No Hassle/No Haggle
How many people here think that the cell phone industry would benefit from doing what alot of the car dealerships are doing, and institute a "No Hassle/No Haggle" policy?? And I don't just mean cingular, I mean EVERY carrier. The price you see is the price you pay. I truely wish cell phones were over here the way they were in europe. You buy your phone at retail, go to the carrier and get a sim card and service. Anyway, what are your thoughts on this?? I think it would actually keep the costs on phones down if this was a common policy, because we wouldn't have to upprice the phones for all the people who complain enough to get theirs for free....
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If subsidies were dropped in the wireless industry, I guess it would boil down to how well your store is situated... I wouldn't think of going to 'Target' and telling the manager that the price for 'The Anchorman' DVD is way too much. Let's haggle! Now, if your store looks like a flea market/taco stand then I think you'd expect to haggle... I guess in order to stop the haggling, set it up like a BMW dealership?
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Well, if the industry did it right, now keep in mind there wouldn't be anymore FREE phones (well, maybe each carrier might keep one free phone around) but, for example, if the prices were non-negoitable, let's say then maybe you could pay $80 for a phone like the V551 that currently costs $150 on a contract. If susidy's were KEPT, but the prices were ENFORCED, instead of bargaining all the time, it could potentially keep the initial price of the phones lower, making even the top of the line phones more accessible to lower income brackets. I think this would be a GREAT business solution. If anybody still wants to haggle, maybe they could still haggle over accessories, considering the GIANT markup that carriers sell them for anyway.
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