Word: gault
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Like many other first-time hagglers, Dougherty started out feeling a little sheepish and ended up finding the process rather exhilarating. But while buyers have the upper hand in this economy, there's still a fine art to the haggle. To learn it, we asked Teri Gault, who runs the popular savings website TheGroceryGame.com to show us her style. Gault turned a cost-cutting hobby into a career and says she gets a runner's high before haggling. She starts talking fast. She's pumped up. She's a bit strange. (See pictures of a grocery auction...
...good. Really good. First stop is a New York City jewelry shop, where she wants to buy two gold chains. "You've got such a nice selection," she tells the salesman. Always butter 'em up. Gault borrows another sales technique by inching into the seller's personal space - not in a menacing, I'm-going-to-steal-something way but in an enthusiastic, we're-on-the-same-team way. At first the salesman looks suspicious but quickly decides that she's serious about buying (and that this isn't a stickup...
...Gault scores a discount on one chain and then says she'll buy a second one if the store throws in another price cut. The jeweler agrees. Gault calls this strategy layering: once sellers agree to one deal, quickly hit them up for another. They just might be in a giving mood. Gault pays $215 for $270 worth of jewelry. (See 10 things to do in New York City...
Next she heads to Sports Authority. This appears to be a lost cause. The price of a sports watch she wants is $69.97, and the retailer is sticking to it. Yet Gault refuses to give in and offers this Hail Mary: "Is there a box for that watch? If not, can you shave something off?" The result: no box, a 10% discount and a reminder to always make sure no fixin's are missing. Since retailers can't afford to lose you these days, no demand is too peculiar...
...plasma-screen-TV-equipped, marble-encased bathrooms can alight here for $300 to $3,750 a night. A bit pricey, non? "Our guests don't ask the price, they ask for the square footage," sniffs the hotel's directeur-general Guy Luzy. If price does matter, try the Hotel Gault (514-904-1616), a minimalist gem where classic 20th century fixtures and furniture are set against bare white, oak or hot-rolled-steel walls and concrete floors. Tucked away on a quiet Old Montreal street, the Gault's design aesthetic is so gaunt that a visitor can barely make...