The Great 'Shops You Can Haggle In' Hunt

purplemonk3y

I recently priced up about 2k's worth of computer equipment from overclockers. Its an internet site, but I thought I'd phone and see if I can get a discount. They offered to take the postage off, which was about 5 quid. I went somewhere else, for roughly the same money.

Mary_Hartnell

It helps to get a discount if you know the underlying incentives and mark-ups in the underlying business.

A trio of examples:

The jewellery business traditionally lived on a large 50% mark up, so your prospects of getting 25% off are much better than in a pile it high and sell it cheap environment such as a grocery supermarket.

A lot of industries incentivise their retailers with a "deferred retrospective rebate" ie they set them targets and only if they achieve the target sales do they get the rebate on purchases for the period. "Moving the metal" in the car industry is a good example, if you know the last month of the sales period (say "by the end of January" and you can find a stockist who is just under his target, he can afford to give you a massive discount to protect his retrospective discount - or pre-register the sale (ie buy it himself) as the other option, in which case it will be on sale at a discount in February, but you won't be the first name on the log-book).
Some years ago Wickes, the building merchants, got into a financial mess by assuming it would achieve its retrospective rebates as per normal and failing to do so !

If there is a slump in a country's currency value, the price of its exports should be coming down; so add that to your argument ie "you could get stuck with it". (Wine from Argentina has been an example in the last few years).

Mary.

JS2006

hibees1875 wrote: »

BHS - in home electricals in e mids my wife saw a £40 kettle she really liked. she was told the display model was the last in stock, i told her to ask for £10 off as it had a very slight barely noticable dent in side, but she bottled and only asked for £5 - and got it! Great boost for her ego and she got the kettle she wanted (aren't women strange fantasising over kettles.)

I work for BHS and have found, for want of a better word, that we are pretty inflexible. The only time we will give a discount is if the merchandise is damaged e.g. a kettle wil a dent will get 10% off.

There will be "Allowance at Till" reductions for such things as 2 sets with one piece missing etc that will be up to half price.

liuhut

redalfa147 wrote: »

Don't buy your Dell via their website as you can't haggle. Always ring them up. I knew the spec of the laptop I wanted and it cost £1060. The sales staff representative in India was very friendly and we laughed about a few things (a good tip when haggling is to get the sales staff happy and they are usually more likely to be nice to you!). I got him down to £1000.99p I said that was a real shame as I wanted to break the pschological £1000 barrier. He said he would look into it more. After a few minutes he came back and said the system would not allow him to bring the price down anymore so I said again that was a real shame. Eventually, he gave me a laptop bag, worth £40. So, in the end I saved almost 10%. If I had simply bought it from their website I wouldn't have saved any money and I wouldn't have had a laptop bag to keep it in!
:T

I totally agree with this. we bought a laptop last week from Dell and my OH had a bit of a laugh with the guy in India and got £100 knocked off the price. Some times it is worth the cost of the phone call.

benbenandme

I was doing a mystery shop in Goldsmeiths jewellers and had to pretend to be interested in buying a watch that was £500+. When I said I'd go away and think about it the manager offered me a 10% discount if I bought it that day;)

stphnstevey

My local Focus store has been great - wanted some border tiles, but they were about £1.50 each per small strip. My wife saw some mosaic tiles and came up with the idea of cutting these into strips to use as the border. We were about to buy a box for £6, when I noticed an open box.

It actually had an extra half a sheet! Asked at till if they could reduce it because it was open, the women saw the half a sheet on top and assumed there was half the amount (there was actually half a sheet more!). Got manager who simply asked her how many there was inside and immediately knocked 50% off. Then used my movers discount card (if you have moved within 6 months) and got another 10% off the 50% price!

cosmicDolphin

patcat wrote: »

Tried at Currys. They promise to Pricematch. Found what I wanted at £25 dearer than the best I found. They wouldn't even take a pound off. They said that they can only pricematch their own internet site or Dixons. So of course they lost a sale.

I left the Dixons/Currys/PC world Group six months ago after a 9 year career in sales because they no longer pay sales staff commission. There really isn't much incentive now to sell as it barely affects the pay received so staff don't really care that much anymore. That said they should beat any local retailer within 10 miles radius if in stock by 10% of the difference ( PC World ) - the Currys policy is slightly different, but there is a big 60x40 poster about the policy on the wall of each store. They recently aligned all the Currys Web prices to the store prices, and all the discounts moved over to the Dixons website as there are no Dixons stores anymore, it's internet only and the best prices are there. You may get lucky if you ask the duty manager on the day as they still have targets - try late on a Saturday when it goes dead about 4pm as the week starts on Sunday for them, you may get lucky if they're struggling for target. Staff only get 10% so don't expect too much, but always look on the terminal screen - there's a button that may light up which says customer offers - if they press this there might be a bundle deal on that saves you money on stuff like laptop bags/antivirus - camera memory/cases etc. so make sure you try and look and if you're not sure just say ' Is there anything under the Customer Offers button ?? '

Good Luck - and if any DSG sales people want a career change for the better then PM me.

donglefan

A few years ago John Lewis had non-geographic pricematch signs prominently displayed; not sure whether they still do.
They had a stove for 700+. The identical stove was advertised on a slightly dodgy looking internet site, which charged a fair whack for delivery on top, at about 500. I had to provide Lewis' with the url of the internet deal. Once they checked it, Lewis agreed to price match the 500 and deliver for free, in accordance with their signs, but they said they were losing money on the deal. Thank you JL.

HappySad

DKLS wrote: »

Halfords - Got £80 and a bunch of accessories worth another £50 thrown in.
Barker & Stonehouse - Will usually match their sales price when sale is over.
Independent stores - Can usually blag a discount
Wickes - Got £75 off a new bath
Always worth a cheeky "whats your best price on that" followed by a "you can do better than that"
Car Showrooms - I haggle like its an Olympic Sport and am happy to screw the salesman to the floor, and often do the negotiations for friends and family.

Bed shop got free delivery as I was buying more than one bed at a time.
Dixons many years ago got a large discount when I told them how much their product was in another nearby shop. Always try to get money off.. they can only at the worst say no.

David Lloyds got extra free vouchers and a welcome pack when I was considering joining.

janey_uk

I bought a £250 digital camera in Jessops not long ago, as they had the best price in an online comparison. I went in knowing the one I wanted, but pretended to be interested in one a lot cheaper and let the salesperson 'upsell' me to the camera I wanted.

At the checkout I then paused and said I wasn't sure whether I would buy it as I was using all my budget and needed a case, lens cleaners and photo-quality printer paper too. They threw it all in and I got over £60 worth of kit free.