Saturday 29 March:

Le Cornu seemed an obvious starting point as the building company I work for purchases all their furniture for their display villages from here and I was always told there would be good discounts offered. It was a very quiet weekend at Le Cornu, we could tell the salespeople were on a commission structure, we got swamped one after the other until one guy showed us the front runner, it comprised a Lounge and two recliners - we were stoked, Kylie wanted it there and then. We thanked the Salesman and told him we’ll have more of a look around.

We loved it! it was the most comfy thing we had sat on, and it would fit in our lounge room (the other main factor in our buying decision). We were hanging around it for about another two mins and then this old guy called George came up and started a conversation, we wanted to buy and he asked the right questions (tough luck for the guy who showed us the suite), we were now committed. I told him where I worked and who I was; with a pinch of arrogance (as if it actually meant something), he replied “ohh… well that’s a different story, I’ll make a call to my manager and we’ll see what sort of discount we can give you”.

The manager came around the corner a few minutes later and explained they can’t give any discount as they are now under new management and it’s just not available. I thought if we can’t get any discount they would have to give us something for free, I tried to haggle the protection treatment - I tried the free delivery - I tried every haggling technique I knew, nothing was working! I thought I’d try one more - we thanked them for their time, grabbed our stuff off the Lounges and started for the door - .

We got about 50 metres and we hear the fast footsteps coming up behind from old George “we can give $99 off the price, that’s it” he said. We weren’t too chuffed at the 5% discount offered on a $2,000 lounge. We thanked him but we’d have a look around a little more.

(Above: The Lounge that we almost bought)

Then we looked through about 10 other shops, we went from Anzac road, to the Mile End Home Maker Centre, they all melded into one massive lounge nightmare. We found some good one’s but we couldn’t justify the value nor could we find anything we loved that would fit in our lounge room. After 5+ hours everything was just a heap of crap, crap, and more crap, we thought we were never going to find anything, the worst thing was that we may have to go back and get the suite from Le Cornu.

Saturday, 5 April:

It’s been two very long arduous weekends of shopping for furniture - mostly lounges, but Kylie decided she needed some more ‘essentials’, Kylie finally chose a lounge that we found at Freedom this morning. I thought we may be able to haggle a little, we decided we would go for a drive around the City then out to the Marion Home Maker Centre (why is there so many called that?), we stopped in Harvey Norman, we found a Room-divider Screen we (she) liked, I found my bargaining point, some very small scratches on the frame. After we walked to the wrong checkout a few times we found the right one with two lovely ladies that just wanted to get the new one from out the back. I told them I’d rather have the discount and they gave us $50 off, finally some haggling success!!!

We decided to head back to Freedom to try our haggling luck on them, we spotted a few more furniture shops so we popped into them to try and find the one we wanted so we could play them off against each other. We were about to leave when another “Freedom” popped out of no where next to officeworks. We popped in Freedom and found the suite, I told Kylie to go for a walk so I could talk with the sales girl. We had a bit of a drawn-out conversation about the suite, I told her I want to buy, she told me she couldn’t give any discount, I asked for free delivery she agreed, I was a little annoyed all that flirting for only a free delivery.

I told Kylie she was so excited! I was so excited this dredful task will now be gone from my life!!

Kylie didn’t have the money in her account… we grabbed the quote and went outside, two steps outside and Kylie tells me she got cold feet (I was distraught on the inside!!).

We went home and set the room-divider screen up to hide my desk in “the office”/dining room.

Kylie built up some courage and we decided to go pay for it at the city Freedom. We started talking and I did my stuff, and tried to get some discount without telling her we already had a quote from the other store. She had a chat to a few other ladies and she came back and said that she can only offer us discount if we buy over $3,000 in the shop. Kylie sparked-up and said “hang-on, we just went to the Marion Freedom and they gave us this…”. She grabbed our quote and went and had a chat with those same ladies. That lady walked away and started helping someone else, not long after another lady came back and said she would honour the quote, my feeling of closure came back.

Then they gave Kylie a $200 voucher to spend in the shop, we were there another ‘lifetime’, looking for Kylie’s essentials.

The only way we got away from the falcons claws of Freedom was due to me throwing tantrums and farting next to her. I won’t be going into any furniture shops by choice any time soon.

(Above: The 3 & 2.5 seater lounges we chose, the 2.5 seater is off to the right)

If Le Cornu had offered us $150-200 off or even asked us how much discount would be enough, they would probably have got our business straight up and I probably wouldn’t have done this post.