Where have all the hagglers gone?

TJ is happy. She has a new dryer. The old dryer croaked. We spent a few days looking for a good used dryer. We had a few possibles but they fell through. Our Pastor found us one for $100, but we had dealt with the guy before and a washer he sold my daughter went bad almost immediately. He eventually made it right, but it took a while. So, we were not real sure about that one.

We decided to go 'new' and get the warranty.

I checked around online, of course. I narrowed our choices to one of several models. Each of the models had mainly the same features. They were all heavy duty, super capacity, 3 temperature settings, 5 cycle, dryers.

The cheapest price we found was at Home Depot in Lexington. It was $29 cheaper than the one at Lowes. However, Lowes is in town, 5 minutes from the house and HD is 35 miles from here. I decided to go to Lowes and see if they would match the price. (They all claim that they do this.) I know how they hope to get away with not doing it, but it is ridiculous. They will claim it is not the exact same brand.

The dryer that HD had was exactly the same in features, size, and function as the one that Lowes had. Lowes was adamant that they could not come down $29 to met the HD price. "No problem," I said, "I will go to Lexington to buy a dryer."

OK, here is a buyer. He has already researched. He is not shopping. He has come to buy. You don't have to sell him on the idea of buying. He has decided. The only thing you have to do is sell him the dryer. All you have to do is say, "Yes." and he will give you money and take home a dryer. Nope, not gonna do it.

So, we drive to Lexington. I go into HD, walk back to appliances, tell them I want the dryer advertised for X amount of dollars. We walk over to where it is, and low and behold, it is on sale now for $60 less. Yipeeeee. When you factor in the $5 we spent on gas, we saved $90 by driving to Lexington.

I told the sales associate at Hd how the other stores refused to match. He said that HD used to do that as well, but now will match if the size, features, and function match. I am thinking HD will see much more of my business in the future. I will also be making a trip to Lowes tomorrow to let them know how well I did on my dryer that they refused to match. Thanks Lowes.

My questions is this: Where have all the good hagglers gone? I used to be able to haggle with sellers. I have haggled prices down at Wal-Mart. I have haggled prices down at Kroger. Seems now days, with the economy in the shape it is, selling something for $1 less is better then not selling it at all.

Haggle, haggle, haggle.

I'll give ya a dollar for that!