|
ST. LOUIS
— When
Greg Schmidt
was shopping for a bathroom vanity just before
Valentine's Day
, paying regular price never was an option. When he
found one he liked on clearance — its price slashed
more than 30 percent — Schmidt knew it was time to
find a manager of the
Lowe's
store.
Marked
prices are supposed to be final, or at least that's what
we've always been trained to think. Schmidt and a
growing number of American consumers seem to think
otherwise.
The
42-year-old
Bethalto, Ill.
, man bought the vanity for
$125
, or
$50
less than the marked-down price.
For
Schmidt, haggling is the norm. He bargains on just about
every big purchase, from cameras to car repairs.
Usually, he sticks to sales, and then he wants at least
an additional 10 percent knocked off. And, usually, he
gets it.
"If
you're polite and you're reasonable, most people are
going to work with you," Schmidt said.
"Sometimes I don't save as much as I'd like, but it
just about always works to some degree."
A survey
of 1,000 shoppers last year by Consumer Reports
indicated that, in the previous six months, more than
two-thirds of Americans tried to bargain for a better
deal and that — in most of those cases — the
hagglers succeeded at getting retailers to lower prices.
The
survey found that hagglers had success rates topping 75
percent when they tried to negotiate lower prices on
hotels, cell phone plans, clothing, jewelry and
appliances. Consumers who said they bargained for lower
medical bills were successful about 58 percent of the
time.
Hard-core
hagglers tend to be younger shoppers, according to the
Consumer Reports survey, which found that 37 percent of
those under 35 said they "always or often asked for
discounts."
Other
evidence of a shift toward bargaining comes from
America's Research Group
, a
Charleston, S.C.
-based firm that researches consumer attitudes for
companies such as
Berkshire-Hathaway
and
General Electric
.
For more
than 20 years, ARG Chief Executive
Britt Beemer
has been asking Americans about haggling. During most of
that time, only about a third of those surveyed said
they've recently bargained for a lower price. About a
year ago, that number shot up to about 72 percent —
and it's stayed that high in several follow-up polls,
including one this month.
"It's
the highest I've ever seen it," said Beemer, who
doesn't think the haggling trend will end when the
economy recovers. "Consumers are getting deals, and
they're not going to give that up."
The
increase in haggling isn't a recession fad as much as a
"cultural shift," says
Shweta Oza
, who studies bartering and negotiation as an assistant
professor at the
University of Miami School of Business Administration
.
"American
consumers always thought they couldn't ask for a price
cut; they thought it was being cheap or weird," Oza
said. "But the economy has acted like a trigger —
it's telling them that you can ask retailers for a break
and that you'll usually get it."
Americans
are more comfortable asking for discounts, Oza believes,
and they're finding that haggling "is empowering,
not demeaning."
Sales
clerks also seem more accustomed to bargaining, said Oza,
who said a
Macy's
worker didn't hesitate to knock
$40
off the price of a food processor Oza bought late last
year.
Selin Malkoc
researches consumer behavior at
Washington University's
Olin School of Business
. She's skeptical that American shoppers are embracing
haggling in any significant way, at least not like
consumers in Malkoc's native
Turkey
.
While
bargaining is common in
Turkey
, it's less so than it once was because of the influx of
American retailers that won't budge on price. Turkish
consumers accept inflexible pricing at those stores
because they have no other choice.
"Retailers'
policies determine whether (haggling) is acceptable, and
it's the same way here," Malkoc said. "Whether
we see a big increase in bargaining is going to depend
on how companies respond."
In other
words, consumers are going to be a lot more likely to
bargain if they believe a retailer is going to budge, or
if they know — from friends, family or past
experiences — that a store manager has caved before.
So
perhaps it's not surprising that big national retailers
don't like to promote hagglers' successes.
A
spokeswoman for
Macy's
, where Oza got the deal on a food processor, said the
department store has a firm no-haggling policy. A
spokeswoman for
Lowe's
, where Schmidt got an extra
$50
off that vanity, said store managers shouldn't haggle
but they can adjust prices for one-of-a-kind, clearance
items.
Dan Butler
, the vice president of retail operations for the
National Retail Federation
, doesn't think there has been a significant jump in
haggling at national chain stores.
"I
don't doubt that many consumers think they've negotiated
better deals, but we tend to remember the exceptions,
not the rule," Butler said.
Haggling
is bad for business, Butler insists, because it exposes
retailers to charges that they favor some customers over
others. That, he said, could lead to lawsuits over
discrimination or fines from that states that regulate
truth-in-pricing laws.
Butler
suspects that consumers who think they've successfully
haggled were simply clued in to unadvertised sales or
given a discount that, a day or two later, would be
available to all customers.
Likewise,
some
St. Louis
area retailers say that don't wheel and deal with
hagglers, but they sometimes will sell products for less
than sticker price.
Stephen Weiss
, president of the Creve Coeur Camera chain, said that
while his customers seldom try to haggle, managers at
his eight stores are authorized to sell below sticker
price in rare cases—like when a customer finds the
same product advertised for less at another
St. Louis
retailer.
Interviewed
during a seller's market just a few days before St.
Valentine's Day
,
Chuck Knoll
laughed at the notion of customers haggling for flowers.
Yet Knoll, a fifth-generation florist and one of the
owners of Walter Knoll Florist, said that other times of
the year his managers might be able to offer
unadvertised discounts on high-end arrangements.
Beemer,
the consumer-behavior researcher, said it's natural for
retailers to downplay or even deny that sales clerks and
managers routinely reward haggling.
"It's
not the sort of thing that any company is going to admit
to because they don't want all the other customers to
know about it," said Beemer, who noted that he
recently haggled a 20 percent discount at a department
store on the same day one of its executives said such
things don't happen at the national chain.
———
HAGGLING
TIPS:
If you're
going to give haggling a try, consider these tips from
Consumer Reports:
—Be
patient and friendly. Demanding a discount rarely works.
—Time
your haggling when the store is less busy and clerks
have more time to talk.
—Avoid
haggling in front of other customers because clerks
don't want everyone to ask for a deal.
—Research
prices. Bring Web print-outs and newspaper ads
advertising lower prices elsewhere.
—Offer
to pay cash, which saves stores credit-card transaction
fees.
—Be
prepared to walk if the store won't work with you.
|
