Confessions of a credit crunch haggler - desperate to save a few pennies? You've nothing to lose but your dignity...



Holding a rumpled Paul Smith shirt in my hand, I made my way up to the counter window of the small dry-cleaners by the stairwell of Oxford Street Tube station.

'Hello,' I said, smiling my broadest smile at the lady behind the counter. 'I'm going to a party tonight and I wonder if you might be able to iron this for me?' I put the pink shirt on the counter.

'Sure,' she said, beginning to write out a ticket.

'And how much will that be?' I asked.

'£2.20,' she replied, continuing to fill out the ticket.

Taken to the cleaners: Tom's effort to save money on getting a single shirt ironed failed, but he discovered a discount was available on bulk orders

'Ah, right, I see,' I said, meaningfully looking at her in the eye. 'And would you have any, er, flexibility with that price?'

'Any what?' she said, staring at me in disbelief.

'Flexibility,' I said. 'Can you knock 10 per cent off?'

The ballpoint pen stopped in its tracks. 'You want to haggle on your dry-cleaning?' she asked.

'Well, haven't you heard?' I replied, with all the confidence I could muster. 'We're near enough in a recession. And anyway, I don't want this shirt dry-cleaned. I just want it ironed. So come on! How about two quid?' I got the coins out and pushed them around in what I hoped was a tempting fashion on the counter.

'I'd better get the manager,' she sighed reluctantly.

While she disappeared into the back of her capacious cubby hole to fetch the boss, I reminded myself of a recent survey by online credit monitoring firm CreditExpert. It found that 47 per cent of British adults are prepared to haggle over prices - up 50 per cent from a year ago.

More than a third reported successfully negotiating a lower price for a new car, and 60 per cent said they were comfortable bargaining over the price of entertainment goods, such as TVs, stereos and DVD players.



Of course, there's nothing new about haggling down the price of big ticket items. What I had set out to discover was whether in these straitened economic times, and given a neck made of brass, it might be possible to shave a few pence off more everyday items such as food, haircuts - and dry-cleaner's bills.

Finally, the manager came up to the counter.



'Are you looking for a discount?' he asked.

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'Absolutely,' I said, recalling that the survey had found that confidence is the key to getting a better deal. 'Well, I can't really do you anything on the one shirt, but if it's a bulk order then maybe we could work something out.'

'How about 20 per cent off ten shirts?' I asked. You don't need to be a dry-cleaner to know that it's best to strike while the iron's hot. 'Well, I could do you 10 per cent,' he replied.

'15 per cent - and that's my final offer,' I said.

The man sighed and rolled his eyes. 'Bring them in and let's talk,' he said. I took his card - and my shirt. I was even more determined to get a deal - and made my way up to street level, waiting until I got out of sight to punch the air.

I was elated that my first attempt at High Street haggling had been successful. I had feared I'd come across as a bit low rent - think Del Boy without the class - but I felt like Donald Trump.

Surveying Oxford Street, the spiritual home of the fixed price, I felt a surge of adrenaline and the stirring of the primeval huntergatherer instinct within as I wondered just how much money I would be able to save over the course of a hard day's haggling.

My next few tries, however, failed. A waffle stand outside the station, which I thought would be an easy target, wouldn't give me a penny off. Nor would French Connection or the Apple Store on Regent Street, where I attempted to negotiate a lower price on an iPod.

What a snip: Tom Sykes manages to save £37 on a haircut in a top hairdressers where men's cuts start at £24 and go up to £52

At the Carphone Warehouse, where I tried to drive down the price of an iPhone, the sales rep made a startling admission - the prices on these gadgets were the same at all stores and they were not allowed to offer discounts.

Wasn't that called price-fixing, I demanded. The guy behind the counter just shrugged, and told me that if I waited until Christmas, the price would probably come down anyway.

Next, I took the shirt into a dry-cleaners on Kingly Street nearby and was met with another point-blank refusal.

I was getting tired of being on my feet and arguing. I dearly wished I'd brought my portable haggling stool, bought in a Moroccan medina ten years ago (for half the initial asking price).

Bringing your own seat to the market - which lets your adversary know you can't be rushed - is an integral part of closing any deal on favourable terms in Marrakech.

So instead I pulled out my phone and called an upmarket butcher's called Allens on nearby Mount Street. 'Oh yes, hello there,' I said in my poshest voice.

'A friend of mine recently came into your shop and purchased some steaks. He said that you threw in a chop for free. I was rather wondering if you might be able to do the same for me if I bought a chicken?'

'You what?' said the lady on the other end of the phone, no doubt briefly forgetting she was employed by one of London's snootiest purveyors of fine meats.

'Well, you know it's hard times in the City right now and your chickens are expensive. I thought maybe there might be room for some negotiation.'

'Who's speaking, please?' 'Sir Thomas Sykes-Crykes,' I replied with assurance. 'But don't be misled by the name. I'm hurting like everyone else. It's tough out there right now.

'So how about it? Could you throw in a couple of bangers? Or maybe just some liver? Nanny could cook it up for the children.'

