Typical !!!

Troll.

It's a *bloody* good job I wasn't in the shop when the assistant said to Charlie, "we don't serve your sorts in here."

Why is it a cheek to bargain? If you don't ask, you don't get.

Cheap job in the first place on a car I have never seen before, while he waits, on a moments notice! Is it reasonable to ask for 25 percent off, I don't work that way and I don't expect people to ask for money off on such a cheap job. A dealer would charge about 50 quid I expect, and they wouldn't negotiate, do it while you wait or anything else.

mrcheerful

Absolutely, yes. Aim low, come up. You'd surely not pay the asking price if you were buying a car?

Cheap to you. But to some people £20 may represent almost all that they have left to spend that week.

They certainly can and do negotiate. The value of me going back to the one dealership for the last twelve years is worth more than a 20% discount.

Try selling on ebay! I once sold something and when the highest bidder came round he tried haggling the price (which he'd bid) down! I told him if he didn't pay me what he'd bid I'd give it to the next bidder and report him.

More recently on a repair which turned out to be chargeable we agreed to waive the callout and labour charges (nearly £200) and just bill for the parts - but they still wanted a discount on the part! We said you can either accept our offer or find somebody else to repair it and haggle with them...

Darren

You expect the customer to have had several quotes so knows what the job costs? It could even be that they did have a quote for 15 quid from somewhere not so convenient.

At one time there was retail price maintenance in this country, so a product cost the same regardless of where you bought it. That changed years ago, and it's possible to haggle over anything. With some cultures it's the norm for everything.

A main dealer presumably has larger overheads then you? And they certainly negotiate on car sales. And often offer lower price per hour servicing on older cars. So nothing is set in stone, price wise.

I see where you're coming from. You think you quoted a fair price, and were insulted when asked to lower it. Which would be fine if it were a long term customer who knew you well.

Pragmatism would say that when dealing with one of your 'disliked minorities' you up the quote by approx 25% so you can cheerfully reduce it if their culture is to haggle.

I suspect that the customer know that though.

Had the same problem selling my car, after agreeing a price and stating that was it; he asked to have an AA inspection done. No problem but I warned him that whatever, the price would not change. After the test all that was found was weeping from the front oil seal. The inspector himself said waht do you expect and waht good value etc. In the house we go and he tries to negotiate down to cover the cost of his test, got pretty irate as well. I showed him the door. Afterwards relative said why not negotiate the price up as it was so good !!!

Yes. It's only a certain sort of Brit that doesn't haggle (too embarassed). Everyone else in the world regards it as sensible and normal. You should have just said 'No', instead of losing business.

Next time, quote higher. "They" will also feel better when they ask for the discount (to your 'normal' £20) as you will approve and therefore a happier customer than otherwise.

The message from "Darren Jarvis" contains these words:

That's a different situation. A winning eBay bidder has entered a contract with you.

I'm all for haggling - I got the habit when I was the buyer for a small electronics firm.

Of course, I prefer not paying at all - skipweaseling things is much nicer. I got a rather nice rowing machine a while ago - minus a back leg but that's nothing to a bloke with a welder and a garden full of scrap iron.

mrcheerful . wrote on Sat, 02 Jul 2005 10:13:52 GMT:

Yes. The key word is "ask".

I suspect it had more to do with your prejudice than anything else.

If someone without a "foreign accent" had tried to bargain with you, would you have told them where to go and blocked them from ever calling you again?

mrcheerful . wrote on Sat, 02 Jul 2005 06:00:20 GMT:

Well, you've seemed very intelligent, but based on this post, I'll follow my principles...

Do you try and negotiate the best discounts from *your* suppliers?

If the answer is yes, then you do exactly the same thing as the aformentioned 'customer' - so what's the problem?

If the answer is no, then you cannot be much of a business 'person' (to be PC) and your profits must suffer as you could be losing anything from 5% to around 30% on parts alone.

So, would the true reason for the refusal have something to do with racial discrimination?

Brian G

I wonder if skip truck drivers end up with houses full of "finds" ?

Actually, yes. But my chosen customers are so well behaved it would not occur !!!!

mrcheerful

To be honest, speed of supply is the most important, my mark up is the same whether something is cheap or dear. I usually only get genuine parts and the discount on these is pretty fixed, unless you are a very large buyer. If necessary I just go into Halfords or whatever and buy the bits with no discount, I don't stand there whingeing about getting trade discount, I wouldn't be so rude, if I buy lots from one place then I present a trade order, and usually get the trade discount, but I wouldn't argue if there was none.

My refusal was to someone of a type that I don't deal with, it could as easily have been any race, but from experience I know that foreigners, in this case an Asian are likely to try for 'best price' , which is why I don't usually deal with them, in this case I made a mistake by even discussing it and I was proved right in that proven customer rejection systems are a good policy to avoid grief.

mrcheerful

The message from "jOn" contains these words:

No - they usually flog it on.

The local housing association regularly collect fly-tipped stuff - some of which can be quite handy, but there are strict rules about 'em selling it. Which is a bummer - if I want two or three old bicycle frames I have to go snaffle 'em first in case someone sees 'em handing 'em to me. Even if I'm not paying it could get 'em into trouble.

a cynic may call them mugs :)

but back to the original quetion you posed, if you didn't want to do the job, then you should have quoted what you thought would have made the guy walk away if it's £50 from a deal you should have said £50 mate, take it or leave it, either way, you will have to wait till the end of the day and if there are any problems i'm going to have to keep the car until i can fix them, for which i will be charging you even more money