Negotiating a cell phone

[Hotsauce]

Yesterday I played the poor fools at Best Buy mobile @ the mall. I talked them down major $$$ and I am going to tell you how....

My wife and I have Blackberries that were fairly new (less than a year old) and they felt way outdated. So we began looking at 2x Android phones; the EVO 4G ($600 retail), and the EVO Shift 4G ($550 retail), $1150 total retail. We are with Sprint and havent even made it through our first full year so we were not eligible for upgrades (you have to wait 2 years when your contract is up). We were only eligible for a partial upgrade of $75 off each phone, which would mean we would still be paying $1000.

We went to the mall and began going into every store that offers these Sprint phones and at each store I would try to work the salesman down. These stores include; Target, a Sprint corporate location, a franchise 3rd party store, a Sprint 3rd party kiosk, Radio Shack, and Best Buy Mobile. The trick to it is to take the best deal that each store would offer you, get it in writing, then take that deal to the next store. For example, we were already "eligible" to pay $1000 for the phone and the first store would offer us another $100 off the bottom line, so the phones would cost us $900. I would get that in writing, take it to the next store, and that company would offer to beat that price and take $150 off, etc....Well do this a few times, over the course of 3-4 days and you will be surprised at how much $$$ you will save. The funny thing is every salesman would say "my hands are tied, we can negotiate the price of the phone....we dont make money on the phone, we are loosing money....etc". But at the end of the day they want your business and will do a little something to get it.

We ended up getting both phones from Best Buy Mobile that were $1150 retail for $375 out the door!!!! Ohh and I got the extended battery (originally $70, for $42).

Now go out there and get you a deal!!!

[Hairless Cat]

I got my little motorola from net 10 for $19.99.

Does everything a phone should. ;)

[Carolina Husker]

[Hotsauce]

only 2 hits all day????

I know my threads have been few recently....but only 2??? :(

[Dpantherman]

hi

[bleys]

great advice!

this definitely deserves more than 2 hits.. I'll refresh maybe 1 or 2 more times. ;)

[TheRealDeal]

Tl:dr

[Panthers128]

That seems like a lot of work. I think I'd just wait for the upgrade.

[Wither]

Seems like a lot of work for an expensive phone you will just want to upgrade in... another year (less).

Not big on contracts, really.