Bartering with Dell...

[Sumanji]

Hey,

Got a quote from Dell for a couple of machines for my dad's small business... however I've read loadsa times on here that you can barter with them to drive the price down. Now the guys on the phone didn't seem to want to play around with the price much at all... I was under the impression Sales were based in Ireland, but I was definately speaking to Indian dudes.

Who are the best people to speak to in order to get a more aggressive quote?

Cheers

Suman

[Clunk]

Ive sussed a few things since I enquired about this last time.

Find a better specced system online and keep the link handy, even if it is more expensive. They will ask for it.

After you tell them what you want and have shown them the link for the other system, they will ask you how much you want to pay. Give a silly figure, a third off the online price or something. They will then go off to speak to their "boss" and ring you back with a price, which is usually not much different from the online price. Decline the first offer and tell them that you will get the one in the link you sent them, hang up the phone and leave it a while and someone will call you back. When they call you back, insist on the silly price that you mentioned the first time, and they should knock a bit more off.

Be ruthless, but patient and you will get a discount.

My laptop also had some slight discrepencies in the specs, so I managed to blag some more off, rather than send it back.

[wombar]

Yep, I spoke to some guy named "Gary" in India when I was ordering my laptop a few months ago. Best thing to do is spec up a system, call them and MAKE SURE they haven't taken anything off the system to reduce the price.

The guy I spoke to took the 3 year warranty off my laptop to reduce the price by £200(when I hadn't asked him to). I gave him my CC details and he sent me the quote through which is when I spotted it. Emailed him back saying I wouldn't be going through with the order and he promptly rang me back to offer me the warranty + some money off. You have to authorise the order by replying to the email so it doesn't matter if they have your CC details btw.

That was the trick with me, once he'd taken my CC details he thought I would just go through with the purchase. I haggled and haggled and got myself a fair wodge of extras and cash off the system.

However, this probably isn't a good time to buy a system because they'll have had a very busy Xmas and have probably met most of their targets for the month. Might be worth leaving it until the new year and see if you can get a better deal then?

[Sumanji]

Ahh yup good idea Wombar.. am just hunting around for quotes at the moment, but I'm struggling to find direct competitors to Dell... only HP and IBM/Lenovo fit the bill, but they aren't as web-orientated as Dell which makes getting a quote difficult!

Thanks for the advice though, Clunk & wombar, I shall persevere!

Cheers,

Suman

[Clunk]

Find an extremely cheap pc in the sales, like pc world or ebuyer advertise for dirt cheap that they never have any stock of, tell Dell that you have already bought that one and can they beat the price etc.

[Nikolaos]

I did the very same thing. Called up stating that I could only pay so much and compared other sites/models etc... The guy called me back a few times saying that the price was not possible. It got to the point where i said, look I just cannot afford this item perhaps next time. He called me back in 5 mins with the price that I had asked. back then it was 300 but they were selling it for 434 at the time. Right now i think you can get them for 275 so it makes you think about their markups.

I am thinking about calling up for a precision workstation..but not sure if i can get one for cheap.

[adam1701]

Just called them up. Spoke to some indian, and i asked for a gaming pc for around £1000.

He said that an XPS was too expensive, so he started telling me about the 9200 dimension PC. I wanted the E6600, therefore the price would be £1210, up £140 from the E6400.

I managed to get him down to £1030, then he called me back 5 minutes later and said that he could do it for £1000.

What a good deal! 7900GS graphics, 2 gig ram, E6600 CPU and Digital 19" TFT Monitor!

What do people think about buying dells?

[fathazza]

what would people adivse if trying to buy just a monitor?
i want the 30" dell one...

should i just say i can get it for £800 on ebay? £940 at scan etc?

should i try for 800 or make some intial gambit at 700?

[Clunk]

what would people adivse if trying to buy just a monitor?
i want the 30" dell one...

should i just say i can get it for £800 on ebay? £940 at scan etc?

should i try for 800 or make some intial gambit at 700?

Just follow the above, let them ring you back and be patient.

[wombar]

what would people adivse if trying to buy just a monitor?
i want the 30" dell one...

should i just say i can get it for £800 on ebay? £940 at scan etc?

should i try for 800 or make some intial gambit at 700?

Start low, that's the rule when haggling. If they accept, great, if not the worst they can say is no.