Haggle for those Jimmy Choos!

Fear not during the credit crunch, there are bargains galore out there if you're prepared to haggle for them!

So says an article by Edwina Ings-Chambers, Sunday's Style Magazine. Apparently even the top boutiques will drop their prices -

"A lady was in Chanel recently and fell for a fancy pair of earrings. At £5,000, though, she wasn’t prepared to shell out the full amount and told them so. “I said: ‘I’d buy these earrings, but I need you to do better than this for me.’ ” And they did: 15% better, in fact".

"I caught up with a woman who is in the upper echelons of London’s best-dressed, but who preferred to remain anonymous. “I’ve had a couple of interesting experiences recently,” she told me. “The first was buying a carpet at Harrods, where they quoted me £9,000 for a carpet similar to one John Lewis was selling for £6,000. I preferred the one at Harrods, but I couldn’t reconcile the difference and they kept calling me to follow up on it. In the end I was just honest and told them the situation; they instantly dropped their price by £3,000"
So tips for bargaining -

1. Be honest, straightforward and unaggressive when asking for a discount — you’re more likely to get one.

2. If you don’t get an immediate result, ask to leave your name and number and tell them you’d really like to buy your chosen product as soon as the sale starts. You might be surprised by how quickly they call you back with a lightning-strike sale.

3. Do your homework. It’s easier to get a knockdown price in an own-label store if you can state that you can get it cheaper elsewhere.

4. Befriend your local boutique. You’re more likely to be offered a reduction somewhere where you’re known, and that’s more likely to happen in an intimate environment.

5. Always ask to go on the mailing list whenever you buy at a posh boutique or department store. That way they will inform you of any special-offer evenings for valued clientele.

6. At the very least, try a personal-shopper service when you’re planning to buy clothes. That way, you get free food and champagne while you’re shopping, and may even be able to wangle a discount at the end of it all.

What Edwina omitted to say was, you would need to win the lottery to be at these designer shops in the first place :)

Ronnie
xx