...try to find a best buy that still has a pioneer KURO in stock. i found one in my area that had one, told the sales guy i wanted to make an "offer" on the TV.. he said well, it "costs" ..., I replied, "There is NO way I'm paying that for a product that is not even manufactured anymore..." They called the manager to talk with me... I told him, "I'm willing to pay 2500$ for this unit" he asked if i had seen that price online somewhere.. I simply told him "nope, but I'm willing to pay 2500$" He finally said 2599$, now, keep in mind the tv i was looking at retailed for something like 6k$...
Ha ha, I like your style!
I find it amusing how many people think that you have to pay what the sticker price on those big items say you have to pay. With so many stores out there struggling to bring in customers, and the limitless options we have with the internet at our disposal, we the customer have the leverage these days, not the sales guy. They absolutely hate it mind you, you won't be getting any Christmas cards from them, you can forget about that. But you'll get out of that store with a lot more cabbage still left in your pocket.
When I bought my screen I went into my local HH Greggs with the best price I'd found on the internet (had the shopping cart page with the total end cost printed out), which was about $400 less than what the sticker on their screen said. I handed the guy that piece of paper and told him I was just at the house about to purchase this TV on that site when I figured I'd step out and see if they were able to get anywhere close to that price since I'd done so much business with them and wanted to give them a chance to get the sale.
Their reply was, "we can't compete with the internet".
"Oh I see, well I can understand that sir... thanks anyway", I said. Then I asked him about all the cables and such that I was going to need to connect the new TV that I was going to go home and order that night online, up to my other equipment. I rattled off a rather long list of cables that I was interested in (even though the only cable I had any intentions at all of walking out of there with was a $20 dollar HDMI cable I'd seen when I first got there), RCA cords, S-Video, Optical Audio, Power Conditioners... basically everything I'd bought in there the last time I was putting together a HT (and was under the impression back then that the more I spent on the cables, the better my picture/sound would be). There was no way I was going to drop another $800 bucks on cables like I did when I was still wet behind the ears mind you, I just wanted to stick around for a while to give them some time to think about the TV sale. After all why would they want to let me walk out of their store with almost $3000 dollars in my pocket and let me give that money to someone else when I could give it to them?
It didn't take all that long, soon a manager walked up and said, "well sir, usually we don't do this, but....", yeah yeah yeah, of course they don't. They don't want everyone bringing in the best price they can find on the internet and expect them to beat it, man I can dig that, if I were in their shoes I wouldn't want to give anyone that impression either. But over the years I've come to understand that this is all a game. If they were there to save me money, they wouldn't have let me spend almost a $1000 dollars on cables the last time I was out there doing this when I could have easily got everything I needed for well under $100 bucks. They won that hand, this time I stacked the deck in my favor.
I've learned the value in doing your homework, finding out everything you can about the product you're interested in. If you know more than the salesman knows about the piece of equipment you're looking to get, it gives you a lot of power. It let's them know right off the bat not to fuck around with you, that you're on top of everything. Automatically they throw out all their bullshit schemes of trying to up-sell you into something more expensive and/or items you don't even need.
Salesman : "Well sir, you've chosen a great TV, and I'm not sure if you have a Blu-Ray player right now or not, but you should check this one out over here. It's the newest model out and I must say the picture looks fantastic".
You : "This thing? It doesn't look to me like it has Anchor Bay's VRS technology, does it? It doesn't support SACD, and there's no 7.1 analog outputs out back... (scatch your head) my God, that looks like an HDMI 1.3 connect, not 1.4 (not that you could tell just by looking at it, but he probably has no clue what HDMI 1.4 even is), why on earth didn't they go with 1.4, don't they know that 1.3 is dead? I'm curious though, tell me does it output the DSD in native format or convert it over to PCM"?
Salesman : "Oh, ummm.... you know what I think that, ahhh... Hmmmm, honestly sir I'll have to run and check on that for you.... ummm can you write down you're question about the ah, what was it, the PSP..."
You : "Nah don't worry about it bro, I'm happy with my Blu-Ray player I have at home".
You can bet you won't be getting any pressure to purchase ANYTHING you haven't asked for after that. Yes in my experiences I've learned that the second you walk in through that front door the games begin. But if you play your cards right, let em peak at that wad of money you have in your pocket, keep your cool (never act desperate, make em think you have all the time in the world... you have more important things to worry about. And don't be afraid to walk out with nothing if they don't want to budge), and be polite. You won't get anywhere if you walk in like you own the joint and belittle them. Being knowledgeable is good... being cocky is not good.
Play the game this way and in most cases they will make the sale so long as they aren't going to lose money somehow. And the good news is if they absolutely won't play ball with you, you really can go get it cheap on the internet. You'll just have to wait a few days longer to get it.
