High Street Haggling Discussion

Super_Stomper

My 3* Gas Boiler Service also has gas fire and gas cooker service as add-ons (which I have for safety reasons, being gas appliances). In the leaflet I noticed that they were replacing the gas cooker service witha simple insurance policy so I rang up to cancel that bit of it as I thought the price was a bit steep for what they were now offering. The call centre lady reduced the fee for that item by 80%!! It's a goodwill gesture for one year only but I'll probably cancel it next year.

pennywise63

Any FOOL can buy items or goods at the retail price displayed .Unless I can get a discount so its a 'bargain' I won't buy it . Keep shopping around mainly on the internet to get lowest prices for any particular item, then try to find out where they get it from. Everything comes to him who waits.

Not a 100% success every time but I usually get what I want at the price I am prepaired to pay or I don't make the purchase. what you have to bear in mind is most big D.I.Y. stores work on 100% mark up on stuff ' Electrical retailers are not far behind. get an idea of what the item is worth off the internet or Ebay.
Martin Lewis may be a very clever chap . Me I am just TIGHT and realise that its rip off Britain

JerryW

To me it seems highly immoral to pretend you want a warranty or other additional product when in fact you do not. At best that is lying, at worst it is fraudulent. I would never do it and I am surprised this website is recommending such behaviour.
You complain quickly enough about similar behaviour by, eg, banks.

Does Martin Lewis have anything to do with this site any more? I always thought he had morals, but there are several things around here that whiff a little now. Time to move on, maybe..

Daniel.KZ

Hi to all!

I just wanted to share what happened today at a Comet store & ask for tips/advice from anyone who has been in a similar situation.

I wanted to purchase a specific laptop & after much hunting/researching, I had found that Comet was the best place to buy it. I managed to reserve one yesterday at their Old Kent Road store, as there are not many about.

I went there today, after watching Martin discussing the best places to haggle feature on Daybreak, so was delighted when he said Comet was no.1!

I viewed the machine, then asked the salesman what deal he could be on the price. He said that the margins were very tight so nothing, but may be able to offer a discount if I took out an extended warranty.

After a chat with the manager, we agreed £60 off if I take the longer warranty. Of course I agreed, so I could refund it a few days later, as Martin suggested what to do...

At the till, the salesman put the laptop through, costing near £700, but no discount. When I questioned this, he said the discount is taken off the extended warranty & not the laptop! Of course, I argued that this was not what we had agreed. but he was having none of it!

I paid for the laptop, & on my way home it really grated on me that I hadnt gotten the money off. It sort of ruined my shopping experience.

Later in the afternoon, I called the store & spoke to the manager who said they never discount the goods, but only the warranties as people would just refund them & keep the discount.

What I want to know is if this is the case, how does Comet come top of the haggling list?

I sort of feel a little hard done by now...

Please let me know your thoughts, etc...

Kindest regards...

angelos1906

Cash is King guys! And yes haggling does work - so much more so in the UK actually. And any small independant business who can't see the benefits of it, is doomed to close down. I have always run business and yes, accept a client's haggling - reduced profits isn't always the end of the world - liquidity however is a huge thing and small and large businesses should embrace it.
My wife can't haggle - AT ALL and when I do just stares at me. But recently I proved to her how effective it is. Her laptop recently caught a virus which basically rendered it useless. She took it into her local Curries and paid £80 to get the the files and documents restored onto her external drive. They gave her a bunch of corrupted files back and said that was all they could do, and that their agreement states that as long as they recover something from the file, their liability finishes there. So of course, not happy with this, I grab the laptop and walk into the Curries and demand to see the manager. Not only did I get the £80 back in store credit, we walked out with a new HP laptop, which was already reduced by about a £100, with an extra £60 discount, and massive discounts on add-ons that we wanted such as MS Office, Cloud, Antivirus, etc.
Also recently I called Phones4U. Me and the wife were on 24 months contracts with T-Mobile with 12 - 18 months left on each contract. I told Phones4U I needed £300 to be able to exit those contracts and would only transfer over to them if they could get me that cash as cashback, better deals than what we were on, and 2 new good phones. A 20 minute conversation later, we got £340 cashback, 2 new phones (Samsung Galaxy S2 + SONY), Vodafone contracts which were better than the ones we were on, and sold the old phones for £80. Not bad for a bit of haggling...

Timerich

Hi,

I went to a local comet store yesterday to buy a tv. Armed with a price match from Argos I was hoping to get a £30 discount. The salesman offered me £15 immediately but I was holding out for the full £30.

He then said the price match wasn't valid as the Argos listing didn't include a model number. Even though it was clearly the same tv.

Has anyone had a similar experience?

MarkNCL

Anyone any experience of Comet Price Matching with Sainsbury? Bought a Fridge Freezer at Comet Hartlepool today for £399.99. Found it later online at Sainsbury for £369.99. They said they don't Price Match with Sainsbury even though they looked it up on their website to check the price before ringing me back. They do Price Match with Tesco according to their website. They did eventually offer me £20 discount as I could point them to a 10% off online order code (but then charged me for delivery). Anyone any similar experiences / or had Comet Stores Price Matching with Sainsbury?

Janetum

Went to John Lewis today to buy a dining table for £750 fully expecting to get 5-10% off the price after watching Martin tell us on Daybreak that John Lewis was one of the shops that people had had major success with in haggling. John Lewis wouldnt give us any discount whatsoever and so they have now missed out on a rather substantial sale. Ah well, their loss and someone else's gain I suppose.

TonyTheKnow

For the smaller hotels, and also guest houses and B&Bs always pick up the phone and ask them for a discount from the prices you have been quoted on the various sites that are about on the internet, for example Laterooms.com and Booking.com

These sites charge the accommodation provider at least 15% + VAT commission, and hence there is plenty of leeway for the accommodation to offer a discount from the published prices. By all means find the accommodation on the sites, then Google for the phone number and give them a call.

Also note that just because it says its full on the sites doesn't mean it actually is. Accommodation will not place rooms on the sites at busy times to avoid the commission. Don't believe what these sites say about offering the cheapest prices, cos the phone call will be cheaper

FOREVER21

Janetum wrote: »

Went to John Lewis today to buy a dining table for £750 fully expecting to get 5-10% off the price after watching Martin tell us on Daybreak that John Lewis was one of the shops that people had had major success with in haggling. John Lewis wouldnt give us any discount whatsoever and so they have now missed out on a rather substantial sale. Ah well, their loss and someone else's gain I suppose.

Agree completly, have tried often to get reduction by haggling never successful. I would like to hear more from those who claim success with J L and atwhich branch they shop definately not at Newcastle.