More of us should haggle in the shops

[davidwalton]

When I was a driving instructor I was asked on quite a few occasions if I gave discounts. My standard reply was, "You can discount the idea of cheap lessons".

Hagglers are a pain in the arse. They always turn out to be the customers you wish you had never bothered to do business with.

or perhaps they just have higher expectations

A business willing to insult customers is not good business. If you won't give discounts, then just say so, don't insult in the process.

BTW- A lot of driving Schools DO give discounts, based on how busy they are and how many lessons are being bought.

 

[davidwalton]

An article in The Times suggested that if you stand in a shop and make it clear that you are prepared to haggle indefinitely, then they will often let you have it cheap just to get rid of you. Morally, it strikes me as little better than threatening to lie on the floor until you get the goods cheap.

There are extremists in everything. The fact that many are prepared to haggle does not make us bad people, morally. I see nothing wrong in asking a business to consider a price other than that stuck on a ticket, especially if supported by the fact that other businesses are selling for less.

Every business expects other businesses to haggle, or come to an agreement on price. What is so different when it is an individual?

 

[Smokin Joe]

or perhaps they just have higher expectations

A business willing to insult customers is not good business. If you won't give discounts, then just say so, don't insult in the process.

BTW- A lot of driving Schools DO give discounts, based on how busy they are and how many lessons are being bought.

They do. They are the ones you see waiting on dodgy estates for pupils who don't bother to turn up or come out asking if they can pay you next week as they have no money. They will take the absolute minimum number of lessons and still expect to be put in for the test where they will fail miserably and make you look like a complete prat. If you work for peanuts, your customers will be monkeys.

 

[davidwalton]

They do. They are the ones you see waiting on dodgy estates for pupils who don't bother to turn up or come out asking if they can pay you next week as they have no money. If you work for peanuts, your customers will be monkeys.

Yes, I can see how you can lump a whole section of the population just because they are prepared to haggle

You make far too many assumptions about hagglers, or those willing to negotiate on price.

 

[Smokin Joe]

Yes, I can see how you can lump a whole section of the population just because they are prepared to haggle

You make far too many assumptions about hagglers, or those willing to negotiate on price.

Real life experience rather than an assumption.

There are businesses where haggling is expected, such as motor sales or double glazing and the expectation of providing a discount is built into the price to convince the punter they are getting a good deal. But most businesses are operating on the margins and prices are already as low as lets them make a fair profit. Too many people think every penny they pay for something goes straight into the traders pocket, the reality is frighteningly different.

 

[Arch]

Anyone see Junior Mastermind last night? The winning kid was a lad who apparently wants to be prime minister (and had that ultra confident slightly stuck up sort of accent that makes you think he'll make it, but you'd like to give him a slap first...). Asked by John Humphries what his policies would be, he said he'd put taxes up by 5%, then cut them by 10%, reasoning that he'd only be giving people a 5% cut, but they'd be conned into thinking he'd given them more... Methinks he has a great career ahead of him, somewhere....

 

[SamNichols]

It's all a question of margins: food is priced with a very fine margin, places like Tesco make a profit out of it because they sell it in bulk, not because they price it with a wide margin.
So-called white goods are built in with a far higher margin, this is because they are not only selling a product, but also the brand (if any) that goes with it.

 

[davidwalton]

Real life experience rather than an assumption.

There are businesses where haggling is expected, such as motor sales or double glazing and the expectation of providing a discount is built into the price to convince the punter they are getting a good deal. But most businesses are operating on the margins and prices are already as low as lets them make a fair profit. Too many people think every penny they pay for something goes straight into the traders pocket, the reality is frighteningly different.

as soon as you exclude the possibility of discounting, you exclude the possibility of some business. Your definition of fair and mine COULD be 2 different things. You might be a greedy git that doesn't care at all for all I know.

If I come to you and say I want 10% discount on buying x number of lessons and you say go away, I will. I will then find someone I am happy with at the price I want to pay. You lose, and only because you were not willing to consider negotiating. It tels me you might be a greedy git.

