What are the chances of seeing any real deals this year?

Prices haven't been as low as I thought they would be this season. Sure there were a few slightly cheaper things out there that I did buy, but overall I have seen better deals in the past than now. So, with the holiday season being a bust for retailers, what are the chances of them actually getting desperate?
I thought they would have dug deep to get people to buy stuff a lot earlier that they have so far.

I never worked retail, but is there some contractual or accounting reason why stores can't have a blowout sale even when they are losing money?

I was thinking of when Mercedes Corp. recently stated that they will never lower prices to clear car inventory because Merceded have a "set" value.

On a side note: I am getting tired of the whole "you can haggle with the store thing". As far as I can see only open box items, stereo equipment and TVs are eligable for haggling. Basically all stuff I already have. I tried to haggle on laptops, networking and PC stuff, but no dice. Anybody having any luck haggling or is just as I suspected and will only work on TVs, open box, discontinued items and stereos?

 

They may be holding out for after christmas to start dropping prices maybe.

 

Here in the UK the gaming market it pretty good for next gen. Almost every release new or old is half price. Just picked up GT5 prologue, The new tomb raider and far cry 2 all for PS3 for £50.

 

Haggling in stores.. I hear it all the time.. but when I try it they look at me as if I am a bum and tell me its a no go (even with tv's!)
I'll stick to haggle when im on holiday, here in NL its just not done but somehow others seem to get it done lol

 

If you shop online, from black friday to now there has been unreal deals on games and electronics. Ton's of new releases for half the price etc. I think I bought about 20 games the last month for under 100$ or so, especially from Amazon.

 

Picked up PS3 version of Tomb Raider Underworld for £19.99 from a major retail outlet. They had a lot of 1/2 price titles and this had nothing to do with Christmas period as far as I could tell.

 

I'd echo the sentiments of Parris and others, the deals have been great this Christmas. Lots of new releases down near the £20 mark, some even below.

 

Don't get me wrong ONLINE deals have been awesome (i.e. amazon). I'm talking about "brick and mortar" stores that are claiming huge loses and 23% declines in sales revenue. I am in the USA and I was wondering if anyone sees the same lackluster retail deals the way I am seeing them. Also the whole news media effort pushing "haggling with the store manager", which I haven't really been able to do successfully.

 

Zavvi in the UK are doing Xbox 360 Arcade packs IN STORE for £100. As Parris said, there are game deals IN STORE, too.

You can haggle. I bet you're going to huge stores, though, like Target and Wal-Mart. They're not going to say "OK, have money off this TV when that's all you're buying!!" However, they may well chuck in a cable or something like that. Smaller stores, however, the local ones - they'll be more willing to sort you a deal maybe.

That said, you can't beat online prices for things like televisions, so don't expect to!

There was a television show in the UK telling you how to haggle. They went in with hidden cameras. I can't remember the title - if I do, I'll look for clips.

 

as far as videogame deals go, i haven't been very lucky... nothing i wanted was ever on sale. just a bunch of super crappy DS and Wii games.

 

That's why I mentioned I am in the USA. Our media outlets are pushing the "in store haggling" thing BIG TIME. What you just described has always been the case in the big chains. However its irritating me that news shows, online news and magazines are saying "the stores are losing so much money that they are desperate enough to haggle" I see a story on the subject just about every morning on the news before I go to work. So really, it seems in the UK stores are embracing the idea, but that doesn't surprise me as much because most Americans are adverse to haggling outside of a car dealership or home sale.

Believe me retail chains are closing stores left and right in California (Office Depot is next). But, all the store managers are sticking by their guns to keep prices in the same ballpark range. For example: Just before Compusa sold its stores to the liquidator company, they were really wheeling and dealing. Some of the best deals I got last year came from Comusa managers who knew thier stores were on the chopping block. However once the liquidators took over the deals turned to complete garbage.

 

Wow, CompUSA are in liquidation?? I didn't know that! Are the stores still open, then?

 

Not only have two people bought Tomb Raider, but have admitted to it!

 

Zavvi just went bust however, so I am wondering whether it might be an idea to nip down there today and help pick them clean. Woolworths Entertainments Division supplied Zavvi with cheap stock, but now they've gone down the pan they've pulled Zavvi down with them.

