“Electricals Haggling” Discussion

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You can save £100s haggling in high street stores or for broadband contracts, insurance and more. The first point of call is read the full Haggling guide. Then, this discussion is specifically to talk about haggling tips for
Electricals

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  • I'm thinking of haggling for a LCD TV at Comet. The guy who sold me my last TV is still there and I managed to get a ex-display set down to less than 50% of the RRP last time around. Reading this guide was great as I didn't know about the extended warranty trick, that will give me some more bargaining power this time.

    My concern is with the dead pixel policy of LCD TVs. Is there anyway I can include that into the haggling process? I think that Comet say that 3 dead pixels in a TV set is still a perfectly working model and would not refund me if this was the case. How would I go about getting a zero tolerance dead pixel guarantee from them while I'm haggling?

    I'm still tempted to buy online so I could take advantage of long distance selling regulations incase I wanted to return my set.
  • I am thinking of haggling at Comet also. The LCD I want is £442 online with free delivery, but its £499 in Comet. If I could get Comet to go under £400... hmmm.
  • jgriggle
    jgriggle Posts: 165 Forumite
    Always tricky with electricals as the margins are so low as all the retailers are selling identical items and all want to be cheapest. I spent 8 years in electrical retail, both in big chains and smaller independents. So here goes!... Single purchases i.e. a TV have little chance of discount as the salesperson will earn next to nothing to sell it to you, and most likely earn nothing if they discount it. This means they'd rather let you leave empty-handed than waste 10 minutes with you and miss out on a juicier sale. If you buy a warranty you have more leverage but these are generally a waste of money (but not always) Big brand stuff usually makes no money for the retailer as they all compete to be cheapest and often sell at a loss. The best you'll get is a price match. If you are buying lots of stuff it's worth asking - you can normally get free cables and accessories as the mark ups on those are huge (around 70-80%). (1964, it's unlikely that Comet would go below 400 quid on your LCD as it probably just isn't worth their while. No harm in asking though!) The best advice I can give when asking is: be nice! If you come across as being rude or patronising, or demanding to see the manager, you have no chance (think about it - if someone was rude or patronising to you would you be inclined to give them what they want?!) I used to enjoy dealing with people who engaged in conversation, were prepared to pay for quality, listened to advice and were pleasant to deal with. I'd make sure that they got the best deal for their money and they went away happy. The thing most guaranteed to annoy were the people who'd come in, point at the cheapest plasma screen in the shop and say "Oi mate, wot's yer best price on this telly?"! Hope this helps, and good luck!
  • I went to Richer Sounds for a TV and found a Sony 26" KDL26S3000 for £350

    in John Lewis this retailed around £500

    Richer only compared prices based on including the 5 year warrantee

    I went to John lewis and they would match the price of Richer which they did. john lewis give a free 5 year warrantee with tvs so I went back to richer and they price matched and included the 5 year warranttee :D

    its worth playing one off against another to get extras on already low prices
  • jaffab
    jaffab Posts: 27 Forumite
    In 3 weeks or so, I will be moving house. As the white goods in my old house were on their last legs, we threw them into the house sale. So when we move into our new house, we will be shopping for a heap of new white goods (Fridge-freezer, washing machine, tumble dryer, possibly new dishwasher, etc).

    My first thought was to pop into comet, pick the items and then haggle as per the tips on this site. But what are others thoughts on...

    1) Other places worth trying (I am not a fan of currys)
    2) Is it worth hanging on a week or two (will the prices be better over of just after christmas)
    3) Any special tips for getting the best prices (e.g, I printed off some prices from their web site a few days ago, to make sure that they are slightly lower anyway re the reduction in VAT)

    Many thanks in advance.;)
  • colino
    colino Posts: 5,059
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    I've been looking for new "cheap" washing machine - Dixons have come out top for price even with the £20 delivery charge with a 5% off (+VAT reduction) til Midnight Sunday 30th Nov. I'm taking this quote to Currys as both companies are owned by the same organisation to see if they will match the price as I need to pick up the machine and have it privately delivered as I'm buying for my son who lives on an Island and these retailers will only deliver to UK mainland.
  • A useful bit of info I picked up from my business contacts with a design Engineer at one of the UK's premier white goods manufacturers was that on white goods etc the big sheds have negotiated 3 year hidden warranties with manufacturers. So when your product guarantee says 1 year, its really three years and when you cough up for the 2 year extended warranty that the shop is keen to sell you, the money is straight profit. If it breaks in the 3 year period the shop just gets it repaired under the three year warranty they already had at no cost to themselves.

