Get the Best Price with the 15-to-20 Percent Rule

NBC’s Today Show web site rounds up tricks for talking anyone into anything, whether you’re negotiating over price, persuading your spouse, or influencing co-workers. A lot of the tips are more about simple manipulation, but the price negotiation tip offered a solid rule-of-thumb:

If you are the buyer, offer the salesperson 15 percent to 20 percent less than what you can really afford. For instance, if you absolutely can’t spend more than $6,000 on a used car advertised at $7,000, try offering $5,100 (15 percent less than $6,000).

Of course you’ll need to get comfortable with haggling to apply this rule, but if the seller is using the same rule in reverse for pricing the item (which the author also suggests), you almost have to haggle if you’re going to get a reasonable price. Photo by jenn_jenn.