Needless to say, this is not good for business and it does not encourage repeat buying. Most retailers will agree that the customers who get the lowest price are typically the ones who cause the most trouble after the sale. Not only do they get the lowest price but they also end up costing us the most in post-purchase customer service. If you eliminate negotiations, these customers will pay full price and, consequently, cover a larger portion of the customer service expense that it costs you to service them. However, if you asked whether she could have gotten a better deal if she was a better negotiator, the answer would also always be yes.
Negotiation often has nothing to do with the value of the merchandise.
Even though customers may be successful at negotiating prices down, they always believe that the store is better at negotiating than they are. Customers spend the following weeks looking at newspapers and watching television ads to confirm whether or not they got a good deal. These customers develop very little loyalty to the store. When customers try to negotiate we often mistakenly assume that they do not believe that our furniture is worth the ticketed price. I challenge this assumption.