There is no hiding the fact that I
love a bargain. I will rarely ask for a discount, but I’ll always do my
research to make sure I am getting the best deal for whatever it is I am
purchasing. For our wedding, we had my Mum as the photographer as well as Steve’s
cousin. We have a Nikon DSLR that takes great pictures and thought along with a
professional flash, we’d be set. At the camera store, they told us that if we
ended up wanting to buy the flash, they’d deduct the rental price from the
excess we’d then pay to keep it.
All well and good – we rented the flash and
took it home and over the course of the weekend decided that yes, we would keep
the flash and we would go back on Monday to pay the difference. I did my
research and found plenty online for the $600 mark and since we’d paid $180 for
rental, it would be an extra $420. We had cash and so we decided to try and
talk them down to accepting a further $400 in cash instead.
Steve took the flash back one morning and let them know what the deal was and asked them to bring down the excess to $400. He was met with no’s all ‘round and was told he would have to pay $470. Yes, another $470. He left the shop with no flash, let me know what was going on and I was like - hell no. On their website they had advertised the price at $630 taking their asking price of $470 + $180 above that. It was then I realised that we had been way overcharged for the rental in the first place as the price advertised on their website was $80 for the weekend, not $180!
Lunch time rolled around and we went back in to seek a refund for the rental and to see what sweet talking I could do to bring the price down. I told the guy the prices I’d seen online and told him I had $400 cash in my hands that I was ready to give him. He started out by saying, no $400 is not enough.. we pay $560 etc etc. Turns out, he thought that all up I wanted to pay only $400… I explained I am not that cheap; we meant $400 on top of the $180 we’d already paid and he was quick to cut a deal, telling us if we paid $360 extra, we could have the flash.
Woohoo, less than what I was willing to pay!
He put it through, realised he’d just short changed himself, we took the flash
and off we went.
Moral of the story – don’t pay full price,
especially for electronics.
Do you ever try and bargain?
My husband and I always try to bargain when it comes to more pricey stuff like these. My husband grew up with parents who always taught about stretching your dollar and his dad had a business and believed that it's rubbish if someone says they can't give you a better price cause they always can! Recently, the manager at a popular shop accidentally let slip that he has the power to lower prices down to 50%! We were about to buy a 4 drawer cabinet and so he had to do 50% since he just let the little secret out! I hate paying full price for stuff (unless it's something I'm too impatient to wait/bargain for).
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