before their cut-off date you could get huge discounts (maybe 10%) and there were even companies who just bought houses at these times of year at discounts and immediately re-sold them at full price!
  • Cazza
    Cazza Posts: 1,165
    First Post First Anniversary Combo Breaker
    Forumite
    atr3dot14 wrote: »
    I'm not sure if it is still the case but about 10 years ago the major housebuilders set targets for their regional offices in terms of number of houses sold. These were usually counted end of June and December. If you wanted to buy in the week before their cut-off date you could get huge discounts (maybe 10%) and there were even companies who just bought houses at these times of year at discounts and immediately re-sold them at full price!

    It still is end of June / end of December for many, but the discounts will be based on whether you're in a position to exchange or complete by the end of the accounting period (depending on the build stage of the plot). Reserving the plot makes very little difference. 3-5 weeks beforehand is roughly the time you'll get the discounts.
  • chelleapps
    chelleapps Posts: 17 Forumite
    I will be watching this thread with interest over the next few weeks, we're changing our car and have had a pretty rough experience so far.

    On 28th June we visited a many dealers and eventually found the perfect car. We were expecting the lowest p/ex value for our current car, per Glass's guide, being £1400. They offered us £800! Given the lower p/ex value than we anticipated we were £600 short and there was no way we could raise the difference. As the dealer wouldn't budge, we ended up walking away. The reasoning he gave behind the low offer is because of the current road tax situation - our car is a 2.2 Vectra so he'd have trouble selling it on. Yet we were wanting a 1.8 Zafira - which costs the same as the Vectra in road tax?!

    If all the best deals happen at the end of the month I dread to think what they would have offered if we'd visited him on the 1st! I'd be very interested to hear any comments from anyone in the used car industry.:confused:
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