@naruto100 I think you can get the prices of new cars down too. Of course you do not ask them in the same way like you tackle your street vegetable vendor but if you ask them for a discount/scheme they will stop and think for a while and probably find a way to offer you something in the name of lesser insurance fee, registration discount, free accessories and additional services from dealer's side or additional items free. I suggest you to do this because it works 90 times out of 100. I got almost INR 10 K worth freebies with my last car a Hyundai i20
@Ray1 Yes that way I have too seen they do give some offers. In fact one of my cousin got free accessory from Volkswagen during recent purchase of new car. I don't know what he get, but yes like this way we can have some benefit. Of course we can't direct start bargaining like we used to do in small shops. That will look funny. Lol.
@naruto100 actually the competition is so tough these days in automobile market and target so high so the dealers do not mind sharing some of their profit with their customers. They cannot do it directly due to company policies but they oblige you in different other ways. And I am sure it's not a bargain deal but your right because they are already earning too high from you.
@Ray1 Yes I can understand. You are right about competition as I can see even small towns now having dealership of this vehicles. So now they don't need to go for city. And because of that this competition has been increased lot. I have seen one of such dealership business going down recently because of this.
I agree with you on this, even though it might not be a critical or rather vital skill, it is quite important and can help you save a lot of money when buying things.
@Zero Yes it is important and helpful. Some shops have fixed price, but at some tourism place they used to hike the price as bargaining is quite normal at such places. So better we go for it otherwise we will end up paying high price. So yes it is kind of useful skill to have. Everybody should learn it.
I'm not very good at haggling either, and what I usually do is to offer what I think is fair for me to pay for the particular item that I want, and either the vendor takes it or he refuses but I never bargain more than that. This probably means that I've paid a lot more than I had to on some things, but as long as I felt the price was fair then I don't mind.
@dane Sometimes we end up paying more if we don't bargain. I am not talking about all places as some places only have fixed price, so bargain will not work. But at some places shop keepers use to put high price because they knew that customer will bargain. So in such shop if we don't bargain then we may end up paying more. Even I am not good, but I always try it once.
@dane I am also involved in bargaining almost as much. If I hear a price which I believe is too high then I will ask the shopkeeper to either give me a discount or tell them the price which I feel is reasonable. If they are ready to reduce the price somewhere around my expectation that is a deal otherwise I move on without saying another word.
@Ray1 Well, that's how I bargain too. I just ask for once , if they say no then I just walk away. Many times they call me again with discount and many times I just walk away without having anything. Lol. That is how I do bargaining. I wonder if it can be called skilled one or not. Ha ha.
Sometimes I tend to think that bargaining is a talent. This is because I am never good at it. However, when I was small, we would go shopping with my mum and she would buy stuff at very cheap prices. Other customers would come to buy the same stuff at high prices. I once tried it and at the end of it as I wanted to leave the seller was so angry at me for wasting his time. I agree it saves a lot of money to bargain. This applies mostly to second-hand items. With the emergence of online stores, bargaining is slowly losing its value since there one cannot bargain. It is like a supermarket where the price of items is fixed. I shop online and I cannot complain because the price of items there is standardised.
Whether in the big malls or open market I have seen that bargaining is possible. The difference, at the malls the style of bargain is more refined people ask for discount while in the open market it could go by asking for discount or outright trying to slice down the price. If I'm at the open market I make sure to bargain very well and be sure I'm not cheated before making payment. In same way at big supermarkets I want to be sure I am buying at the maximum possible discount.
@Gad Yes there are certain places only where we can bargain. Of course it will not work on places like super market and online shopping. but yes where it is working we should try it as we can save lots of money. About that shop keeper what you said became angry in the end, I guess we can't do anything about that kind of situation. Even I have faced it few times, but it is up to us if we want to buy it or just walk away. They should avoid this kind of behavior because customer will avoid them next time because of this.