Let The Buyer Beware

After a few door slammings from both baby and toddler, our clothes hook/hanger or whatever you call it, finally gave way ie two of its wooden arms fell off so we had to look for a new one at the furniture shop.

We went to a furniture shop which houses several company showrooms. I was a little afraid to go in because I could see that the showrooms were quiet from the outside when I peered in. Surely the sales personnel would pounce upon us like vultures to fight for sales and all we wanted was a simple clothes hook. They would be disappointed.

First Showroom
We saw a suitable clothes hook at the first showroom we entered. Lets call it Item A.

Sales Talk: "Yes sir, this Item A is the last one we have. We normally order them in batches of 10 and just sold all of them this morning. I can let you have it for RM90 cash and carry price." (The sales person did not look at all embarrassed when we pointed to another Item A in the corner of the showroom. Hmm.... lets move on....)

Second Showroom
We saw Item A again.

"This item A is RM67. The cash and carry price is RM60. (Interesting. Move on...)

Third Showroom
We saw Item A and another interesting looking Item B.

"Item A is RM120. Item B is more expensive sir, around RM200 plus but we can sell this last showroom unit to you for less. We have a newer model similar to Item B which we haven't fixed up yet. We can do it now " (Item B was interesting in design but looked rather sorry and rusty. We told them not to fix up the newer model as we didn't want to waste their time since we may not buy it eventually but even as we walked away we heard them getting ready to fix it up while someone hollered after us "Do come back here, Sir!")

Fourth Showroom
Item A was going for RM85.

Fifth Showroom

"Item B is RM150 but you can have it for RM120 if you take it home and fix it yourself. Don't worry sir, it only looks unstable because we accidentally hit it several times while shifting the furniture around. You can put super glue to make sure the loose parts don't come off." (Unfortunately or rather fortunately for us they did not have any stock accept for the rather broken looking showroom unit)

Eventually, we bought Item B for RM90 the next day at a different place. We didn't bother looking around anymore as we already knew what we wanted and we knew that the price was reasonable after being quoted RM200 plus and RM150 for the same item. The Item A was just as bad with price quotes ranging from RM60 - Rm120. Don't you think its just criminal for the traders to fleece people with crazy price quotes like these? Why, some of them are 100% more then what their neighbouring competitors are offering for the same item. Its ridiculous! I hate walking around shopping and I especially hate bargaining. Its a waste of time but if we hadn't done that we'd probably be paying a lot more than we needed.

Hopefully baby and toddler won't break this one as well.