This week, Time Magazine had a great article on haggling during the recession. (Thanks to Jerry Olivo for sending this along.) Although apparently we don’t usually negotiate retail items, the recession has encouraged plenty of shoppers to dust off those negotiation skills and try to negotiate items that are typically not open for discussion.
Think you should haggle only when buying a car or shopping in the streets of Morocco? In this recession, if you’re not bargaining for everything everywhere, you’re needlessly draining your wallet. According to the consulting firm America’s Research Group, in October, 56% of consumers said they had recently tried to negotiate at retail outlets other than car dealerships. Of those hagglers, 50% got deals. When the company repeated the survey in May, 72% of consumers said they had tried to haggle, and a stunning 80% were successful. “What you can do today is unbelievable,” says Herb Cohen, an expert dealmaker and the author of the 1980 classic You Can Negotiate Anything. “Americans may finally learn that price tags weren’t put there by the big printer in the sky.”
It sounds like a perfect time for negotiation students everywhere to test those skills and ask for what you want. As the article notes, you might start out feeling sheepish but will end up finding the process rather exhilarating.
That’s really always been true. However, a couple of years ago retailers weren’t under as much pressure to make a deal to meet their sales goals. And while the negotiating might be great for consumer’s wallets, if retailers keep making less on merchandise, they’ll eventually end up going out of business.