Haggling SHOULD be expected in ALL money transactions.

BTW- There are a lot of businesses OVER charging for items and services, well beyond what most would consider a reasonable profit margin.

It is a Businesses job to get the BEST price they can. It is a customers job to pay the LOWEST price they can. If both sides can agree, then great. If not, then try somewhere else.

 

[QuickDraw]

This is where it leads if we all start haggling. The ticket price goes up just so we can artificially haggle it down to what it would have been if it wasn't for all this haggling waste of time.

Much easier if everyone checks the prices and only buys the cheapest one that way prices come down for everyone not just the ones with the brassneck to throw a tantrum in the shop.

 

[davidwalton]

This is where it leads if we all start haggling. The ticket price goes up just so we can artificially haggle it down to what it would have been if it wasn't for all this haggling waste of time.

Much easier if everyone checks the prices and only buys the cheapest one that way prices come down for everyone not just the ones with the brassneck to throw a tantrum in the shop.

No, I disagree. I check prices on the Internet, then contact my local shop to see whether they are prepared to match, or get close to those prices. If they are, then I would prefer to support my local shop (especially if they are customer/service orientated).

Ticket prices are already set artificially high on many items so they can put things in a SALE a reasonable price. Most of the large shops do this in some way.

 

[Canrider]

This of course carries with it the large assumption that 'the Internet' is a fount of 'reasonable price' information. Per your earlier arguments, you have no basis for that belief.

 

[QuickDraw]

No, I disagree. I check prices on the Internet, then contact my local shop to see whether they are prepared to match, or get close to those prices. If they are, then I would prefer to support my local shop (especially if they are customer/service orientated).

If your local shop is selling things higher than they need to, which they must be if they can afford to drop their prices, are they worth supporting?

 

[ChrisKH]

as soon as you exclude the possibility of discounting, you exclude the possibility of some business. Your definition of fair and mine COULD be 2 different things. You might be a greedy git that doesn't care at all for all I know.

If I come to you and say I want 10% discount on buying x number of lessons and you say go away, I will. I will then find someone I am happy with at the price I want to pay. You lose, and only because you were not willing to consider negotiating. It tels me you might be a greedy git.

Haggling SHOULD be expected in ALL money transactions.

BTW- There are a lot of businesses OVER charging for items and services, well beyond what most would consider a reasonable profit margin.

It is a Businesses job to get the BEST price they can. It is a customers job to pay the LOWEST price they can. If both sides can agree, then great. If not, then try somewhere else.

This is fine in an economics textbook but in reality it depends on the market. Take Thailand in the mid 80's; you could go there and haggle for most things. By the mid 90's you could still haggle, but because the economy had boomed, most vendors realised there were two markets for the goods. A market for locals, where haggling was still expected and a market for tourists where they didn't expect to haggle either because the tourists weren't used to it or more likely they realised that the next tourist would buy it anyway at the increased non-haggle price. The most often heard retort was 'you keep it, you need it more than I do' which speaks volumes about the changes that had taken place in that economy over a period of ten years.

Coming from a professional background you can ask for a discount but ultimately you're in the business to make a profit. So yes, occasionally inducements may be offered on some instructions but the idea is to make a return in the long term. You don't hold onto a client who doesn't want to pay, they're just not worth the hassle (as Thai street vendors found out). You also get what you pay for, which is why driving instructors at the lower end of the market discount. You won't necessarily get the same quality instructor for a cheaper price which may be why they are discounting. Cheap isn't always good - otherwise we would all be riding Claud Butler's or the equivalent (not that there's anything wrong with them per se, but you know what I mean).

 

[davidwalton]

This of course carries with it the large assumption that 'the Internet' is a fount of 'reasonable price' information. Per your earlier arguments, you have no basis for that belief.

Much better than going from shop to shop.

 

[davidwalton]

If your local shop is selling things higher than they need to, which they must be if they can afford to drop their prices, are they worth supporting?

What MAY be a reasonable price just before XMAS, could very well be too high in Jan or Feb. There are spending seasons. Haggle out of season for the best buy when you can.