Well, it seems the impossible has happened. The economy is so shitty, particularly in the retail sector, that even big chains are starting to accept haggling from customers for better prices. According to an AP article on yahoo news, stores like Best Buy and J. Crew are actually accepting some haggling these days, whether about prices or about extending the times for price adjustments and the like.

So, if haggling is coming back into vogue, I thought it might be a good time to go over some rules for haggling. Personally, I suck at haggling. I only do it when I have no other choice, and I happened to be married to an excellent haggler, so now that is rarely. But, I have done it on occasion, and from that experience and from watching Mr. Right-Click, I’m happy to share the following guidelines for successful haggling.

1. Always be ready to leave and try another store for the same item. In fact, even if you don’t plan to look elsewhere, it’s often a good policy to say that you will. Stores don’t like customers to leave. And you hold a lot more power when you make it seem as though the purchase is not of very much importance to you.
2. Haggling can be fun. Good hagglers will tell you this. Personally, since it involves a good deal of human interaction, I’m not overly fond of haggling myself. But I have it on good authority that it can be fun if you approach it as a game with small stakes. And the stakes are small whenever you are thinking of buying something because you never have to buy. If the seller won’t meet your price, then you walk away (see number 1).
3. Know your product. You should always do market research before you go in to make a purchase, particularly if it is a big ticket item. This is even more important if there will be haggling involved. For example, one time I was buying a car, and we were haggling over how much my old car would count as a trade-in. Now I knew they wouldn’t be reselling my trade-in, because it was an ancient Honda Civic that would be worth far more for parts than it could possibly bring on the open market. But the dude tried to tell me the insanely low number they offered me for it was fair because they were going to have to do so much “cleaning and refurbishing” to put it back on the market. Pshaw! I said, and explained that I knew they would just sell it to a junkyard. The guy stopped with his bs and tacked on several hundred to the trade in price.
4. Decide how high you will go for an item ahead of time. You should start your haggle with a lower number so that you can move upwards when the co-haggler says your first offer is not enough. I have heard people say that you should start at about half of what the vendor asks to end up at a third less than retail price, but this sounds a little overly optimistic. Still, it’s worth a shot.
5. Be reasonable in your expectations. The person selling needs to make a profit on their item. So if you go in to buy a 50″ Plasma and offer $50, you are wasting everyone’s time, taking all the fun out of it, and increasing the chances of things getting ugly. Since you should always know your product and know what the profit margin is likely to be on it, you should be able to make reasonable offers, even at the outset.
6. Make sure you are haggling in an environment that is conducive to haggling. Even with the increasing likelihood of big box stores thinking about haggling, not everyone is going to agree to it. The best way to figure this out is to ask–it may be that the person you are talking to does not have authority to haggle, but somebody else does. Also, many stores may be willing to haggle on the fine print of return policies, but not prices. So you need to ask in order to see what each store will accept. The best time to do this is not after you’ve waited in a long line at Costco–go to the customer service area or ask for a manager to ask these questions.
7. The haggle is not an argument. You need to keep it cool while haggling. The more heated a discussion becomes, the less likely you are to get what you want. So be courteous and respectful in your dealings with all store employees–even if they do not extend this courtesy to you.
8. Establish some level of familiarity/congeniality with your co-haggler. This is probably one of the most difficult things to pull off, and one of the things that Mr. Right-Click is very good at–he is just naturally one of those guys who meets people and makes friends wherever he goes. So he’s skilled at chatting people up all the time, and sometimes he has somebody in the middle of a haggle before they even realize it. Example would be to comment on a sports team that they person is wearing a shirt for, share some recent stats or something, and then talk about the product he wants to buy. I should note here that I’m not sure Mr. Right-Click does this on purpose, he is just naturally conversational. But I see it helps a lot in negotiating deals, so I thought I’d include it for the more adventurous of you out there.
9. Look for imperfections/reasons to have item marked down. If there are any reasons an item should be marked down–like if it is a floor model or something–remember to point these out in the midst of your negotiations. Also, you can look the item over and focus on imperfections, but I would be judicious with this because a lot of times people do this and just seem like tools trying to get a better deal. Always maintain your credibility, or the deal will be lost.
10. Bring cash. As I have discussed before, people are often willing to make deals with you if you can pay cash and not credit. Credit card companies don’t only rip off the consumer, they also rip off merchants by taking chunks out of every purchase! So stores love to avoid using credit whenever possible. Take advantage of this and bring a wad of cash with you–this is also rhetorically effective when you say something like, “All I’ve got is $200!” and throw the two bills down on the counter. And pull your pockets inside out, if you want to get really crazy. Because with credit cards (or checks), numbers are never so finite.

Good luck, and happy haggling!

{ 0 comments }