Wasting a store employee’s time when you plan on buying the product somewhere else is entirely unethical.

I am a Best Buy employee. I hate nothing more than an idiot customer wasting my time and then having other (real) customers chew me out for taking so much time and not helping them. If the original ***hole had just done a five second Google search instead of bothering me, I could have helped someone who actually needed me to help them.

I’m not on commission, but I hate getting yelled at. Make my life easier and only ask me for info if you plan on buying it from me.

I want to help customers. I don’t want to help people walking by on the street. Want my help? Be my customer.

also, I have to say that it’s a good negotiation if you got what you wanted, and that’s your only responsibility. Whether the other party gets what they wanted is their responsibility. They are adults and are perfectly capable of knowing what is not in their own self interest and telling you “no”. The reality is, as hard as you bargain, you will likely be outbargained by the pro. Don’t “take care of” your adversary in a negotiation.

And remember…the BEST negotiating tactic you can use at a dealership is walking away…you can ALWAYS walk away! There are many other dealerships around that sell the same cars you can go to. The idea is you have to know exactly what you should be paying, and you should look up the invoice of the car so you can approximate what they paid for it….bring in a print out from http://www.carsdirect.com , and they usually match that price without too much of a fight…or buy from them and forego the dealership!

I think this is a great tip. I have myself tried this when I bought my first car. Also, I experience this every time we have to rent a house (due to job, we have moved 5 times from east coast west coast in last 3 years). Only downside of this approach is – If you know already that it’s just a practice session, you will never “go” for it wholeheartedly.

I think trick here is to do it every time with serious intentions. While renting, for example, I look at every apartment community with intention to stay there if all factors match our expectations. But, if it doesn’t turn out that way, it’s still OK, because I know it has worked as practice session for me.

In your example, it is same as going to multiple mini cooper car dealers, instead of going to honda and toyota dealers. So, even at the first dealer, you are serious about buying and wholehearted effort comes automatically.

second, you should have an acceptable offer in mind in a negotiation anyways. Shoot for the stars, but know what you are willing to settle on. This means that you should be prepared to walk away. So, instead of wasting your time and another car dealership’s time, just go in prepared to begin with.

Morality/ethics aside, the problem with doing a live ammo test run, as you called it, is that you already know you are not going to buy the civic regardless of the dealer’s concessions. Your actions and mentality in the negotiation will be different than if you are negotiating for something you intend to actually buy. Worse yet, you could end up buying the civic instead of the mini.

instead, just do your research. Establish a budget, an offer price (shoot for the stars) that would be your best case scenario, and a no kidding purchase price (acceptable compromise), which if it does not get met you are willing to walk away from the deal. I don’t think a surrender offer is worthwhile. I think if you do your research and come up with your best case scenario price, that is what you should begin with; otherwise, it just seems like a throw away offer and you don’t take it seriously. If you take the initial offer seriously, you might in fact get it. If you don’t take it seriously because it is a surrender or throw away offer, I think in general people can pickup on it and won’t take you serious, resulting in a lower offer than what you intended.

And to the people who think this is unethical:

Do you also think it’s unethical to go to Best Buy or CompUSA to look at products only to buy them online?

Another place to never ever ever practice bargaining is in bazaars/markets in the Middle East/Africa. Possibly not on other continents either. Bargaining is taken very seriously and it’s a direct insult to the person to participate and then drop out. If one is going to practice, it should be on a small item that one is willing to buy or if one is willing to pay full price but decides to see how low they can get it.

Bottom line in foreign bazaars: if you engage the vendor, you should buy. This was stressed to us over and over as my student group prepared to visit Egypt.

I think practicing with “live ammo” is a great idea, I just see these two places where it doesn’t seem like it would be right.

I know people think car salesmen are evil, and some are, but most are regular folks trying to make a living like the rest of us. No reason to waste their time with stuff like this. Might make them miss out on a real customer.