    We were buying a washing machine at Comet and the salesman wanted to sell me his very expensive but "very necessary" extended warranty at which point I explained I knew how their warranty system worked, he listened and thouight about it for a short while and realising there was no way I was parting with £100+ for his warranty asked "Ok, would you pay a tenner for it?" and there the deal was struck.

    Just another angle on the warranty negotiation, if they won't discount off the item price in an effort to get you to take their extra warranty, then get them to discount the warranty instead.
  • Hi all this is my first time posting a question. I wondered if anyone had tips on this situation. I have just seen a Pioneer PDP-427xd sold for £899.99 in a shop, it is an ex-display plasma tv from looking at it it is cosmetically really good. I wondered if i would be able to get some money off by haggling and if so what tips would you give me to help me do so. The salesperson also mentioned that it was the last one he had, this model has now been replace by Pioneer PDP-428xd. What arguments would i be able to use to haggle. Thank you in advance for your help.
  • tazical
    tazical Posts: 94 Forumite
    Be careful with haggling- not all shops can afford to give you the discounts that you think they can. I own an independent electrical shop where we make, on average, 25% mark up. That's before VAT is added to the purchase price, which not a lot of people think about.

    For example, if I sell a kettle at £19.99, this means that I pay £12-13 for a kettle, add 25% mark-up and then add another 15% VAT. In other words, I only make about £2-4 on most kettles and yet I'm currently getting entirely fed up of people coming into my shop and asking for discounts on items with a value as low as 10p! People seem to think that we can knock the price down instantly by 30-70%, but obviously I'm not going to sell stock for less than I pay for it myself.

    Also, some types of retailers make a much higher profit margin on many items (a friend worked in a clothes shop where they made a minimum of 300% profit) and different industries have wildly different overheads that they need to pay for. Just because a clothes shop can discount by 50%, it doesn't mean that an electrical shop can. :rolleyes:

    Advice for electrical goods hagglers: be nice and don't be pushy! About 75-80% of people who try to haggle in my shop are entirely offensive and rude right from the start, which gets them exactly nowhere. I don't see why people should be rewarded for being rude, arrogant or lying, so if people start wheedling their sob stories, not taking no for an answer, demanding discounts as their god-given right or (as has happened) shouting at my staff and threatening to smash our windows then they will not only get no for an answer but also will lose any chance at all of us doing them any favours in the future.

    Before you even start haggling, make sure you know if there is a delivery or installation charge for appliances. We offer free delivery and installation as standard on all appliances but often people come to us all woefaced because they thought the multiples were cheaper. By the time the price for a cooker connection or similar is added (up to £58.76 from Currys, for example) it turns out their local independant was cheaper and also generally more helpful in the event of problems.

    Just remember- all shops need to make a profit to survive. Everyone wants to get something as cheap as possible but I'd much rather my local shops stayed in business than haggle them into the ground!
  • Freckles
    Freckles Posts: 28 Forumite
    Hi
    I don't post very often but i just had to post our major money saving experience that my partner and i had today. We recently had an accident with our TV and have had to replace it, the insurance company couldn't give us the TV we wanted so we did a cash settlement and got to go and buy ouor TV ourselves.

    We gave the site a quick once over for any advise, I remembered this weeks email having an entry about haggling, and off we went to Comet. We didn't go with the intention of buying a TV there and then just a fact finding excersise to see what was on offer and what we could do to lower the prices.

    We found the TV we wanted, a Sony Bravia KDL40v4000 marked at £799.99, we'd decided that my partner would do all the talking and i would be the silent partner. Being a woman i do a very good job at looking displeased when i am not happy with the price of things ;)
    So we started haggling, we got them down to £748 with a 5 year warranty, I actually voiced my concerns over the price at this point "it's too much, i have found it cheaper, sorry we will have to look else where" at which point my partner said, "i do like the TV but are you able to do a better price?"
    The young lad went off and returned with the offer of £700 with a three year warranty thrown in.
    We had a brief discussion between us, thought about pushing for more and decided to call it a day. We bought the TV and made this young lads day as it was 7pm on a Friday and i am sure we boosted his sales for the day.
    Needless to say we will be cancelling the 3 year warranty next week and we got our lovely new TV for the grand total of £540 I couldn't have got that TV for that price even on the internet.
    On top of that we paid for it with our Tescos Credit card, which we will pay off immediatley, earning us a further £1.75, converting them to £7 to be used for clubcrd deals, not a lot but it all adds up.

    Both my partner and I have big grins on our faces as we have saved a grand total of £267 :rotfl:
    What contemptible scoundrel stole the cork from my lunch?

    Paid off £22,528.09 debt since Jan 18, and counting. Still got 18 months to go :T
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