Just for the record I too haggle in shops, especially when they have sales on. I was in a shop a few weeks ago (possibly White Stuff), and found a lovely pair of suede shoes reduced to £32 from £85. I pointed out a couple of scuffs on one of them (easily removed with a suede brush) and ended up haggling them down to £15
Also at my hotel we don't usually stick to a fixed price either. We have a set price which is advertised online, but then we give discounts for booking direct, and sometime give discounts for booking breakfasts in advance, and also give slight discounts for regular customers. On top of all this we can give discounts for long stays, and discounts for companies booking large quantities of rooms. There is no such thing in business as a fixed price for customers, there is only an advertised price!
It's well worth asking for discounts on stuff, but you need to remember not to try and overplay your hand! If I had another 200 towers and was ordering stock by the palletload I would probably shop around for discounts, and expect a slightly better price than standard. But as I pack a good few things myself, due to my current job allowing me to do it while im actually at work on a night, I don't feel I buy enough stock to start demanding discounts on the standard price.
It's all very well saying 'if I don't get a discount I'm changing to.....' but if your current supplier says 'do it then' you wont be any better off financially, and will then have a situation of staying with that supplier and looking like a d**k, or having to move your business elsewhere.
Also thinking about it, how would published discounts work, if as I presume your proposing having incremental decreases in the price when ordering more boxes of each line (or total order)? If a supplier put a price on the website that reduced depending on how many boxes of a certain line (or boxes in total) we ordered, wouldn't everybody just abuse the system by just ordering every few months?
It wouldn't benefit our suppliers much if everyone just started putting in a couple of big orders a year to bring the prices down to the next increment, and get a pound or two off a box would it?
It would cause all sorts of trouble for their staff if they had massive orders to do one month, and then nothing to do for the next!
I think some people are too concerned with themselve's to think about anyone else!
Mark@yorvend
