Buying Jewellery on Credit

Eonel

Paddy - you are indeed a master haggler !

Thank you for an interesting read.

opinions4u

lilymay1 wrote: »

We've had a tough few years and he deserves a treat. Fortunately, I am in a relatively good financial position.

He won't be getting anything else for the next 20 years though :rotfl:

Any blokes who think marriage is an easy route to plentiful nookie with a beautiful lady, READ THE ABOVE!

paddyrg

Eonel wrote: »

Paddy - you are indeed a master haggler !

Thank you for an interesting read.

Heh heh, I've spent a couple of years around Asia and the Middle East! I am an absolute amateur compared to some of the shopkeepers etc out yonder, but the above will help you do pretty well in the UK where people don't tend to haggle. Most goods in the UK are actually very cheap/low margin, and high-street retailers are struggling as it is, frankly I would rather keep my local grocer for the sake of 20p, but luxury items with massive margins like jewelry are fair game in my mind.

In effect you just turn the heavy sales techniques around - usually you are being urged to "buy NOW limited offer" etc., so slow things down for yourself and give them the time pressure instead. Time is your great friend as it also gives them a chance to like you as a person (if you are personable), people do favours for people they like. This is also the benefit of coming and going a couple of times - you get breathing space to reflect, they get a chance to be uncertain if they lost a sale. Also, each fresh greeting builds familiarity and rapport, but also adds a little to the nag factor. Plus it means you get a nice sit down with tea when they imagine you're at another jewelers ;-)

Shopkeepers love people handling the merchandise as it builds a sense of ownership (test drives are a sales tool, not for you to check the car runs!), so handle it but then get them to put it away once you have signalled an interest. Again, it is like fishing, you get them hooked on the feeling of making a high commission sale, then sneak it back. Make them hungry for it!

The biggest hurdle though is just asking outright "what's your best price?" - it feels so wrong the first time you try it, but do try it, especially if you are buying more than one item, ideally an older model/design/something the manager is getting twitchy about ever shifting. Sometimes the assistant may fluster and read you the label price, you just ask again. They have no authority to discount usually, so will get the manager who will likely give 10% pretty easily on most goods - roughly the same as the staff discount - as he is thinking about his bonuses/bottom line.

People think electronics are high-margin, they are not, usually the shop makes a few percent on a laptop, so 10% is a big ask. If you get anythng over 5% on a main item (not peripherals) like a laptop, you are doing well.

And there is a time and place for haggling, and a time and place not to. Most stuff I am happy to pay retail but pick my shop wisely - prices are normally reasonable for day to day goods, and arguing over 5p on toothpaste makes the haggler look petty and silly...but £150 on a luxury watch is another matter entirely!!

One last thing - it is a game and a bit of fun for you both. Remember that in your mind you had already committed a grand for it, so anything you save beyond that is a bonus. If you leave with a free 50p polishing cloth you are still a goddess, and by no means lesser. The deepest discounts come when you are genuinely prepared to walk away from a deal, you already love the watch, your mind is committed, so get the best deal you can on that day and be proud

dealer_wins

paddyrg wrote: »

Oh I assure you you can haggle on the high street! Not worth it on everyday odds and ends and low margin stuff, but for a watch from a jewelers without a doubt.

Play your cards slowly, get chatting with one particular assistant you can banter gently with and make yourself recogniseable to them so they know when you leave and return to the shop later. Start off liking the watch, but being unattached to it. Be a bit noncommital, have a look at it, then ask them to put it back on the shelf. They WANT this sale, and know they may have to work a little at it if you don't just bring out the cash! You tease them slightly with the lure of the sale. It's like fishing.

When you have left the shop for a nice cup of tea and slice of cake, go back in asking to have a look at it again asking what their "very best price is". Someone now will sense that this may be a decent sale. And a grand is a decent sale anywhere. Someone should come back to you with a better offer. You can usually go that bit tighter again. Say if they give 10%, you say you need to go away and "check with the bank". More tea. Go back in with a counteroffer, rounding it down (maybe try for 20% off the window price - the margins are huge on jewelry, they can afford this, but will protest)

Now they may either try to meet you partway down, or you may want to get a bunch of 'stuff', or both. Once they have suggested a new suitably lower price you are happy with, maybe 15% off window price, don't react to it, but ask about how you care for it, servicing, peripherals, boxes, polishes, whatever extras you can think of. Let them impress you with their knowledge, you will never have their attention more than at this moment, so let them work for it. Pick a couple of extras out. Now you can ask about the 0% deal, be chatty, ask if that costs them a lot to administer, etc. You have them going on 2 fronts now, you're going to scissor the extras against the cost of the 0% deal. Extras are usually stupidly high margins, so £50 of extras probably costs them a fiver, so they can be more generous with them. Some shoe shops price insoles at £5+, for instance, but they pay about 50p, same in jewelry shops.

Purse out, say something like "tell you what - save the cost of the 0% and chuck the extras in, we have a deal". There will be some protesting, and here is where you basically put them on the spot - look like you have other options elsewhere, someone has moments to say yes to keep your purse out as you start to put it back in your bag. Make it look like this sale is a bigger deal to them than you. If you really need a final bargaining chip, pull a wodge of notes out of your bag, and offer cash on the table there and then. A big pile of £20 notes gets people very focussed very quickly.

