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My dad is a legendary haggler. He loves it. He's also very good at it. He will haggle over any major purchase, be it houses, electronics, appliances, cars, etc. It makes my mother nervous; she just wants whatever Dad is haggling for, and wants it to be done and over with. Because they've been married for 26 years now, though, Mom understands the pleasure Dad gets out of haggling and gets out of the way.
My dad's favorite trick is to find used Volvos at non-Volvo dealers. Typically these cars have been picked up at auction or as a trade-in. One way or another he figures out about how much they probably paid for the car at auction, and offers them only a little more than that--enough for them to keep their dignity. He really lowballed the guy one time when he was trying to buy a Volvo 960 wagon (it had higher mileage than the advertisement had led him to believe), to the point my mom thought the guy would turn him down. Instead, the salesman replied that he would have to check with his supervisor, but he thought it would work. In reply, my dad asked if they took American Express.
Recently, he managed to get a special order counterdepth Bosch refrigerator (a very spendy fridge) knocked down considerably, using their own advertising against them. Lowes said they would beat anyone's price, and so Dad kept his eye on the ads looking for a fridge. Sears advertised this Bosch fridge he wanted, and so he called up Lowes and asked if they would beat the sale price at Sears. The person on the phone said yes, so my dad headed on up to Lowes to make the purchase. Now, my folks live out in the boondocks, so the trip to Lowes is an hour each way. He gets up there and the salesperson he talks to in appliances says what he heard on the phone is wrong, that they can't offer that deal on a special purchase, but my dad isn't just about to go home after driving an hour because some asshat on the phone said they would beat the price. So he insists on speaking with the manager, despite the salesperson's protests that they can't do anything. The manager gave my dad the deal.
My other favorite is how he got his LCD television. It's a big fancy Philips, purchased after a power surge wrecked my parents' electronics in a bad storm a couple years back. He had x amount of money to spend from the insurance company on a new television, and it was considerably more than he had spent on the television he was replacing, and so he decided it was time to upgrade. He is a savvy shopper, obviously, and looks around for all the deals. We're kind of a Philips family (my great-grandfather was an accountant for them) and so he's predisposed to this big fancy Philips only available at the Costco furniture store, with a coupon. So he and Mom head on over to Seattle (1.5 hours away) to acquire it. While he's there, he finds out that he needs to spend an extra $100 on cables to get this thing hooked up correctly. He is not pleased. He says to the salesguy he needs to go price the cables before he commits. The salesguy throws in the cables free in order to make the sale.
I can haggle. I don't like to, but I've obviously learned a lot of tricks.
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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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