How to haggle

Unless we’re on holiday in Bali, Australians traditionally shy away from the art of negotiating when buying goods and services. But as these handy tips point out, we could be missing out on potential savings and better deals.

What are your thoughts on haggling and do you have any recent haggling success stories?

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An article on Nine.com.au today regarding saving money by haggling.

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OT but you reminded me of an old family friend from Tunisia. She was a classic haggler and got bargains most of us could not dream of. She went for the jugular and had no mercy. Once in a K-Mart she grabbed a pack of pens from the display, found the closest stocker and demanded ‘Why do these pens cost $5? They are only worth $2. They will be on sale anyway. Mark them down for me!’. The returned look of incredulity remains in my mental photo album. She was referred to the service desk. Nothing ventured nothing gained but she left it and bought the pens for the shelf price.

Lots of us could not be bothered haggling and others would find it demeaning because of the culture we were brought up in. In some cultures not haggling borders on insult since it is part of the game of buying and selling.

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My wife’s hairdresser is married to a Balinese man and they visit Bali frequently to catch up with his family there.

She has obviously learnt how to haggle as she related to my wife her experience at Masters when she was not happy with the price of an expensive item.

She escalated it all the way until she got the store manager to speak with her. She finally got a massive discount off the shelf price.

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I would like to add to the various lists of do’s and don’ts. For expensive items like cars, houses and big furniture items you are at an advantage if you can make vendors compete for your custom and it is worth your trouble to do so. Your aim is to generate a reverse auction where instead of the buyers competing to be the highest bidder the sellers are competing to be lowest. Just as you don’t want to go higher buying at a normal auction the vendors don’t want to go lower - but you can make them.

For such items I might take some time to work on them, a few hours of work can save you thousands of dollars. Two examples.

Buying the new car. I decided on the make and model and range of accessories I might add if the price was right. I went around the nearby dealers and told them what I wanted and asked for their best price. I said they had one bid so it had better be a goodun. They all wanted to know what figure I had in mind and what the previous offers had been. If I named a figure they would have only taken a small slice off. I refused to say, that way they had nothing to go on but how close they could shave their margin. As the auction went on I got a good feel where the lower bound was likely to be. At the end of the day I went back to the second and third lowest and said they were close but not winning and would they like to try once more. OK I lied when I said they only get one go, that’s OK as they lied when they said they couldn’t go any lower. The result was several thousands saved for the cost of a Saturday.

The real estate agent selling your house. I interviewed several and picked those who were competent and that I could work with, this time had to be spent anyway. I then started an auction on the selling fee among the short list. I eventually went with the group that I thought would do the best job but I also got 0.5% off their fee calculated on the selling price. Do the sums, 0.5% on the price of a house is a pretty good return for an extra hour on the phone.

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I’ll ask everyone about price, except big chain. Many of the local stores in this town give discount for certain employers/etc - slightly different to haggling, but similar line.

When haggling - it’s typically for things I can do without or that are in good supply - motorcycles, cars, houses, and any non-essential items - entertainment electronics, etc. The power is the ability to walk away. I rarely haggle for steak, ribs, broccoli or potatoes - and the council seems reluctant to haggle on rates :slight_smile: ok, I haven’t wasted my time trying the rates …

With real-estate, the agent does not work for the seller, nor the buyer - the agent works for themselves. The difference in commission between selling your house for 900k or 800k is nothing compared to not selling it - if you are the buyer this is also true, but potentially in your favour.

It could be suggested when it comes to vehicles, entertainment, etc that anything more than base is a luxury and one might do oneself a favour by adopting that mindset. An EB Falcon would do the needful, the sound system from Target likewise. Of course you might not in a million years want to settle for that, but considering need vs want I find helpful in resetting any level of consumer emotion over fancy and sparkly new products which in turn puts me in a much better position to haggle.

I just remember. They made lots of them. I possibly don’t need it. Tomorrow another one will probably be available, or another few. Something that will do the job I actually need is probably not ‘rare’. Don’t be pressured … and if it truly is a rare, or one-off item - never to be repeated, one chance only, and you can verify, and you simply must have it - possibly not the time to haggle …

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A counterpoint is a mate signed up with the agent for a percent but if the sale was over a specified amount the agent got 10% of the ‘excess’. The report was the auctioneer worked Very Hard to extract every last possible dollar from the bidders. The house went for a substantial amount over the reserve and well beyond the estimated price range. The mate felt it was the best money he had ever spent. Would the outcome have been the same without that 10% ‘bonus rate’? No way to tell excepting by the ‘feel’ during the proceedings.

The moral is that whenever haggling the motivations of whomever you are haggling with can be quite important, and you can possibly lose if you win in certain cases.

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I feel a bit uneasy with haggling, but I do get some “bargains”. For example Garden Nursery plants - they all have stock that is past sale (root bound, dried out, half dead) which they can’t guarantee. Often get it very cheap to free (if I buy something else or they know me). It is a win-win, and I seem to have a green thumb when it comes to rescuing plants at death’s door. It is the full price vigorous healthy ones I kill. I also have some “exchanges” going where I supply seed and they sell me something for $1.
At fabric shops I will offer to buy the roll and they are happy to do a discount per metre - I think some chains have a standard rate for this - and I compare what I would have paid for my 2m with what the 5.2m will cost and buy accordingly. There’s a cost to the store to measure, fold, tag, update data and put out in the remnant table (and that table / box needs constant tidying), so they are happy to sell the remainder at a discount.

It helps to explain that I don’t have much money and it is a buy/not buy decision, rather than come across as a pushy, wealthy predator.

I have a relative who haggles aggressively to the point of illegal - $ off if you don’t sign a tenancy agreement, take goods/services from a small vendor then refuse to pay, argue, threaten to put up adverse reviews and “blacken their name” on social media, until they accept say 50% off. I don’t condone that.

I don’t haggle over price with store employees. They are low paid and probably not authorised to do mark-downs. I haggle with senior staff if there is an issue - eg if the goods are close to use-by, superseded or damaged. However there are classes of goods that are “haggle worthy” eg mattresses, where the industry is in constant “discount” mode.

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I discovered a secret substance which brings the marked down plants at Bunnings back to healthy.

It is called water.

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When shopping for items such as appliances, as well as researching the products, we always ask what the best price is.

Almost invariably, we are offered a worthwhile discount even when items are currently on sale.

The worst that can happen is that the seller will say no, and the savings are better off in our pockets that theirs.

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