The Sleazy Sales Tactics Thread (aka: How to Sell a $35,000 Watch in a Recession) - Page 3

Damn, did she sit bow legged on a chair or something?

Selling romance is entirely legal. Renting it is generally not, however.

 

A few reasons... If there are other people in the store, it's best to not discuss numbers out loud, just for comfort reasons and privacy obviously. Or in situations where the clients significant other is present, I want to direct the price to them, let them make the decision, and let them see what the number is. If they want to talk to their significant other about it, then that is the clients choice, but usually, they don't - makes it seem like a "bigger deal" as makes the client seem more like a "hero".

But most of my stuff is high end/designer so we're almost always talking $1,000+ on any particular item... it just makes the price seem less "WHOA!" when I show them a calculator that reads "3200" instead of saying "three thousand two hundred dollars". One of those psychological things.

I usually only verbally say a price if it is a silver item that is only a few hundred dollars, or conversely, if it is a very big ticket item, like a 16ct diamond bracelet I'll tell them "thirty" or "thirty thousand". Showing someone a calculator loaded with zeros is not very flattering (or easy to read), either.


edit: I live in Diamond Bar (with Walnut zip code), small world!

I would think most people who walk into the watch boutique know what they want to buy and what they expect to pay for it. The salesman's job is to provide them with the ritual they expect to go with this purchase. He shows them all the watches they don't plan to buy; he answers the questions they already knows the answers to; he diplomatically parries when they ask for a discount they know isn't available, and then he closes the sale.

The sales staff needs to be trained to get through this process without pissing the customer off (for example, by making him feel bad for buying only a $10k watch instead of a $30k watch) or talking him out of the purchase he intended to make (for example, by disparaging the product he planned to buy while trying to upsell something he can't afford). This stuff seems like common sense, but the sales staff at a jewelry store might not be genius caliber.

Buying a watch is an important moment for a lot of men. That purchase often marks some kind of milestone in somebody's life. It seems reasonable to train the sales staff not to ruin that experience. Pre recession, I got treated really poorly by NYC watch dealers because I was trying to buy a $7000 watch during Wall Street bonus season. I ended up buying out of town because of that. In the current retail environment, the dealers can't afford to kick business out into the street, so they have to train their sales staff not to be jerks.

I don't see any reason to mock this consultant's notion of selling romance. Watches are all about romance. Clockwork is a beautiful technology that is functionally obsolete. You don't need these things to tell you what time it is. People like to own and wear them because of the labor that goes into making them, and because of the association between these objects and midcentury fighter pilots or Cold War spies.

The only reason besides romance that anyone wears a wristwatch is the desire to adorn one's body with something that self-evidently cost a lot of money.

This is one of the funnier things I've read on this forum...

haha good joke.