Do you haggle when shopping?

[Shalyn]

Usually only when I'm at a flea market or garage sale or in China Town where there are a lot of mom/pop places. Otherwise I don't bother.

[Jaybar]

I've worked part/full time at an Ace Hardware for around 5 years, on and off. For the record, I don't haggle, or at least I haven't gotten an opportunity where I needed to. When I was working, people would always bug me about lower prices, getting special sales prices when they are not eligible (This has to do with the Ace Rewards, but if you don't know it, don't worry about it), and price matching (although not store policy, fuck Home Depot, fine we'll do it).

Also, a lot of items in our store have terribly low mark-up value. For instance, we make, if we are lucky, a couple bucks profit off of power tools (and those can range from 49 to 350+ retail). We give complimentary display discounts of 10%, but even then we are losing money so customers don't whine and bitch when there are no more cases left. The accessories for the tools is where we make our money, but they hardly cost enough to warrant haggling.

I work as a paint dept. head, and I get endless amounts of people asking for contractor discounts. Here's the deal with contractor discounts: contractors are steady business consumers for our stores - we offer them discounts because they continue to buy from us. Average Joe touching up his house does not qualify as a contractor because chances are they are not coming back anytime soon for more paint. There are exceptions where I'll slap a 10% off when they are buying an absurd amount of paint, but otherwise forget it.

We also have a Bag Sale once a year, and there is always at least ONE customer that wants to do the sale a day early because they can't make it in on that one day. I'm sure you BG readers can see where this fails.

I do agree with everyone that big corporate places are not the best place to haggle. Haggling for cars (ESPECIALLY used) is an obvious yes.

[Lordwafik]

When I used to work for a framing store which also kept it's factory out the back (which meant they had the lowest prices since everything was in house), I'd constantly get people trying to haggle with me doing the routine of "Well I was shopping and saw another store with cheaper prices, half of what you guys have" to which my reply would always be along the lines of "Feel free to buy it from there". I don't like people who aren't smart at haggling

Once it was funny when we found someone who made a fool of himself trying to haggle, brought in his pictures etc and wanted the frames cheaper than they were, we told him we're the cheapest and are not going lower, then he went to another store that apprently were "Cheaper". We found out he went to a more expensive store, since that store outsources all their work to our one, and his pictures were amongst them. Looks like he had too much pride to return to us and just paid the upmarked prices at the other stores.

[Howard Roark]

no, I'm white

[Kaelia]

no, I'm white

This beyond this. I didn't even haggle in Egypt. :\

[Ksandra]

This beyond this. I didn't even haggle in Egypt. :\

lol, when I went to visit relatives my oldest Uncle drove us nuts. He kept forcing us to haggle with the merchants there. The economy is so bad though that we'd be buying dresses for like 4$ US equivalent. We kept trying to tell him it was ok for us to pay full price (we know the people need it). But he kept insisting they would be insulted if we didn't.

Even my dad who loves to haggle (since he grew up there lol), didn't want to do it since he knew how poor they were.

[killerx]

I just want to say that i laugh so hard every time i hear over our walkies at target. errr some ones wanting a discount for such and such reason. Or If they buy so much will we give them a discount. I think the last thing i remember was some couple asking if they buy like 6 flat screen tv's will we give them a discount. I just didn't know what to say.

[Sol-Blackguy]

I do the flea market haggling since I always buy in bulk, half the time they lower the price for me just to be nice. Every once in a while, I'll try to work a deal on places that work off of commission or gratuity since they do have a little flexibility. I'm not a complete dick about it to the point that I'll hold a line up or anything, but I'll try to work something out on the side before I even get rung up.

[Weltall]

no, I'm white

Where have you been my entire BG lifespan? This is the greatest post in BG history....... and I second it.

[Vail]

Assholes need to get the memo that, more often than not, the people working in the retail chain you're trying to haggle with do not even have the authority to adjust prices.

as crazy as it is, our store manager at wal-mart here told us, in some cases we are allowed to drop the price (within reason)

my philosophy as a cashier is: everyone get's one. If you come up and have some t-shirt that rings up $10 and you say it said $8 on the shelf, I'll do it no-prob. But if you go saying like 5-10 things you got were miss priced, then I'm not biting or come up saying some $20 picture frame said $2 on the shelf... yeah .... No.

