The Importance of Haggling For A Discount

Filed Under Finance

The news item that we published on MoneyHighStreet.com today about more people haggling when buying a new car, reminded my about something that happened yesterday.

As you can see from some of the posts on this forum, I am a keen cyclist and cycle well over 100 miles per week. That level of cycling is demanding on my road bike, particularly with the bad roads around here, so I often have to visit my local bike shop, where they know me well and I really rate the quality of their service highly.

Peter, our son, has not surprisingly outgrown the bike that we bought for him two years ago, so we set off to buy him a new bike yesterday.

First stop was Halfords as I wanted to see what prices they were charging as a bench mark. Peter quickly saw a bike that he thought was perfect and it only cost £99.99, which seemed a good price.

I always try and give as much business to Cycles UK, because of their excellent technical ability and specialist knowledge, so we then set off to their shop to see what bikes they had.

Well, there were about four different bikes that lit Peter’s eyes up, but the problem was that they started at around £120. The one he particularly wanted was £139.99, though – 40% more than the bike in Halfords.

I spoke to the manager, who I know reasonably well, and asked if they could discount the bike down to at least near the Halfords price. I was even prepared to pay a premium for their after sales service.

“Sorry, Chris, the most we can offer is a 10% discount – I’ll get in trouble if I take more than that off”, he said.

As Peter will probably outgrow this new bike within 18 months, the least I pay for it, the better, as long as the bike is basically good. So sadly I had to walk away from the Cycles UK deal and we bought the bike from Halfords.

The key point, though, is to always ask for a discount. Ask politely, be reasonable and honest and the shop will almost certainly try their best for you. Sometimes, though, you may not get the discount that you need.