Economy bad? It's okay to haggle at stores!

[CaroPhoenix]

http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/hughes/25219

New and improved(?) haggling guidelines for the people.

[lordlundar]

Actually, those points are pretty good and I can't really say I have an issue with them.

[Shangri-laschild]

This is actually the first one I've seen that wasn't about arguing and demanding.

[powerboy]

Those are some good guide lines. It never really hurts to ask, if you have the info ready for show & tell.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Again, I don't like it.

The margins on our electronics have to be razor-thin, seeing as my company took away the employee discount and the senior citizens discount on all our electronics items "to maintain our low prices". We'd probably be selling at a loss if we allowed customers to dicker the prices down.

If any customer tries to haggle with me and threatens to go elsewhere, I'll say "Okay. See ya." If you want a lower price just go to Wally World. I'm not going to give things away just so you can snag a bargain, and I think my employer would thank me for that.

[lordlundar]

And if it was saying to be pushy and offensive and use the walking away to be heavy handed, I would agree. But there's nothing there that I wouldn't tell someone myself. It's simply saying to be polite, yet informed of your decision and to remain in control of the purchase.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Be that as it may, I still don't have to like it. As a customer, it has never even occurred to me to treat the local electronics store like a flea market and try to negotiate prices.

As a retail employee, I would only consider doing this if the customer is going to purchase add-on accessories or an extended protection plan, but then again it would be sucky of me to push those too much.

The problem is, for every polite person who follows the advice given in the article, there will be rude, pushy assholes who try to strong-arm us into lowering prices, and those people I'd just as soon not deal with.