furniture costs

[bucketmouth64]

Curious how much of a mark up do furniture stores put on their products. I bought some living room furniture recently for 30% off. They have a sister company going out of business that is liquidating and I offered a price on 3 pieces that I thought was fair since they were liquidating and the salesman said no...owner still wants to make some money. I made a higher offer that was about $125.00 less than what they were liquidating at and he still refused. So I took my business to their parent company and got basically got what I wanted to pay. Manager was willing to negotiate within reason. With that said it seems to me there is a lot of negotiating room on furniture since it is a high item purchase. I have no problem trying to negotiate a lesser price. What are your thoughts.

[echo2010]

after working many years in retail i can say it is likely he doesn't have any say in it. I have had people try to negotiate with me before and I had no authority to do that.

[nofishfisherman]

I worked at a furniture store in the metro for several years. Its hard to say what a normal mark up is because it really depends on how the item was purchased by the store. Overall the mark up isn't actually that high on most items. Maybe 30-40% if I remember right. I knew my employee discount was basically cost plus shipping and that came out to about 35% off most items.

There are times when a store will get a special deal on items from a factory where they get them cheap and then the mark up is higher.

If you are looking to cut a deal some stores will do it some won't. The store I worked at it wouldn't matter what you offered, if it wasn't sticker price you didn't leave with the item, just their policy.

If a guy was willing to make you a deal it was more than likely on an item he got special pricing on so he was going to make a profit either way. On normal items he may not have been willing to negotiate since he'd have less wiggle room in the pricing to still turn a profit.

[CJH]

I have always been told its pretty high, but varies tremendously by store. For example, a high end furniture store will have dramatically higher margins than a discount store. So it really depends on where you go. Alot of stores artificially mark up prices so they can have a 30% off sale and not take a major hit.

If it was in liquidation the prices were probably already marked down substantially, with the 30% off on top of that. Hard to say unless you are getting the exact same set with the same fabric/etc...

[bucketmouth64]

I thought that when liquidating reasonable offers would be considered. They want to get rid of the inventory quickly. Salesman used the pitch the set won't be here after the weekend. Well, two weeks later it was still there. Also, we noticed that they "raised" their so called original price from a previous low price and they would advertise how much a savings would be in their current ad. We talked to the salesman about this since we've been in the store a few times and he said none of the prices haven't been changed. Funny same salesman a week earlier offered 2 recliners for $444. Regular price on the tag showed $259. Then about 10 days later recliner was $299 with $100 off...I asked why price went up to $299 when over a week ago it was $259. He said it was never that price. Now they will be having an auction later this month. I think I'll go check it out and see how low some things will go for.

[Cicada]

I also worked at a furniture store. The markup wasn't nearly what most people thought it was. The fact that the store had a sister store means that the other store could absorb the "wanted" inventory. You most likely could only get a better deal on something that was "butt ugly" or had been in the store for years. Why take a hit on a product that they could relocate and still sell at a profit? Willingness to negotiate is sometimes related to how much the store will stand behind your purchase. We would be more willing to deal if the customer understood that any problem they might have with a chair, for example, is their problem. If you expect the store to take more risk in the purchase, then you sometimes will have to pay for it. We had customers that had unreasonably high expectations for a product no matter how much you try to explain to them that they will get what they pay for. You want a $200.00 sofa? It will not last like a $800.00 sofa.

As far as the changing prices, some stores will do this. Most customers will not notice. You did. It is not, in my opiniion, a store that I would want to deal with. Remember, the parent company is still run by the same people. You can expect to see the same things in the other store if you pay attention. Are those really the type of people you will trust? If they lie about the prices, did they lie about the quality? In some cases the salespeople are not very well trained, are part time and don't keep up with product knowledge or pricing.