very good. i wonder if he would have been pissed if I started suggesting stuff like that.
and more of the other apostles …but only the ones in the band.
He came in again , looking for the original salesman still thinking he was right.
He said he was a little upset and I was a little too much in his face. I reminded him that I actually called the original salesman who verified what I was telliong him. Maybe he thinks I was making that up.
I do wonder if some posters here may be right that this is just this guys wear down haggling technique. I get pretty stubborn when I offer someone a good deal and they still try to take up my time haggling. I’ve dealt with the nag technique a few times and it pisses me off. I’ve told a few customers if their next words aren’t “I’ll take it” then the price starts going up.
What a load of shit this is. The price structure was clearly marked and very understandable had HE, THE CUSTOMER, not tried to haggle an even lower price.
You’re correct, but he was getting a better deal than most. We normally will negotiate a cash price or take a trade in off the tagged price, but not both. This guy was offered both. 10% off the tag and a trade in value. THEN the salesman went one step too far and offered to eat the tax, which also comes off the stores bottom line, and he still wanted a better deal. It’s fine to make an offer and say, here’s how much I’m willing, or can afford to pay for this guitar. If we can’t do it, then we can’t. Thanks for the offer but no. It doesn’t have to be so complicated.
Hopefully the pun quality will pick up, or I’ll be on guard.
Dude, look at your OP. Look at how long it took you to explain the final price. What you related is anything but “clearly marked”. There is a reason the first couple of responses in this thread expressed confusion. I mean, I understood it, but you need to understand that a good bit of the problem is how you and your shop explain things.
My position is that if the customer is whining “wah, wah”, the distortion may be coming from how you pedal your guitars.
Honestly, while I do see the confusion, at the end of the day, it’s a pretty simple decision. Do I want to pay $430 for the guitar with the trade-in or don’t I? If I, as a customer, really feel like the seller is trying to screw me and lie to me, I have the same attitude as from the selling side. Fuck off, I’m going somewhere else. If you really think the salesperson is lying and trying to screw with you, why would you buy from them?
Yeah, it is. But that’s not what the OP is saying. It sounds like a good deal on a guitar to me, and I certainly don’t think the shop is being dishonest, but this OP is about confusion. It’s even in the title. I suspect the OP is just bad at haggling. I don’t mean that he frequently gets rooked, just that he can’t explain the price he’s asking very well. Rule one for a seller in terms of haggling is never talk about politics or religion. Fine there. Rule two is taxes. Never ever bring taxes into it. Percentages are too goddamn confusing for people. Here’s an example from our OP:
Quick - how much is 9.25% of $420? … No, you can’t use a calculator.
So that’s why I don’t sympathize with the OP very much. The customer may very well be a complete dickhead, I don’t know, but I can’t get behind the OP bitching about the confusion. Never ever say “tax included”.
Eh, tax included is a good thing for consumers. It’s the only way I buy cars. “Look, I don’t care how much you charge me for the CAR, okay? But I have $X today and that’s what I’m paying. You can figure out the tax and whatever yourself.”
Fuck math. I want a car.
The customer is stupid.
Heh. Something makes me think you paid way too much for your last one.
Dude, the pricing structure is the price clearly marked on the tag and that’s it.
The rest of it is the result of haggling by the customer. It didn’t take long at all to explain that the deal , before he came back in was $460 tax included.
The problem began when he insisted that $460 tax included meant he should pay $420, and I tried repeatedly to explain it to him. The $30 on the case was a side item.
I thought the guy was just having trouble understanding “tax included” but now I suspect this is his stealth method of haggling. I’ve dealt with a lot of hagglers and they have several nethods. The straightforward ones just make and offer and there might be a counter offer and done. Some try to just wear you down until you give them a discount just to get rid of them. A few will say they were made an offer that was never made and , then say, you’re going back on your word, and threaten to never do business with you again. I think that’s what this guy is up to. Fo guys like him it’s not so much about price as it is their personal victory.
He’ll come back , talk to the other salesman, who tell him what I already told him 8 freakin times, and then he’ll claim he’s reniging on his previous offer and want to talk to the manager or threaten to never come back, which IMO, is the best case scenario.
Out of curiousity could you tell me what your experience is in retail, and an enviornment where haggling is the rule rather than the exception?
I used to manage a hardware store, and it was never the rule but, c’mon. It was your shop that started the haggling. How the fuck can you take trade ins and not haggle? I don’t know anything about guitars, but when I was taking used lawn mowers in as trade-ins you can be damned sure there was some back and forth about the price.
No kidding. Haggling is a relic of the dark ages. The notion that the best price goes to the person who knows how to play some stupid outdated “game” with vague rules has no place in the 21st century.
You’re wrong, and I’m not even sure why you’d assume that.
Who cares? The customer doesn’t need to do any math whatsoever. He was told “tax included.”
That was not an terribly uncommon way of buying gear, in my experience. When I bought my first keyboard, I went out the door with Korg M1 $1000, tax included. It’s pretty easy and requires no math on my part. I don’t understand where the difficulty is in the phrase “tax included,” from either the buyer or seller side. “Tax included” is an awesome phrase for me to hear, as a customer. I know exactly what my cost is without having to go to a calculator and figure it out.
Because you can’t do math. Doug K is wrong. Haggling is not a relic of the dark ages. The guy probably thinks the world runs like Walmart. There is no “manufacturer’s suggested retail price” for a used product. If you are buying or selling something that is used, you have to haggle. Negotiation is a basic social interaction and will never die. If you are bad at it, you won’t end up with a good deal. This happens to nation states, business owners, and people buying cars.
Wait - so the guy BOUGHT THE GUITAR already - and is now - after the fact - trying to get you to give him back money for a case that he ALREADY BOUGHT??? Why didn’t he do that before he bought the damn thing?
This is not a customer whose business you want in the future. The hell with him.