Where I work atleast we have a price-overwrite button so we can punch in a price but it has limits (if a certain % is taken off or greater it'll flag it and require a manager) Then their is the reduce codes where I can key in certain UPC numbers that give me full control over a price and it won't flag to any management. Management did find out I know the codes and got upset at me, but they can't fire me cause I haven't done anything wrong with them, or even really use them beyond their intended purpose.

Doing like $1-2$ off one thing doesn't bother me at chain stores, but really can't/shouldn't do more then that. Most places I haggle: but hey I'm Jewish so it's in my blood right?

[zoobernut]

Do people consider it haggling if you ask for extras with a big purchase? I consider it haggling only if you are asking for a discount on the item which I will not do at big box stores like Target, Wallmart ect. However at those big stores I will ask them to throw in extras with big purchases.

Like at BestBuy for example, ask them to throw in a couple free DVD movies with a big screen tv purchase or throw in the nicer AV cables with a big stereo purchase stuff like that.

Edit: Also not haggling when buying a car is stupid, and Home Depot will almost always give you a 10% discount if you just ask for it.

[Kajii]

Got dealer to go down 3k on my car.

[Popeh]

Big purchase - worth asking for a deal certainly, especially if your buying extra's. Small purchases I wouldnt dream of it and I glare into the souls of people who ask it.

Would you go to a supermarket and say, "i'll give ya 89pence for that loaf of bread", thats marked up £1.09. Would you smeg.

People are often surprised to hear that "How much for cash?" doesn't work anymore, since it costs more to deposit cash than it does by plastic now.

I do think its more of an American thing though.

[Scorp]

Only asked for a discount once, went to buy a book and the cover was slightly damaged. Asked the assistant if he had more in stock without marks and there wasn't, asked for discount and got one. Seemed fairly reasonable but I wouldnt' go out of my way to haggle and would have preferred a perfect copy.

[Isiolia]

as crazy as it is, our store manager at wal-mart here told us, in some cases we are allowed to drop the price (within reason)

my philosophy as a cashier is: everyone get's one. If you come up and have some t-shirt that rings up $10 and you say it said $8 on the shelf, I'll do it no-prob. But if you go saying like 5-10 things you got were miss priced, then I'm not biting or come up saying some $20 picture frame said $2 on the shelf... yeah .... No.

Where I work atleast we have a price-overwrite button so we can punch in a price but it has limits (if a certain % is taken off or greater it'll flag it and require a manager) Then their is the reduce codes where I can key in certain UPC numbers that give me full control over a price and it won't flag to any management. Management did find out I know the codes and got upset at me, but they can't fire me cause I haven't done anything wrong with them, or even really use them beyond their intended purpose.

Doing like $1-2$ off one thing doesn't bother me at chain stores, but really can't/shouldn't do more then that. Most places I haggle: but hey I'm Jewish so it's in my blood right?

In a similar fashion, when I worked at Kohl's, I had to do the full employee training despite doing night stocking n' stuff. Their policies were similar in terms of returns/exchanges...basically, benefit of the doubt, they'd prefer to keep the customer than fuss over return periods or whatnot.


As a general thing, I don't tend to haggle...not really my nature. In some cases, it's the expected course, but most places I'd normally shop...not really.

[fantasticdan]

No. Only situation I can really think of where I could even 'haggle' anything would be buying something like a house/car. Unless you want to count buying stuff directly from people and not businesses.

[Epical]

no, I'm white

This is hilarious and perfect. I don't haggle in big retail chains, and I fucking hate it when people do it to me. I work in an area of town with a large middle eastern/east indian/asian population and my god, the difference between them and white people is nuts. I hate to racially stereotype, but it's night and day.

[Weltall]

This is hilarious and perfect. I don't haggle in big retail chains, and I fucking hate it when people do it to me. I work in an area of town with a large middle eastern/east indian/asian population and my god, the difference between them and white people is nuts. I hate to racially stereotype, but it's night and day.

It is the exact same when they go into restaurants and leave a tip. People can call it stereotyping all they want, but its a crying shame its the fucking truth.

[Amastacia]

If you buy a car without haggling, you're a moron.

If you try to haggle on that $10 dress you are looking at in WalMart, you're a moron.

Time and place for all things. If you're in Italy, the time is always, and the place is everywhere, and it's spectacular how much of a discount you can get on good stuff.

[AoE]

I remember walking into an electronics store owned by some French dudes and when I told them the price was to high for these headphones, they were begging me to buy'em and kept going lower til I said yes.

Haggled without even realizing I was.