Bloody Hagglers!

[Kit-Ginevra]

It always amazes me the number of people who try the 'I'm the manager's brother/sister/daughter/BFF/mega-crush' and the amazed look they give when you tell them 'I'm the manager.I don't have a brother,and if you're my best friend,then something dramatic has happened to you since I saw you last night...you've shrunk about a foot,changed colour and gender.Now buzz off and don't try that again.' Those who would genuinely get a discount would be the ones who would never think to ask...

[Supernautus]

I thunk there was pretty much only one mahoosive national chain in this market nowadays but my discount budget is nowhere near the 10% you mention in a later post. I basically have to fiddle the computer system and exploit loopholes like hell to get any more than a 0.5% budget.

oh no, I meant my staff discount, for the store we only allow a maximum of 1% discount for the day, or 0.7 for the week.

[Ahbugger]

oh no, I meant my staff discount, for the store we only allow a maximum of 1% discount for the day, or 0.7 for the week.

My bad, same company

[MadMike]

Haggler: Because I don't want to.

I got one of those at my old job, and if I hadn't experienced it myself, I never would have believed it. The guy asked me to get him a manager so he could see about getting a discount on an item. My first thought was that it was damaged, but no, he simply "didn't feel like paying that much."

I paged a manager for him and went back to what I was doing. A little while later, I was walking past the manager's office, and I overheard him telling one of the other managers about this customer. Judging from the laughter, I'm guessing he didn't get his discount.

[Jester]

Me: Okay, so that's €XX

Haggler: I shouldn't have to pay that.

Me: Uh... why?

Haggler: Because I don't want to.

Technically speaking, she was correct. She didn't have t pay that. And if she didn't want to pay it, she shouldn't.

Of course, she also wouldn't be leaving with the item, since she was not willing to pay the price it was selling for.

But she was right that she didn't have to pay that amount.

Ah, the patent-pending Jester method of negotiating with a cheapskate.

I don't know if you'd call what I do with hagglers "negotiating" so much as "beating into submission."

[Jay 2K Winger]

I don't know if you'd call what I do with hagglers "negotiating" so much as "beating into submission."

I absolutely would call it "negotiating."

The fact that you're doing it the opposite of the way they expect, and the fact that they very quickly agree on the original price doesn't change this.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[Jester]

Some definitions of "negotiating" I found just now:

"...to arrange for or bring about through conference, discussion, and compromise."

"To arrange or settle by discussion and mutual agreement..."

"...to deal or bargain with another or others..."

See a common theme here? I do. It involves compromise, or both sides having input into the final agreement, or meeting in the middle.

Which my anti-haggling technique...is most definitely NOT. The final settlement we reach is the one I started at, and one I give the customer no option but to accept.

There is no negotiation. There is no compromise. There is no meeting in the middle. And there most certainly is no input from them that matters.

I offer them terms, and refuse to accept less than those terms, i.e., the original price. They can accept or reject it, but they can't budge me on it. Hence, no negotiating.

It's more a cleverly disguised ultimatum.

[sdg31000]

This is my first post here and I'm not sure if I count as a retail slave as I only get paid in tea and biscuits (cookies), but here goes-

I volunteer three days a week at a local charity shop. We only sell things that are donated by members of the public and I think that our prices are very reasonable. The fact that the profits are going to support elderly people in the local community doesn't stop people trying to haggle and it drives me nuts.

I've been called a bitch after one "gentleman" wanted to get something for half price and I refused to give in to his argument.

Customers think that because they are buying three things that come to less than £5 they should get a discount.

Customers swapping price labels or removing them to try and get things cheaper.

But the "lady" I served on Tuesday was enough to make by blood boil. She started by ordering me around like her personal flunkey, then said everything in the shop was too expensive and that she wasn't paying that much for anything. Cue her breaking a teapot and us not charging her for it. She still carried on arguing about the price of everything, tried to get a discount on the two things she did buy and then came back into the shop to tell me that something she had asked the price of was £6. I was very quick to tell her that I had priced it, it was £8 and that as it had only just gone into the shop there was no way she was getting it cheaper. Cat butt face followed and she left the shop in a huff.

That's without getting started on the people who come into steal from us, the brats who run riot and the other assorted creepy and smelly customers.