OT; I feel slightly guilty.....

[The Medway Handyman]

I often work for people of a certain ethnic origin, who always, always, always haggle about the final bill. It's a deep rooted cultural thing.

Even though you have quoted a price for a job in advance, they will always, always, always try to get a few quid knocked off when it comes to payment time.

So I've adopted the tactic of adding £10 or £20 to the estimate, knowing full well they always, always, always haggle.

I did that today - and they just paid up, no haggling!

I feel slightly guilty now......

[The Medway Handyman]

I often work for people of a certain ethnic origin, who always, always, always haggle about the final bill. It's a deep rooted cultural thing.

Even though you have quoted a price for a job in advance, they will always, always, always try to get a few quid knocked off when it comes to payment time.

So I've adopted the tactic of adding £10 or £20 to the estimate, knowing full well they always, always, always haggle.

I did that today - and they just paid up, no haggling!

I feel slightly guilty now......

[Nightjar]

You could have said that the job had taken less time than you had estimated and knocked off the extra. It would have done wonders for your reputation and they might have said to keep the extra anyway.

Colin Bignell

[Tim Watts]

On Tuesday 28 January 2014 17:49 The Medway Handyman wrote in uk.d-i-y:

It suggests that you are perhaps underquoting a little, normally. In this case you have not conned anyone. Price quoted, job done, price paid.

If a large proportion of your customer base are used to haggling, it is arguably better to add a buffer, then allow then to feel that they've "won" by getting £10-20 off. You're happy, they're happy, everyone wins.

Quoting the actual price you want and refusing to budge is clearly going to alientate some of your customers, so that would be a wrong tactic.

[Roger Mills]

+1

[John Rumm]

Nice idea, but how do you introduce that once you have already told them the pre-haggle price...

[Nightjar]

You look a bit sheepish and say you feel a bit guilty charging the full price, as it didn't take as long as you expected, then offer them a bit back.

Colin Bignell

[Old Codger]

You could have immediately given a small discount for instant payment.:-)

Why feel guilty? If they accepted your estimate at the quoted price they must have considered the job worth the money.

[Cursitor Doom]

I wouldn't. If it's who I think it is then f*ck 'em.

[Mr Pounder]

It will be who you think it is. They are all the same. Not that I'm racist. The very thought ........

[Bill Wright]

These deep rooted cultural things always seem to work in their favour.

They're in Britain now (unfortunately) where we have a deep rooted cultural thing to pay the agreed price. Tell them that if they want to live here they should do the same. They are such cheeky bastards.

If they still haggle tell them you have a deep rooted cultural desire to smack them about a bit. They are such cheeky bastards, they take your breath away.

Bill

[John Rumm]

Thinking about it... It would be a chance to present them with a "get

10% off your next job" voucher as a thankyou...

[tony sayer]

In article , The Medway Handyman scribeth thus

Din't know there were east Anglian grain barons in your neck of the woods;?..

Nah!, Standard practice round these parts, they think there're getting a real bargain;)..

[newshound]

The times they are a-changin'

According to Which? haggling is becoming more normal in retail electricals, for example. I just heard of someone today who asked for a Price Match in John Lewis (his wife didn't want him to bother) on a £1700 TV. Rather than getting the £50 he expected, he actually got £250 which was the difference in "advertised" prices even though John Lewis had a 5 year warrenty while the other dealer had a 2 year one (and would have charged £200 to top it up to five).

Which tells you something about the mark-up on such things.

[Huge]

I've been doing it for decades. The trick is to get someone who actually has the power to reduce the price, not some checkout pod person.

[bert]

In message , The Medway Handyman writes

Then ease your conscience and send me the excess

[Nightjar]

Probably the best option. Vouchers really need to have an expiry date, to prompt the recipient to come back to you within a reasonable time. Perhaps a date stamp and words to the effect valid for X months from date of issue. With any luck, they will have lost the voucher by the time they come back, but will remember the gesture.

Colin Bignell

[The Natural Philosopher]

We worked a variant of that on commercial situations, We bunged 15% on top and gave them a '15% discount for payment in 30 days'

Worked bloody wonders on the cashflow.

[The Natural Philosopher]

well for me, it was the dear old jews. I loved doing business with them.. My god they haggled BEFORE you did the job, but once it was done, they paid on the spot, no argument.

And they never welshed on a bargain once struck.

If its racist to say I will always do business with a man of abraham, then racist I am.

TBH the worst trouble I had was with large British and US companies.

[Andrew May]

And you were 2.25% down as a result of doing so :)