No need to wear a goofy game-show outfit; deals can be had easily at your local electronics store.
Store prices may be high, but guess what? Price ain’t nothing but a number, baby.
There’s a new trend in tech town, my friends: the time-honored art of haggling. That’s right; the same skills that you show off to get souvenirs on your summer vacation can be applied to your electronics shopping.
It’s not only happening, it’s actually widely accepted—sort of. Sure it’s easy to believe that places like a mom-and-pop might float you a few bucks, when they have that penny dish so prominently displayed on the counter. However, the collared shirts of the big-box stores are apparently also cutting deals.
The New York Times says that places like Best Buy, Circuit City, and Home Depot are all allowing floor deals to be made. This is fact, not fictional—and frankly, you don’t even have to be very good at it.
Case in point: My husband, who has zero phone or haggling skills (he can’t even handle placing a takeout order), scored me a killer video camera for $100 cheaper than the price tag. How? There was no method to his madness. It was a bit more than he wanted to spend, and he just started to leave.
The Times, however, says there is a much more educated clan out there, armed with cheaper web prices, using that info as a bargaining chip. A former Best Buy salesman says that one-quarter of the customers would haggle. It pays off—one person cited got almost $1,000 off a purchase.
Have you haggled your way into big savings? Share your shopping experience in the comments below.
The only “haggling” I’ve done: I printed out the Buy.com price of my Samsung HDTV and brought it to Circuit City. Buy.com is an authorized Samsung reseller, so it’s Circuit City’s policy to match the price (but you have to pay tax). For me, brick&mortar;is a much more comfortable way to buy something so physically large, so I had no problem forking out the extra cash for tax.
That’s the only time I’ve ever asked for a lower price. I will generally pay a few bucks more to pick up something locally rather than online, but the in-store HDTV markup is huge.
Btw, “James”, that’s awful that you have someone return an item just so you can buy it open box. Shameful.
I cant wait to cancel my subscription to EH. I cant wait to cancel our companies add in EH.
I tried to help out by shopping locally by going to 6Ave in paramus,n.j. I stated could I get the advertised internet price if I come in?. They said yes. I also said would you charge me tax?. They said you have to pay tax in ny/nj and when I pushed the issue they told me well buy it online then. I thought it over and bit the bullet on that one even though the tax was 40.00 Now I could have ordered this same item online from another retailer like Vann’s and pay no tax no shipping but since they were close by I thought well let me help them out. Not only was the in store experience less than stellar they even made fun of me by saying things just loud enough to let me hear. Next time I’ll save the tax and shop where ever I get the best deal.
Look at our website. We don’t give any info, because we don’t have to. I worked for a high end retailer 13 years ago and left the business because of people like James. I went into an even more commoditized business, printing. Check us out. www.M2Print.com or www.audioindy.com for our custom install busness. We only deal with the best and thankfully don’t have to deal with the James’s of this world. They can’t afford us. We charge $250 to come to your door. Karma is king, and I believe James will get his. I am sure he is to chicken #### to actually tell people what he does. If he really did that well for himself, the only way he could be OK with treating people that way was if he was a lawyer(the bad kind). I hope his people are stealing him blind, as he deserves it. Truely he is probably a young punk with no money and he really never buys anything of value anyway. My best customers recieved the best deals. People that thought they could haggle, thought they recieved a great deal, but they didn’t. Then again this was before the internet. The internet has ruined people morals and ethics. If companies value thier customers they will tell them the truth. If you want us to be in business to help you later you will pay a little more, if you don’t please leave and buy your items from the internet. The AVS forum is full of people that don’t know thier a@@ from a hole in the ground. The owners of the forum started it to get money from cheapskates like James. I feel sorry for the guys working at Tweeter and the like. They guy in my area that owned 13 retail stores is a Millionair and couldn’t get what he wanted from Tweeter, so he filed bankrupcy on the last day before our state laws changed leaving manufacturer’s holding the bag for millions. In my eyes he is no better than James. He now has a high end store I hope James goes to and shops. We deal with products like Netstreams and have been doing development for them since they started 5 years ago. We also handle products like Lexicon, Klipsch, Martin Logan etc.... Stuff James wouldn’t appreciate and couldn’t afford. I wish him well in his quest to make himself feel better by wasting the time and knowledge of valuable people. Then again you are hard pressed to find anything but clerks at most of the stores mentioned, because anyone with brains and knowledge has moved on. Shame on electronic house for encouraging this type of behavior. It is despicable.
Sincerely,
Jamie Mentzer
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“I cant wait to cancel our companies add in EH.”
i hope you proof your “adds” better than your comments.