Haggling in shops

[Tackle_Berry]

Managed to get £200 off a £1300 sofa and got delivery worth £75 for free.

I worked in retail a few years ago and if someone asked for discount we would often knock off up to 40% and most orders were originally around £500-£3000. You would be surpised how many people do try to haggle.

 

[Karl]

Got £20k off the asking price of a house this week.

 

[Nix]

Yes all the time, have about 50% success rate, oddly enough I've had less success haggling in charity shops that over charge than I have in general retail stores.

Why haggle a charity shop? Seems a little distasteful in my opinion.

 

[Akagi]

You monster

Why haggle a charity shop? Seems a little distasteful in my opinion.

I worked in a charity shop for a while, and they quite often have no idea how much things are worth, particularly electrical items.

I spent quite a lot of my time there advising the manager to increase or decrease pricing on things, and in the end he put me in charge of valuation and pricing.

I admit that I did take advantage of the low pricing on a couple of things though, but I did want them for myself in fairness, I had no intention to sell them on.

People used to attempt to haggle all the time as well, it didn't seem uncommon. Sometimes people wanted to get something down to a more reasonable price, and of course you got the odd customer who just wanted to take the **** and we have to remind them that we are running a charity shop, but that wasn't always the case by any means.

It is better to move stock and get something else on display than worry about a few quid sometimes. At the end of the day, any profit is a profit.

 

[Haggisman]

Why haggle a charity shop? Seems a little distasteful in my opinion.

To be fair, if you're buying 20 £1 items, and you get them to knock a few ££ off, it's probably better than you buying 10 items for £10 and leaving them with the other 10 sat on the shelf for 2 years.

 

[ttaskmaster]

Boobs.

Ah, yeah they'll be it!
Seriously, though, it gets annoying sometimes - Arguing over £10 for 3 brace of pheasant... she didn't even realise what 3 brace was!!

 

[Reality|Bites]

Richer Sounds always give money off if you ask nicely

 

[Nix]

To be fair, if you're buying 20 £1 items, and you get them to knock a few ££ off, it's probably better than you buying 10 items for £10 and leaving them with the other 10 sat on the shelf for 2 years.

What's a few quid? It's a bloody charity shop, just let them have it.

 

[LeeUK]

I haggled in a charity shop when I bought a leather 3 seater sofa and arm chair. Marked price was £200 and they wanted another £20 to deliver it, they wouldn't budge on the delivery cost something to do with a 3rd party van or something. I said knock £20 off the sofa then - deal done.

Not ashamed. Not when you know how much the large national charities waste to start with.

 

[andy_mk3]

Richer Sounds always give money off if you ask nicely

Yeah I got quite a good discount buying my av amp and speakers

 

[Nix]

I haggled in a charity shop when I bought a leather 3 seater sofa and arm chair. Marked price was £200 and they wanted another £20 to deliver it, they wouldn't budge on the delivery cost something to do with a 3rd party van or something. I said knock £20 off the sofa then - deal done.

Not ashamed. Not when you know how much the large national charities waste to start with.

See, that I understand.

Knocking something down on mark-up from £5 to £3, I don't.

 

[Kenai]

I find most appliance/technology sort of purchases have some wiggle room, though often more regarding added extras like free memory cards etc. rather than cash discounts.

Trying to haggle down at the local Tesco doesn't tend to work so well though

 

[Devrij]

Anyone who doesn't try to negotiate a deal when spending a decent sum of cash is a fool. I got a years warranty on my car when I bought it (2nd hand), saved money on my tv and stand, and got my gpus cheaply. You have to know what their margin is roughly, what they want from you (do you want extras that they want to sell you? If so, you are in win) etc. For an example here, currys staff are targeted 1% discount overall, very strictly. So they save it for sales that are worth it. Low margin big ticket items need high margin extras, and if you buy them, that's where you will get your discount.

 

[Rroff]

Trying to haggle down at the local Tesco doesn't tend to work so well though

Yup if like the poster above they have sales staff hovering you might stand a chance but somewhere like Tesco much less of a chance.

Typically smaller places might only sell a small quantity of an item and a sale is a sale and also hope that it will result in you becoming a repeat customer plus maybe mentioning them favorably to friends/family whereas a bigger retailer that is shifting decent volume units of an item anyhow has far less incentive to entertain someone haggling.

 

[OpenToSuggestions]

Got £20k off the asking price of a house this week.

Can't argue with that!

 

[Fenris]

If you can show proof of the product being cheaper elsewhere, most sales people will match it within reason, other than that you can nearly always haggle for free stuff on tech purchases, insurance etc. One of the reasons I tend to buy things like tablets/laptops/phones in store, they will always throw in something to guarantee a sale.