Recession-weary consumers find haggling can cut costs

— When Greg Schmidt was shopping for a bathroom vanity, paying full price never was an option. When he found one he liked on clearance, its price slashed more than 30 percent, Schmidt knew it was time to find a manager of the Lowe's store.

Marked-down prices are supposed to be final, but Schmidt and a growing number of American consumers seem to think otherwise.

The 42-year-old bought the vanity for $125, or $50 less than the marked-down price.

For Schmidt, haggling is the norm. He bargains on just about every big purchase, from cameras to car repairs. Usually, he sticks to sales, seeking at least an additional 10 percent off. And, usually, he gets it.

"If you're polite and you're reasonable, most people are going to work with you," Schmidt said. "Sometimes I don't save as much as I'd like, but it just about always works to some degree."

A survey of 1,000 shoppers last year by Consumer Reports indicated that, in the previous six months, more than two-thirds of Americans tried to bargain for a better deal and that, in most of those cases, the hagglers got retailers to lower prices.

The survey found that hagglers had success rates topping 75 percent when they tried to negotiate lower prices on hotels, cell phone plans, clothing, jewelry and appliances. Consumers who said they bargained for lower medical bills were successful about 58 percent of the time.

Hard-core hagglers tend to be younger, according to the Consumer Reports survey, which found that 37 percent of those younger than 35 said they "always or often asked for discounts."

Other evidence of a shift toward bargaining comes from America's Research Group, a Charleston, S.C.-based firm that researches consumer attitudes for companies such as Berkshire Hathaway and General Electric.

For more than 20 years, the group's chief executive, Britt Beemer, has been asking Americans about haggling. In most of that time, about a third of those surveyed said they had recently bargained for a lower price. About a year ago, that number shot up to about 72 percent, and it's stayed that high in several follow-up polls, including one this month.

"It's the highest I've ever seen it," said Beemer, who doesn't think the trend will end when the economy recovers. "Consumers are getting deals, and they're not going to give that up."

The increase in haggling isn't a recession fad as much as a "cultural shift," said Shweta Oza, who studies bartering and negotiation as an assistant professor at the University of Miami School of Business Administration.

"American consumers always thought they couldn't ask for a price cut; they thought it was being cheap or weird," Oza said. "But the economy has acted like a trigger. It's telling them that you can ask retailers for a break, and that you'll usually get it."

Americans are more comfortable asking for discounts, Oza said, and they're finding that haggling "is empowering, not demeaning."

Sales clerks also seem more accustomed to bargaining, said Oza, who said a Macy's worker didn't hesitate to knock $40 off the price of a food processor Oza bought late last year.

Selin Malkoc researches consumer behavior at Washington University's Olin School of Business. She's not so sure Americans are embracing haggling in any significant way, at least not like consumers in Malkoc's native Turkey.

While bargaining is common in Turkey, it's less so than it once was because of the influx of American retailers that won't budge on price.

"Retailers' policies determine whether (haggling) is acceptable, and it's the same way here," Malkoc said. "Whether we see a big increase in bargaining is going to depend on how companies respond."

In other words, consumers are going to be more likely to bargain if they believe a retailer is going to budge, or if they know — from friends, family or experience — that a store manager has caved before.