Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with haggling

New Furniture Price Haggling

mctsonic — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 08:39:31 -0800

Is it possible to 'haggle' / negotiate prices on new furniture? My wife and I have been shopping for furniture for different rooms recently - specifically new computer desks and a dining room table and chairs. Can anyone provide tips / experiences on negotiating price with furniture stores?

We certainly do not mind paying for quality / long life / value - but we do want to get the best price we can for such high ticket items!

Thanks in advance.

Should I haggle for a new hybrid?

ontic — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:30:58 -0800

I've found a new Prius that I might be able to buy before the tax rebate gets chopped in half. Since it's a new, popular car, am I going to be paying full price no matter what or should I try my meager haggling skills? If the latter, what should I aim for and how should I go about it given the "next guy will pay full price" line I'll inevitably encounter? I can't imagine a question like this hasn't been asked before, but searching didn't turn it up. Perhaps I am an incompetent searcher.

How low can you go?

Pocahontas — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 11:37:52 -0800

Furniture store price haggling. I've heard that it's ok to negotiate the listed prices on furniture at independent, mom-and-pop stores. My friend says no, it's not like buying a car from a dealership, where there's the expected offer-counteroffer dance. I know this isn't possible at Ikea or Target, but at my local, one-location only furniture store, is that a possibility?

And, if so, how do I start the conversation? "$400 for this dresser? How about $300?"

How do you (not) haggle when buying a car?

milkrate — Fri, 18 Feb 2005 15:12:20 -0800

I'm going to need to buy a car sometime soon and, from past experiences, I find this to be completely unpleasant. How can I make this easier or less painful? Have you used services that take care of negotiations/haggling? I do pretty exhaustive research before I buy almost anything, so I already know what I'd like to buy and I have a very good idea of how much I ought to/want to (and don't want to) be paying for it.

Over the past week or so, I've attempted to use services that aim to take the butt-puckeringly annoying activity of haggling out of purchasing a car while still getting a fair price, but I've found this to be pretty frustrating as well. Using Costco's program, the dealer quoted me a price that was basically the MSRP + destination charge for the car. Using different services, dealers have told me things that can be verified as either simple deceptions or plain lies.

Have you used a free or paid service, like CarBargains or CarsDirect, to get rid of the negotiating part of buying a car? How did it work out for you? Would you do it again? What other services are there for this? Alternatively, how do you avoid or deal with the haggling aspect of buying a car? Or do you just buy from no-haggle dealers?

Is it ethical to break a deal with a car dealer?

freshgroundpepper — Tue, 17 Aug 2004 13:36:10 -0800

Car buying ethics question: I'm buying a new car that's relatively rare and had set my expectations such that if I were able to get it for < $1,500 over invoice that I'd be ok with the deal. I negotiated one dealer down to $1,300 over invoice and put a $500 deposit down on the car yesterday (it's arriving late this month). [MI] I had been in negotiations with a few other dealers, but hadn't heard back from them in a couple of days, so I assumed they couldn't beat the price that I had given them a couple of days previous.

Today I get an e-mail from one of the other dealers saying that I should break my deal with the other dealer and that she can now give me the vehicle for $250 over invoice, a savings of a little over a thousand dollars.

The deposit is refundable, but it feels like there's sort of a contract that has been entered into and if I break it I'm not sure if I'd feel right about that. But, hey, it's a thousand bucks! :)

Is all fair in love, war, and car dealing, or should I stick with the deal I originally made?

One other caveat: The dealer I put the money down with is local (Twin Cities) and the one giving me the great deal is about a 6 hour drive away (Chicago). I don't mind making the drive, but wonder if I need to worry about anything related to that.