Buying furniture is one of my least favorite tasks in the world. Not only are the salespeople pushy (usually), but they don’t want to bargain with you and the quality of the furniture usually leaves something to be desired, unless you are spending a fortune. Now, when I go to buy furniture, I always do 3 things, which are today’s tips. They are as follows:
- Ask the question “Can you go any lower on the price?”. This will at least let the sales person know they can’t bully you into a price you’re unwilling to pay. Telling them in this manner isn’t confrontational and won’t offend them if they weren’t going to bully you in the first place.
- If they come back with a lower price, ask “Is that as low as you can go?”. It’s uncomfortable, yes, but it could be worth a couple of hundred dollars, which is always worth it. If they won’t go any lower, don’t push it by asking again, just say “ok” and then decide if you want the item or not.
- Lastly, right before you leave, ask “Can you throw in the delivery charges?”. The worst they can say is “no”, and if they wouldn’t come down on the price at all, and you decided to buy the item anyway, then they should absolutely cover the delivery charges. Also, if they tell you that delivery service is provided by another company, then you tell them to drop the price of the item to cover the delivery. I have had very good luck getting delivery charges that way!
I hope these tips make your next trip to the furniture store at least a little more fruitful. Remember that you have to walk a fine line of being firm but polite when dealing with the salespeople. As much as you want them to know you can’t be forced into something, you also want to build a rapport with them that will make them want to “go to bat” for you with their superiors. Good luck!
Tags: saving money
Better yet shop at the stores, then order from furnituregeek.com – i saved $3,300 on my furniture there. Everyone knows most furniture is built in North Carolina – well furniture geek is like buying DIRECT – and NO SALES TAX!! I swear this sounds like I work for them – but i don’t – just couldn’t be happier with their service. Had to wait for a truck to be heading this way – but delivery was minimal and the guys handled with ‘white glove’ service. Incredible! In this day and age, everything can be had cheaper if you do your homework and purchase online. The days of haggling over price with a salesperson is long over – because when it’s all said and done even if you think they are going to ‘bat’ for you – they know what they plan on selling it for and you could be as persuasive as possible and it’s limited in results. Furnituregeek.com!!!
another tip for buying furniture is already having a set price in mind… for example; i had seen a bedroom set for sale and went to check it out, i already knew that i didn’t need the complete set just some of the pieces and i already knew what i wanted to pay for these pieces alone, after talking to the sales person and telling them what pieces i needed and which i didn’t, i asked what kind of deal could we work out if any. they ended up working out a great deal even offering to sell the floor model for a lesser cost, I even made sure that if I changed my mind on the floor model after having it home, or if something ended up being wrong that i could bring it back. This was no problem they said.