Haggling for a sofa? (Worth it? Which points?)

SarahAnne

My husband and I are awful hagglers, but I'm keen to improve on this!

We've been wanting to buy a corner counch for several months now, and have finally decided on the one we'd like. See http://www.harveys4furniture.co.uk/categories.php?cPath=24_33_392 (Harveys, £699 in the current sale).

We'd be wanting to buy it outright with cash, or on a Visa DEBIT card.

I saw instore that this couch has the option of 6months interest free credit, I believe (it may even be 1 year).

Would it be worth trying to haggle for this sofa?
If so, what sort of things should I be saying/can anyone recommend a tactic?

I was browsing in Waterstone's a few days ago and picked up a book by Martin Lewis wherein he says that the interest free credit option is likely to be a good point for arguing for a "real" discount as this option would cost the shop something to give out.

A typical example from their website would be:

Credit Example: Minimum order cash price £499.99.Pay 10% deposit £49.99 Then nothing to pay until January 2006 when you can either pay off the balance in full or make 39 monthly payments of £20.59 Total amount payable £853.00. Credit subject to status to UK residents aged 18 or over and supplied by GE Capital Bank Ltd., 6 Agar Street, London WC2N 4HR. Harveys Amberley House New Road, Rainham, Essex RM13 8QW.

Another point is any delivery fees (of £32.50). We've always paid these before now -- worth looking into?

Would be grateful if someone could offer a few tips/advice here!

Sarah.

DaisyNelson

Take the money out of your purse/wallet so they can see you are seriously considering buying. Then just go for it and ask for a discount for cash and free delivery. They can only say no and you don't have to buy from them. Pick a quieter time of day to go in. maybe first thing, when the salespeople will be keen to get an early sale (often the hardest to make). Good luck.

albalad

a lot of the furniture shops are reluctant to give discount on delivery , as they usually pay a subcontractor to deliver for them .......... at least that was our experience with land of leather last year .

but by then we had already got £50 off by insisting on getting his best price , before we agreed to buy
ps, it was already on sale , january 2nd last year

SarahAnne

Okay, thanks for the tips, guys, in that case I think we'll head in for when the store opens with £640 cash -- would that be taking the mickey, offering that amount of money for the sofa? Would I be best offering £600 first and then going up a bit, etc.?

(The reason why the figure of 640 has been picked for us to offer is that's how much cash we will literally have on our person for this - £140 in the house, £250 from one bank card, £250 from another = total £640 cash.)

Would they laugh us out of the store?

As for delivery, in my experience they never deliver when they say they will anyway - got £20 delivery back from Bensons For Beds one time when the bed wasn't delivered when they said it would be! Might just see what happens...

ruthyjo

Friend bought a leather set from dfs during this xmas hols. Total advertised price was £1800 and they didn't want any credit. Salesman admitted he was on commission but would not budge at all on the price - said he had no authoirty to. Even when they left the shop and said they wouldn't be back he wouldn't budge. Poor things had to return later and pay the advertised price. This was a leather set so perhaps that made a difference as previous poster suggested.

ljonski

How much do you want to pay for it? How much do you think it is worth? Before you go in decide how you are going to play it. THE MoTLEY FOOL website has good tips for haggling. Do some research on similar products. Be polite and a good idea to mention something about a similar product being offered by a competitor but you would really like to get this if you could get it for the "right PRice"

RufusA

Given the number of struggling furniture retailers and the few that have gone bust I would *STRONGLY* suggest you don't pay cash. You should pay by credit card so you have some kind of protection should the company go bust, or the sofa turns out to be a dud or has very long delivery times and the company is dragging it's heels dealing with it.

Personally if you can, look at the underside of the sofa before parting with any money, I've seen some appalling sofas where when you look underneath you can see cheap softwood frames held with staples on a nearly £1000 sofa from a "reputable" store.

When I was buying a sofa a couple of years ago from Furniture World, the friendly sales person stated that the Interest Free Credit costs Furniture World nothing. The credit company use IFC as a way of selling high interest credit (remember you get charged for the full period if you don't clear by the end of the IF period), and value added products, sickness/redundancy protection, other credit etc.

The sales person gets comission on "coatings" sales, which is why they push it hard and can discount the sofa if the coating is bought.

If all else fails I'd try and push for freebies / discounted extras (if they won't budge on price), a "time is of the essence" delivery time in writing, and pay the deposit by Credit Card. Take the Interest Free option (having ticked all the boxes saying you DON'T want any insurance products with the credit), and invest the cash in a savings account. Make sure you pay the loan off before the end of the IFC period though.

YMMV, HTH etc. Rufus.

albalad

great advice rufusA .............. but what does ymmv mean ?

Repo

albalad wrote:

great advice rufusA .............. but what does ymmv mean ?

"your mileage may vary"

HTH


BTW: Make sure that any credit card you use is actually a credit card and not a visa debit card. The buyer protection for debit cards is on the whole much lower IIRR.

red

hi, does anyone know what is the mark-up on a suite? we are looking at a suite in john peters but do not know what amount of discount we are likely to get...

hungry_2

very high mark-up -- mebbe 75%+

they mostly come from China & Spain *& are amazingly cheap over there!
[i'm reffering to leather sets only]