[quote name='Emiroo']I am looking to buy a closeout HDTV from Best Buy whose SKU has been deleted from the system.
My question is: Once the SKU has been deleted, who is responsible for setting the price? Is it strictly up to the store manager? How much haggling can I do to get a lower price?
When buying HDTVs from my local Best Buy in the past, I've always been able to haggle at least a $50 price drop and a free HDMI cable or something similar. I figure I probably have a little more power in this situation since the item has been deleted and they are just trying to unload them. I do know they have 4 of them in stock and have not sold one of them in at least 2 months. The marked price is still about $200-400 more than I am willing to pay for it though.
What's my best play here? Any insider advices will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.[/QUOTE]
It is totally up to the manager on how much they want to drop the price of the tv for you. There's a few variables you should consider when trying to haggle with the manager on the price.
When a SKU becomes deleted, normally the item is at a stage called the "at-risk" stage, which means its at risk of becoming less and less valueable the longer the SKU has sat there. So depending on how long that TV has been "at-risk" and sitting in that store, the manager might be quite willing to give you a pretty good break on the price. Stores get daily reports on what's "at-risk" everyday, and the value of some items drop quite often, so the lower it gets, the more money they are losing.
Prices are normally set by the manager, so they would be the ones to go to for trying to get a break on the price.
It totally depends on how the store is doing during that day in order for you to get a good price break on it. There are two things that can happen during the day at the store that can go in your favor.
1. If the store is having an extremely slow day and are almost about to hit budget, they will most likely do everything in their power to get there by selling you that tv, even if they take a little hit from the profit. Sometimes managers will sell the tv without making any profit on it, as long as they get their original price back and can hit budget, it was a successful day.
2. If the store is super busy that day, that means that they will be competing to be first in the district, and in those times, managers are willing to deal a bit as well.
Now to the HDMI cable stuff. Their cost for the HDMI cables is only $5-$10, so of course they're willing to give you a "free" cable that they charge you like $30-$50 and then the $50 off the TV, which in their minds they only gave u like $60 off.
TV's for BB have very low markdown. When I worked there, I never ever bought a TV from the store, because the cost plus mark downs weren't even that good. I purchased all of my TVs directly through the vendors since BB employees get massive discounts through vendors directly. So even if the SKU is deleted or "at-risk", the markdown on it is still quite low.
If you have other stuff to buy at BB, then I would say try to get other stuff while you're at BB (that you were going to get anyways), and then try and haggle with a TV too while you're getting all the other stuff. The thing is about buying big ticket items like a TV, is that they want to sell as many things into that transaction as possible to make sure their unit per transaction count is up. So even if you went in to buy some DVDs or some games, they'll look at the things you have already when you go talk to them about it, and they'll be more willing to deal with you with that.
If they are really unwilling to work with you to get it any lower, and if you are a Reward Zone member, I would say try to use that to your advantage as much as possible. Especially if you are a RZ Premier member.
These are probably the only things off the top of my head I can tell you. Hope it helps.
Good luck.
