Negotiating Prices Down

nat82

Oh Claire, that's WONDERFUL!!!! I'm amazed, well done you!!!!

x x x

ncv2

Try it, if they say no you are in the same place you are now.

My wedding is in the US and we talked our price per head from $165 pp to $130 pp. We will have 100-110 people so huge savings!

Also maybe try bartering services or goods. We are going to try this as well, though we haven't yet. I founds these sites though:

http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/money/saving/barter-anything-00000000014565/index.html

This one is American, but has good articles as well, good luck!
http://bigdaybarter.com/forumdisplay.php?f=24

*Louise*

Claire2831 wrote: »

Hi Everyone, just wanted to thank you for the advice. I managed to knock the price down from £1350 to £900 - absolutely thrilled!

Well done!! :T

What was your technique??

Claire2831

I’m so chuffed, £450 – Amazing!

Honestly, All I did was email back to say that unfortunately the price was outwith my budget and that other bands I had looked at had quoted substantially less because my weddings on a Friday. That their band was my first choice and was there any flexibility with the price…….

Definitely pays to ask the question

ncv2

Congrats! That's great

Horace

Well done Claire - sorry for not posting after your question about how I negotiate.

I want to spend as little as possible and have an amount in my head that I want to spend, when I speak to the supplier (we'll take the magazine as a good example), they say £250 plus VAT and I say sorry I am a start up business is there any way you can come down on price? I wait and see what they offer..they dropped it to £150 plus VAT and I said that it was still too steep and could they come down any more? The price dropped to £125 and I still wasnt happy as I was aiming for £95 plus VAT all along, in the end they offered me £115 plus VAT so I said that I would meet them in the middle and pay £100 plus VAT then had the brass neck to ask them for an early payment discount of 5% which they agreed too so I got the ad for the price I wanted to pay.

If you buy goods/services - always be cheeky and ask if they will give a discount for cash (some will, some won't), if you are at an antique fair for instance - don't pay the price on the ticket always ask if that is their best price, if they say yes..walk away, 9 times out of 10 they will then give you a better price to pay. I have even tried this in charity shops - and many a time I have purchased antique glass and never paid what they were asking for it..I have always paid less.

Don't be afraid in any scenario of asking for an early payment discount especially if paying by credit card - you will be surprised at what folks will say.

As my mum would say "if you don't ask, you don't get":D

Loonytoons

Great result, Claire :beer:

Mrsday2Be_2

Fantastic result Claire, well done to you!!!

It's amazing how much people mark ther prices of things up when the 'W' word is involved. We had the same issue with our wedding reception venue ( a small pub with a great reception venue attached), we're getting married in Feb, not exactly peak wedding time, and they wanted to charge us £450 for the venue hire from 7pm -12am and then have us use their own catering at £10.50/head. Not very MSE of them I thought!

Being me, and using my 'Australianism', I very brazenly told them that as the weding is being held out of the normal wedding season time I would be willing to pay £195 for the venue hire. I then also announced that we would only be willing to self cater as a family member wants to supply food as a wedding present, but that we would be willing to have a cash bar on the night so that the venue could get their revenue that way.

I followed all of that up by saying that we would be quite willing to take our wedding to another venue if this was not something they could not accommodate us with.

It took them exactly 2 minutes to say OK and we saved almost £980!
We're now able to cater for the crowd for approx £200 as we have a wholesale catering contact in the family who can get everything at cost, we're having a champagne toast and paying for the drinks for the kids attending the event.

Did I feel guilty for bargaining things down? Maybe a little - but that was quickly replaced with the thrill of knowing that we saved almost a thousand pounds. lol

Horace

Well done MrsDay2Be.

Ladies - its a buyer's market at the moment so make hay whilst you can - negotiate all the way. Heck, I am even going to try it on with the garage to see if they will let me have the trade in on my old car they originally offered as well as a huge discount for cash - if they don't play then I am not that bothered I will keep my car for a while longer.