Apparently several other high street retailers are on the brink of collapse, but for legal reasons they cannot be named.

Bargains this year are crazy actually. I've seen a lot of really amazing deals, such as a 32" Sony TFT down from £600 to £350, which isn't bad at all really. Had a hunt for that deal online and cannot spot it - will have to check the local newspaper to see whether it's been repeated.

Keep hunting!

As for that in-store haggling, I have had to endure it from the other perspective as I used to work for an independent electronics retail outlet. Even when there was no recession you'd get people coming in and demanding that we'd reduce the price of certain items. Some people actually got really nasty and argumentative.

 

...and one of us has posted a video of the bugs encountered. OH:

 

Even a few months ago, Zavvi had some crazy deals on, so it comes as no surprise, even when they lied and said the rumours were false! Oh, and that their website ordering system had "technical difficulties" so was offline. Who the hell would use Woolworths as a supplier at all? Their own shops had appalling prices on games etc. - in fact, they're SUPPOSED to be 30% off but seem to be full whack still! Bully for Xbox 360 is £25 - Gamestation do it for £15!

Well worth getting down to zavvi and grabbing some bargains ;-) Unlucky if you have vouchers, though - the receivers won't honour them! They say they're NOT closing the stores yet bar 3, though. Hmm, we'll see!!

Incidentally, didn't Woolworth's close down years ago in America?

 

Like I said in another post, TVs have been a given deal this holiday in the USA. But in the US the DTV conversion happens in February 2009, so I think these deals were planned long before the recession to get rid of stagnant inventory.

Also not to knock on the folks in the UK, but you guys have a lot more room for discounts. In the UK a lot of the stuff you guys are seeing as "cheaper" wouldn't even come close to a regular "Sunday ad deal" in the USA.

Anyone in the USA with some insight?

 

No other feelings from shoppers in the USA? The seasons over now, so I guess we will have to wait and see if the January 2009 closeout sales will be be better.

 

Depending on the product some items are contractually exempt from sales and discounts. This is why you will see disclaimers such as "excludes Bose, Harmen Kardon and apple" (I just used those 3 as I know they have some contractual issues with some chains). There is also the issue of some chains being in bankruptcy. Depending on the deal they may have worked out with the creditors they may only be allowed to do certain things.

The other problem is when Walmart started getting into the electronics business they margins started getting smaller and smaller. The chains are now in protect mode and are going to watch their margin's very closely and if they have a warchest of cash they are going to have less inventory on hand and will not blow out the inventory on hand except for things that have an expiration date (Sport's titles).

It has been awhile since I worked in an electronics retail chain but this is some of the things that I can remember from working for stores that went bankrupt and others that have gone that way since I worked there.

The other thing to remember with haggling. If you are going into a chain store many times the people at store level do not have the authority to make the deals. Your best bet to negotiate prices is to go to a non-chain store or a small chain. You can use the internet to find out what the wholesale cost of an item is and you can then figure on trying to buy it for a little above that. If the store you are going is paying commission you will have to remember that for every discount you get it comes straight out of the commision that they sales person is earning. If you aren't going to buy a warranty or high dollar accessories the sales person won't waste their time. If you then go back and return the accessories or warranty a good sales person who checks everything that happens will then remember you and you won't get his assistance next time. Places like walmart, target, etc do not negotiate, unless somebody else is selling it for less. If the store has good managers they will know what everyone else is selling the same product for and will either know the competition prices or will have already reacted to it. If you try and pull a fast one on them and they catch you, expect to get rude treatment. Managers remember those people who try and rip them off.

Some items to avoid trying to negotiate are computers. Stores usually sell computers at negative margin. commodity items such as dvd players, mp3 players, etc there is a very small margin on them. The items you can usually get prices on are high dollar high margin items. You might be able to get something off the 60" tv, but don't expect anything off on the 23".

Sorry for being long winded, I spent a long time in retail and know way too much about it. Your individual mileage may vary as some stores have good management teams and others have no clue. The other thing to remember about retail, all the employee's including management are usually underpaid and overworked. They have a short fuse with working 12 hour shifts 6 and a half days a week for the past month, and a lot of them know they are going to lose their jobs in the next 12 months.