Shopping

Phillipe Starck Ghost Chair SCP, £168 Utilitydesign.co.uk, £ 139 Espacio.co.uk, £163 Aria, £156 Cheapest: Graham and Green, £128

How to get a good price
Martin Lewis, in-house money matters expert for GMTV and the financial brains behind www.moneysavingexpert.com, gives his tips on how to bag a bargain.

1 Get online
Start by shopping at a price comparison website. As these are for the most part affiliate-driven they certainly aren’t perfect, but they’re useful in terms of benchmarking the price of the item.

2 Share knowledge
Once you’ve found the rough cost of your item, try a deal forum website where people pool their knowledge, such as the ‘grabbit while you can’ forum on my website.

3 Cashback!
Next, go to a cashback website such as www.quidco.com, www.topcashback.co.uk. Websites are advertising-driven, however there are cashback sites that allow you to join for free then pass on some or all of the profits from the advertising revenue to the customer. Have a look at the price comparison on cashback sites at www.moneysavingexpert.com/cashmax
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4 Test the high street
If you feel compelled to buy in store – in that you want to touch it, see it, smell it – try printing a price for the item off the internet and asking if the store will match the price. Stores with selling websites such as Tesco should at least be able to match their own website prices.

5 Haggle
Finally there’s haggling – the icing on the cake. This can be as little as ‘will you throw in a belt?’ There’s never any guarantee it will work but there are a few tricks. For example, if you hit Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon then it’s never going to happen, however if you go into a store on a Tuesday afternoon and there are more salespeople than there are customers then you might be in with a chance – especially if they are working on commission. You can tell when people are working on commission because it won’t be long before they approach you. If you end up approaching the salesperson bear in mind that a manager will probably be too busy to talk, and a junior sales assistant won’t have the authority to give you the discount, so choose your target carefully. Also try playing one store off against another.

6 Cancel the warranty
With certain goods you can often get a great deal on the main price of an item if you agree to take out an extended warranty. Normally, if you read the small print, there will be a ‘cooling off’ period whereby you can cancel the warranty within seven days, by which time you’ve made your getaway with a bargain.

7 Be nice about it
Remember, don’t make demands: all it takes is a smile, a twinkle and some chutzpah.

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