Can you still haggle with Dell?

I was going to order my Studio 1555 tonight, but after a quick chat through the Dell's help system, I was told there is no further discount whatsoever avaliable from the online price. I call bull, but he said they have stopped doing this 'long time'. I originally asked what the number I should call was to speak to a sales rep. I swear some of the other people through help have offered to ring me, but they never do.

Is this true? In which case that puts a bit of a downer on the works. After reading all these stories of haggling with sales reps .

 

its bull. you can haggle. they just wont give it to you right away. waste some of their time, then ask for some deals.

oh and from my experience, the EPP reps give discounts much easier, but i may be wrng about that.

 

Ahh thank you very much! I'll try the EPP reps. The number is on the dell-sci site, right? . I'll go check.

But thanks for confirming it's bull, cheered me up a bit .

 

Yes, you can always *haggle* with a Rep...You should always have what you want *saved to your cart* and prepare to deal. If you can't get what you want from one Rep, be prepared to go to another.

Here is a great guide you should take a look at made by Les':
Getting the Best Deal Guide:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=153497

If you go thru EPP, the way to get the *Deal* is by phone..they are supposed to match/beat Dell home pricing

Cin...

 

Hmmm, well just rang the EPP number, got a nice lady, but she wasn't prepared to budge on the online price I got. Though that was with EPP + 5% coupon, but before I offered the coupon, she said that was the best I could do.

I just don't want to ring back and get the same rep .

 

Go ahead and call back your chances of getting the same EPP Rep, are very slim! And, it is always easy to disconnect and redial...I have had to do this myself

Cin...

 

Dell reps can no longer give discounts for you wasting there time. Those rights have been taken away. If a rep comes back with a lower price its because he is looking at a package that is unadvertised that he originally didnt want to give you.

 

Errmmmm...Actually what are you talking about?????

Since when is any one person/customer wasting a Dell Reps time by asking for a discount???

Why on earth would you not want to get the best deal you can get?

I always try and get the best deal I can, period. As, do most of the Dell forum members. And, the Dell Employees do have it w/in their limits to give you the best deal they can.

-1 *sigh*


Cin...

 

Agreed with Cin, why shouldn't you try to get the best deal possible? Although it could be seen as being time wasting for the Dell reps, if someone's willing to give them money, shouldn't that person be able to make sure they are getting the best deal? If that involves calling for a second opinion, why not?

 

You must have just ran into an inflexible rep, but there are reps out there that are willing to give better deals.

 

Quit being cheap. Dell can easily have no discounts off the systems in which you would save $0.00. If Dell had to haggle every price then the profit would be hardly anything. This isnt India so pay for what you want.

 

Enjoy getting ripped off then dude! You're a car salesman dream customer. What a sucker!

Dell can have no discounts but they can also lose business. Some profit is better than zero moron.

 

So you believe it is unfair to haggle anywhere but India? I pity you.

If you were selling an item, and you had a price in mind, but somebody offered you a little bit less for it, but they'll buy it today and take it away; would you not say yes?

Do you have any idea how much markup there is on these items? I mean, sure there is a lot of costs to cover, but talking as someone who works in direct marketing, I can tell you that typically the direct retailer will pay maybe 20-30% of the price we pay for the individual components. Add in say maybe 8% to allow for returns, say 25% to cover marketing costs and another 18% to cover fulfillment costs. Add those up.

So what you get is 30+8+25+18 = 81%, which means that 19% of the sale is going to be profit. OK, so you get say an additional 5% off, they still make money. I mean these numbers will of course be different for each different type of industry, but the point is they still make cash. If they did not, then they would not be in business.

Now, what if they only make 2% profit because they've given a huge discount?

Well surely even 2% profit is better than losing the sale? This is not a trick question, of course it is.

So yes, Dell could very easily offer no discounts; but Dell would probably not be as successful as they are today if they did. I know for example, when we offer free shipping with our products, we get an uplift in gross sales of about 30%. So we make less on each sale, but there are more of them. As long as there remains a balance, it works in our favour. The same will be true of a great many industries.

 

Excellent, thanks for the help Cin, booboo, atb and Fragile. I'd assumed they had a huge markup, I guess mass manufacture helps that out .

I think it's possibly because I'm just being too overgreedy. They had the save £310 offer on, but I'd assumed that was always there and irrelevant, as noone would really pay £1100 + for such setups.

But then agani, I was getting free upgrades on RAM and HDD, none of which really mattered as they cost too much, but hey it came out cheapest online using that offer. And I had EPP, AND a coupon.

So mehh. I thought because that was the 'web' price, irregardless Dell would be able to beat it. I'll try another sales rep, and go from there.

Thanks

 

Kaph...you are not being *overly greedy* at all, in any way. I was a able to call yesterday and *haggle* with my EPP Rep to my heart's delight, and got what I felt was a really good deal on a SXPS 1340! And, he did care, and I wasn't *wasting his time*!!

I had 2 configurations saved to my cart from EPP, and 2 saved from the Dell home site..and we went from there.

Don't forget that EPP..is supposed to match/and beat EPP home pricing!!

So, what I'm saying is perhaps that next phone call you make, you will find that Rep willing to work with you!

Cin...

 

If that was the case I would probably switch OEMs rather quickly. Dell's "normal" price is quite inflated (hence the reason for them having so many sales). If they don't wish to haggle then they risk losing market share to others offering lower prices for better hardware. The two reasons I prefer Dell to most other OEMs: Price and Warranty. The latter is somewhat useless when the prior is missing.