'Well, I don't think so, sir,' said the bemused shop girl. 'But why not ask the manager when you come in?' 'Jolly good!' I replied, hanging up with a faux cheerfulness that belied my heavy heart.

These guys were never going to budge. They'd rather lose 20 quid than degrade their brand by handing out free offal.

For my next shot, I decided to try a luxury item, something that might have been hit harder by the downturn than meat.

I walked into the box office of the London Palladium on Argyll Street where The Sound Of Music is playing.

'Hello, do you have two tickets for this evening's performance?' I asked brightly.

The man behind the counter answered in the affirmative and showed me a card, which indicated that the best seats in the house were available for a cool £55 each.

'That's just too much for me,' I replied. 'Can you reduce them at all? I mean we are talking about tonight.' 'Yes, I should think so,' he said.

'How does £25 sound?' That was less than half-price! Though it felt churlish, he had dropped the price so quickly and dramatically that I felt obliged to keep piling on the pressure.

'Still too much, I'm afraid. Could you do them for £20?'

'Not really,' he said.

The silence hung between us like a particularly oppressive rain cloud. Eventually, he broke it.

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'If you came back right before the performance, then maybe,' he said. 'Twenty quid?' I asked.

'Maybe,' he said meaningfully.

'Make sure you come to my window.'

'Thanks. I'll see you later,' I replied, giving him a knowing wink, spinning on my heel and heading back out onto the street. Buoyed up by my success, I marched purposefully into the smartest hairdressers I could find - Headmasters on Hanover Street.

It's favoured by the likes of Lisa Snowdon, Donna Air and even the girls from Vogue, whose office is on nearby Hanover Square. I asked how much a haircut would be.

'Men's cuts start at £24 and go up to £52, depending on which stylist you want,' receptionist Sofia told me.

'That's far too much,' I blustered. 'Fifty quid for a haircut? I hardly want anything off. Just a quick snip really. Can't we find some middle ground here?'

'Well, if you're ready to get it done right now, our top stylist is free and you can have a stand-by appointment for £15,' she replied. If I'd been sitting down, I would have fallen off my chair. As it was, I merely sat down. 'And that would usually be £52?' I asked gently.

'Yes,' replied Sofia.

I was so stunned that I disclosed I was an undercover reporter for the Daily Mail and asked to see the manager, Ailis Gourley.

She admitted the salon had been offering stand-by appointments - which are not advertised and available only to those who ask - for several months.

'If a stylist is free, we would rather they were working,' she said. 'And we will always put clients with the best stylist available because we see it as a sales tool. Hopefully, they'll like the cut so much they'll come back again.

'There's definitely been an increase in the numbers of people looking for deals in the past few months. They even mention the credit crunch on the phone.'

After all this haggling, I was starving, so I stopped in at sandwich shop Thanks For Franks on Foubert's Place, just off Carnaby Street, to see if I could pick up a cheap snack. It was 3.30pm, and there were still more than a dozen sandwiches in the fridge.

I selected a tasty-looking Parma ham and mozzarella roll, labelled at £4.10, and asked the guy behind the counter, Ian Tuckwell, if he could give me a discount.

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By then I was so used to haggling that I did not feel the merest flicker of embarrassment.

'All right,' he said, looking at his watch. 'Give me three quid.' I slapped my coins on the counter and we got chatting about the recession as I tucked into my sandwich, which was all the more delicious for being a bargain. 'You can feel it out there, it's very quiet,' he said. 'I was in this business in the last recession, in 1987, and there's a feeling of deja vu.

'People are bringing their own lunch from home to save a few pounds. We are definitely taking steps to look after our regulars.' Despite all this gloomy talk, I was delighted with my day's discounts. Yet I still had a party to go to - and a rumpled shirt to get pressed. My final stop was Marshall Laundry on Marshall Street.

'How much to press a shirt, mate?' 'Two pounds,' he replied. 'Can you do it for any less than that?' I asked.

'Nope,' he replied.

'You can't even move on that figure by, say, 5 per cent?' I asked quizzically.

'What, 10p?' he asked, laughing at me in amazement.

'Yes,' I replied. 'Just 10p. That's all I'm after. There's a recession on, you know.'

'Nope,' he replied. 'Two pounds.' 'Is that your final offer?' 'It's not an offer, it's the price!' he replied.

I suppose there are some things in life each of us can live without. A theatre ticket, a sandwich in the middle afternoon, a last-minute haircut - I realised that I was able to haggle on those items because if I didn't get the price I wanted, I was ready to walk away.

But not having a freshly ironed shirt when I was off to a party? That was not really a viable option for me, and my negotiating position was weak.

The guy in the laundry had turned back to his other work. He had mountains of laundry to deal with. The bags were piled up to the ceiling. His business seemed to be handling the downturn well - good for him, I thought.

And that's when I caved in. I slapped two pound coins down on the counter.

I came back ten minutes later and slipped on my shirt. It was still warm from being pressed, starched and crisp.

But most of all, it was worth every penny I had paid for it.