Throughout you stay ever so personable, smile take your time, never let yourself be rushed, but let them carry the pressure of you looking like you may go elsewhere, and you have the best chance. I would say without too much hard work you should be able to get 15% and some extras - or at least get a fancy winding box and some services thrown in if you are feeling nervous! Bargaining should be fun, it is a game, it is a dance, and I assure you it offends nobody - they in turn do deals with their suppliers etc., so do not feel bad about it! And the margins are so high on watches 15% is not really too big a kick in the nuts for them, there is still plenty of profit in that sale to make it worth their while. Everybody wins.

And you will walk out of the shop feeling like a total goddess!

Wow cheers Dominic Littlewood, nice to have someone famous on this board!! LEGEND

27col

The concept of spending £1000 on a watch is a completely alien one to me. I thought long and hard before spending £50 on a radio controlled Casio Waveceptor. Not that I ever would, but if I did have a £1000 watch on my wrist I would be worried all the time about breaking or losing it. Particularly if I was buying it on credit.
But then, all I want from a watch is to know the time and the date reliably, without any "bling". A £50 watch I can afford to lose or break, but a £1000 watch, never in a 1000 years. Also the idea of "extras" when buying a watch. What's that all about.

BugsyBrowne

27col wrote: »

The concept of spending £1000 on a watch is a completely alien one to me. I thought long and hard before spending £50 on a radio controlled Casio Waveceptor. Not that I ever would, but if I did have a £1000 watch on my wrist I would be worried all the time about breaking or losing it. Particularly if I was buying it on credit.
But then, all I want from a watch is to know the time and the date reliably, without any "bling". A £50 watch I can afford to lose or break, but a £1000 watch, never in a 1000 years. Also the idea of "extras" when buying a watch. What's that all about.

Just wondered how much you payed for your car?

27col

BugsyBrowne wrote: »

Just wondered how much you payed for your car?

Not that it's any of your business or indeed of any relevance to my post, but I paid £11000 cash, in 2004 and I still have it.
By the way it's spelt paid not payed, as half the posters on this forum seem to think.

BugsyBrowne

27col wrote: »

Not that it's any of your business or indeed of any relevance to my post, but I paid £11000 cash, in 2004 and I still have it.
By the way it's spelt paid not payed, as half the posters on this forum seem to think.

I stand corrected paid then, you could of brought a second hand Patek Phillippe watch for that and wouldn't have lost a penny on it compared to how much you have lost on your car, and this was my moneysaving tip of the day.

MagicCats

OP Im guessing this will be some brand of Swiss watch? If so have a look at Swiss watches direct online. You'll get the watch with either the manufacturers warranty or their 3-year warranty, a discount AND interest free.

Worth a look.

paddyrg

BugsyBrowne wrote: »

...you could of brought a second hand Patek Phillippe watch for that and wouldn't have lost a penny on it compared to how much you have lost on your car, and this was my moneysaving tip of the day.

I know this thread has probably heard enough from me, but this seems like a bit of fun... BB is clearly being tongue in cheek, and not comparing like with like.

Cars are designed as semi-durable consumables as a rule, so it's a bit like arguing a watch is better value than food because at the end of the decade you still have the watch (rather your next of kin do, since you starved to death back in year 1).

Or if we look in terms of efficiency of primary function, an £11k car will get you around for a decade or so, a watch will tell the time pretty well. There are other options for both functions though - horse, bus, train, aeroplane, walking as well as sundial, mobile phone, speaking clock, radio, wall clock etc. In the case of the car, it is actually quite a cost-effective way of doing an expensive task (transport/travel). The watch has a lot of free alternatives (many much more accurate ones in fairness - a £10 radio-controlled wallclock is hands down more accurate over most mechanical timepieces). This means most of the value of the watch is not in its primary function - the value is as a collectible.

Collectibles is an interesting market, one that has historically performed surprisingly well, seeing as how it is based on not much at all really. Stamps, watches, coins, wines, even luxury cars that spend their lives garaged - their value is accepted as being somehow beyond its function. A penny black stamp is valuable - yet is was a cheap bit of paper. The value is all artificial (and largely exists thanks to Stanley Gibbons more or less creating a market and supplying it - they even offer bonds now!). Same with watches, a mechanical watch may be a thing of wonder and look pretty, but a certified Swiss movement only needs to be accurate to within a minute over a week. That pretty much rules it out as a super-accurate timepiece these days, so the value is a vestige of history when accurate watches were the preserve of the wealthy. And indeed a PP watch will hold its value as long as threre is consensus that it has that value.

It is all about that consensus. If tomorrow a gold-eating-virus scares all the investors out of gold and into watches, it will rise massively as did tulip bulbs, pork bellies, and dotcom shares. If, however a recession means fewer people are buying premium watches, it could go down. If PP are suddenly unfashionable and all the investors go for Swatch instead, it loses value. The value as a collectible is unstable as it will move with fashion, and fashions change.

So, whilst BB was having a bit of fun with the moneysaving tip, the fact that one class of collectble has held value over the same period as a semi-durable tool has been consumed is not a guarantee of future performance! But it clearly *is* worth it to BB and the OP to get personal value from the collectible/display secondary function of the watch - and as it is their money to make their choices with, it is frankly none of the rest of ours business!!