Haggle for a deal – it does pay off
SOPHIE ELSWORTH
WAITING GAME:
HAGGLING takes a little bit of courage but can often leave you saving some serious cash.
My thoughts are to give it a shot. As they say, “It can’t hurt to ask”.
I recently had to get myself a set of new spectacles so made a trip to the optometrist hoping I wouldn’t be left with a whopping bill at the end.
For most retailers the postChristmas sales are over and some stores are back to charging full price.
And, of course, when you walk into an optometrist it’s easy to get sucked into looking at all the fancy glasses dotted around the sales floor before glancing at the price tags in the fine print.
I knew even with private health insurance extras cover I was going to get stung here.
But here’s my proof that it usually pays to ask for a better deal.
I picked the pair of Burberry glasses I wanted with a $269 price tag. Not bad, I thought, given some of the other glasses were more than $500 each.
But, unfortunately, I was going to be paying full price on the frames, while scoring an advertised 20 per cent discount on the lenses.
When it came down to the number crunching with the sales assistant she gave me the hard sell and even tried to throw in an “eyewear protection plan” for $35 that would cover me if I broke my glasses. No thank you.
When she tallied up the cost of nearly $500 I said to her, “I might wait until there’s another sale so I don’t have to pay full price for the frames”.
It was as simple as that. I could wait until the store had more discounts coming as I didn’t need the glasses immediately.
But she was hungry to get me to make the purchase then and there.
“Just hang on a minute and I’ll see what I can do,” she said.
Always take note when a sales assistant says this to you – it’s code for working out how much more of the price they can knock off.
Sure enough, within a minute or so she had magically given me another discount.
“Just for today I can take 20 per cent off the frames for you, that’s on top of getting 20 per cent off the lenses,” the assistant said.
Beauty. It was a done deal. After applying the unexpected second discount I’d saved myself $53.80.
If I hadn’t paused and thought twice before going through with the sale I had no chance of getting a further discount.
There’s no denying retailers are doing it tough, so while haggling can be worthwhile it’s also important to be realistic about what you can potentially save.
PERSONAL FINANCE WRITER
@sophieelsworth