Would you do business with this man? *UPDATED*

[Crazedclerkthe2nd]

Here's how one person describes his strategy for purchasing items (I will give you the context at the end):

"First, you must learn to negotiate everything. Everything you buy is negotiable at some time, at some place and you must find it."

Then he states:

"You must negotiate with everyone. Two major pizza chains in our area are competing aggressively for their share of the market. My family prefers the taste of one brand better, but the other brand runs better advertised specials.

My wife was determined to get the brand we wanted at the other's price, so when she called ot place the order she told our brand they would have to match the other brand's price if they wanted the business. At first they did not want to, because there was a good bit of price difference, but when my wife explained that she would simply call the other brand and place an order, they gave us the good pizza at the good price. Our family does this just for the fun of it.

I do not buy a car stereo from the showroom floor. I want them to bring the one from the back with a small scratch, and I will save $200. I buy kitchen applicances, cars, clothes - everything - at discount, simply because I have the nerve to ask."

And:

"This same principle holds true when when negotiating. When the price is given you should reply: "That is not good enough, what can you really do?" You will see the price drop, sometimes lower than you would have offered."

And finally:

"Your wife or husband, who is not [physically] with you, should always seem mean to the other side. 'My wife would kill me if I took that price' or 'You know, my husband doesn't like it if I come home with a new dress if I didn't get a good deal.'
You should always use this - and you should also be very aware that it is used against you by retailers. They call it position selling."

Ok and now for the context: The person making these statements is none other than Dave Ramsey. He's written a lot of books on how to take control of and manage your money and has a radio show and whatnot.

The above quotes come from a book of his given to my wife and I as part of one of his classes we are taking about financial responsibility.

The way I read this, he's practically implying that I need to become an SC to save money everywhere I shop. Mind you he never implies that you need to be rude or dickish when you are doing the things above, but to me some of the things seem a bit dickish in and of themselves.

Admittedly I have "called to cancel" to get a better deal on my cell phone service because I knew it would work. But I was polite when I called and I most certainly do not do such things all the time.

Maybe my perspective on this advice is somewhat colored due to the fact I've spent so many years behind a shop counter, but I do take a bit of issue with it.

We haven't taken the class that covers this chapter yet. It will be an interesting group discussion when we do.

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UPDATE: Since the original CS.com got rather heated and removed, I'm reposting this here, since this site is meant to be for contentious stuff, which apparently this is (I didn't think it would be but I guess some of you have strong opinions on Dave Ramsey).

As far as I'm concerned, he has every right to be an SC if he wants to be, but I'm not sure I necessarily need to be to get my finances in good shape. Look, I like a good deal as much as the next guy, but there are ways to get deals without having to resort to such techniques as described above.

[Sleepwalker]

Heh. Yes, there tends to be a bit of wiggle room when it comes to big ticket purchases. In my world, I suffer the consequences of people trying to haggle ten cents off an 8 cent profit item. Fuck you, haggle gurus.

[Andara Bledin]

The thing is, he's right.

You can negotiate everything.

Some places will stand firm, but the vast majority, given a large enough sale, will fold like a house of cards just to appease the customer.

I used to know a woman who would go shopping and never paid the marked price for anything except maybe food. Her MO was to go in, find the items she wanted (usually hundreds of dollars worth), then find a clerk and ask for a discount. And if they couldn't or wouldn't do it, she'd ask for the next person up the chain. And she'd do that until she either got her discount or ran out of people, at which point she would leave the items and move on to the next shop. According to her, she only rarely had to go to more than one place to get any particular item.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

No, I wouldn't do business with him if I could avoid it. Who wants to spend more time around obnoxious people than necessary?

[Rapscallion]

For me, it depends on the amount of money involved.

I'm fortunate enough to be in a position that I wouldn't cross the street to save fifty pence on a sandwich. I just switched car insurance companies for the saving of eighty quid. I told them that had their quote been about thirty quid more than the best competing quote then I wouldn't have bothered, but they couldn't even match that.

That was about the £500 area for reference.

For my house, around the £110k asking price, I knew what I could afford and bartered them down to that, though I tried for a chunk less.

It's what my dignity is worth, for the most part. It's also a matter of the arena involved. House offers are a fact of the UK culture, though I'm not certain about abroad. Buying a car is often a case of a decent chunk of money is available to save, so I'd have no issue in walking away from that if it got a salesman running after me.

A low-value retail item? A pizza? Nope.

Some people would consider it a great victory to save a large amount of money on a large sale. I'd consider it a victory to have the coin to buy something of reasonable value (car etc).

Rapscallion

[Kheldarson]

Reminds me of customers in my store. A lot of the initial reactions of people coming up with a buggy full of stuff is "Do you have any coupons?"

Now, granted, I keep coupons from other customers to use as an incentive or as a nice help. But it grates me that the attitude seems to be that "I'm buying all this stuff so you should be willing to give me a break". No, breaks are done for people who are nice and don't expect it and thank you profusely for helping them out. Not for people who demand and then get upset when you say no. That's what this guy reminds me of.

[bara]

I have a small dream of opening a used games shop/internet cafe type of deal where people could actually rent rooms for a lan party. Nothing like that in my hometown and I think it could work.

Depending on what the guy was bartering and how he went about it I might be okay with it. If he bartered for items that had a low profit margin to begin with Id stand firm.

The lady that Andara described would get permabanned.

[Gravekeeper]

Way I see it:

Its not obnoxious to haggle over some that's generally mutuable. Like a quote or a used car or some form of service.

It *is* obnoxious to haggle over something that is on a menu or has a marked price tag. Like pizza or groceries.

Basically, if you're haggling in a restaurant or a retail store, you're probably a dick. If you're haggling on a sales lot, in an office or over the phone, you're probably fine.

[jackfaire]

Yeah kind of what everyone is saying. Seriously if your negotiating this way then you suck.

I mean for one okay so you acknowledge that Pizza Place X is better than Pizza Place Y which is probably why X costs more than Y since they use better ingredients and as such taste better.

But instead of paying for that increase of value you want to blackmail them into charging the prices Y does.

If you get everyone doing this then X is going to start buying the ingredients that Y does so that they can afford to be offering the same prices.

Those techniques work in most cases not because everything is negotiable but because these kinds of people tend to be arrogant and annoying so giving them what they want to shut them up and make them go away so that the business can focus on real customers seems worth it.

However if every customer started acting like this then the businesses would either go out of business or start selling crappier products so they could afford to sell at the lower prices everyone is insisting on.