Do your research and then get ready to bargain. Power to the shoppers.
Some years ago I coined the term, "Customer 6.0". Here’s what I said . . .
Most of us who fall into this rather sweeping generalization occupy an Oz-like zone where we find ourselves lurching about in an information-soaked schizophrenia. We want to be known, but we want our privacy. We want to shop the world, but we want small town intimacy. We want infinite programming and free content; but we want to zap the ads that pay for it. We want the personal connection and idiosyncrasies of a favorite local eatery, but we want a hotel 2457 miles from home to know that we’re a valuable customer, that we like feather pillows not foam, that we’ll break into hives if we have to even walk on a smoking floor, and that we want the Financial Times in the morning with our granola, dry rye toast, large tomato juice, and coffee (cream and sugar).
The idea behind Customer 6.0 is that the information asymmetry that had existed in most buyer/seller transactions, certainly over the past 60 years, were beginning to invert in favor of the customer (a notable exception is the complete lack of transparency in the world of exotic financial transactions).
Whether this is good or bad, it is, and the tools of this inversion were built by large enterprises, and now those same tools were and are being used "against" them. In other cultures, bargaining is just part of going to the market. Here in the big PX, that type of transaction typically does not happen, particularly in large-footprint retailers, the kind that increasingly dominate retail sales of nearly everything everywhere. Instead of bargaining, many of us just went someplace else . . . like the internet. At least according to the NYT, the historic dynamics of the bazaar are finally visiting even big-box retailers.
A bargaining culture once confined largely to car showrooms and jewelry stores is taking root in major stores like Best Buy, Circuit City and Home Depot, as well as mom-and-pop operations.
Savvy consumers, empowered by the Internet and encouraged by a slowing economy, are finding that they can dicker on prices, not just on clearance items or big-ticket products like televisions but also on lower-cost goods like cameras, audio speakers, couches, rugs and even clothing.
The change is not particularly overt, and most store policies on bargaining are informal. Some major retailers, however, are quietly telling their salespeople that negotiating is acceptable.
Good to know.
kah
Tags: Customer6.0, bargaining, big box retailer, megastore, haggling, bazzar, Best Buy, Cicuit City, Home Depot