Posts Tagged ‘tv’
Haggling for Electronics
Monday, August 10th, 2009
It’s long been my practice to not accept the face value of a price tag on electronic and electrical items. I know that probably sounds a little weird to you after all, why would a shop have a price tag if it was negotiable? Well I guess because most people don’t think to haggle!
Once I’ve decided on an item I want to buy – let’s say a Television. I check out the prices in shops locally both big and little, and I also check the prices online as well. Once I’ve established what I think is the best price, I then try my luck – normally in offline stores – to see if I can negotiate a better deal.
Sometimes the deal I go for is purely and simply money off the price tag, sometimes it’s a bit more complicated because I will see if I can get an extra year’s warranty, or some cables thrown in. It’s a rare event though for me to pay full price from somewhere these days.
The most obvious step is to ask if there’s any chance of a discount. Feels a bit of a cheeky thing to do, but if you wait till you’re sat down and they’re ready to do the deal with you, and then smile sweetly and ask if there’s any chance of a discount you may be surprised at how often the answer is yes – specially at a time like now when shops are desperate for people to buy things from them. What I’ve commonly encountered when I do this, is the sales person vanishing to ask their manager about it. Sometimes the sales person will come back, and sometimes it’s the manager who does. Either way, stay polite and if it’s the manager and they ask you what the problem is just tell them there’s no problem, but you were wondering if they could offer you a discount on x product.
Sometimes it can be worth reminding them that you’re a loyal customer (only if you have bought things from them before obviously!), sometimes it’s worth mentioning that x product is slightly cheaper elsewhere, but that you’d prefer to give this store your custom. If a cash discount seems to be something they can’t manage, you can always switch to asking if they can throw in something else (a case, set of batteries, lead etc.) instead.
It is always – without fail – worth doing this if the item you’re looking to buy is the display model! The last time I did this was for a television & dvd player. I found the item (TV) I wanted, sat down ready to discuss it and found that they were out of stock and all they had was the show room model. In the end, despite the TV being on sale already, I got an extra 10% off it, the dvd player at a special knock down price as I was buying it at the same time as the TV and some leads to connect the two thrown in for free which should have cost me another £20. Incidentally this was from Comet – a national store, not a local independent place!
Give it a go next time you buy something and then come tell us how you get on!
Contributed by Vialdana
Tags: comet, currys, discount, electronics, hifi, tv
Posted in General, Savings | Comments Off