Well, dammit, I just accidentally ordered a remix version of the t-shirt I was talking about in the post below. I did a different design with the (allegedly) original smiley face image, drawn by Harvey Ball, way back in the day. 2013 was supposedly the 50th anniversary of the smiley face. I didn't know that. My, how time flies. I changed the bottom line to read: "God help us from this point forward." It would be my personal version, and different from the one I'd give to every citizen in the US if I were king.
But I didn't mean to order it, at least not now, but I did. I was trying to play my cat-and-mouse game I discovered a while back. I did the usual deal but there was a glitch, and when I reentered a number and hit refresh it submitted the order without me clicking pay.
I figured out over the last year or so especially, if you're interested in buying something online, and there's not a discount up-front, if you let them know you're interested in their product they'll often e-mail or text you with discount offers, and many times the longer you wait the lower they'll go. For non-essential items it's a buyer's market, and they'll work with you, but you'll have to dig it out of them. Can you dig it?
Last year, when I thought I was actually going to be spending some time at the river, I saw a pair of super-tough, long wearing shoes that were $120, which I'd never pay, and there was no discount offered. I filled all the info and got all the way to the "submit order " button. As you know sometimes when you're looking at an item and you're about to click away, you'll get a pop-up window that says "WAIT...take an additional 10% off NOW!" or something like that.
That didn't happen this time so I clicked off, but sure enough over the next week I got offers that kept going lower. Sometimes the more interest you show the lower they'll go. It's like dickering over the price at a flea market. First it was 10% off, then 15%, 20%, a big 25% OFF! sale, but I held out. When they finally got down to 40% off, which is generally as low as they'll go without getting too pissed-off, I got them for $65. That's what they should be to begin with, but if they can hit you up for the full retail you can bet your ass they will.
That's preaching to the choir, but most people don't know that some places will bargain with you, because they don't say it up-front. They don't offer any discount at first, and most people will pay list. It's a fun game and you can save a good bit of money, but you have to bait that hook and toss a line and be patient. Not everybody does it; it works maybe 30% of the time, and to varying degrees, but it's definitely worth a try.
That's what I was trying to do here. I had to enter all the info to find out shipping charges, but for some reason it said the CVC # was wrong, which it wasn't, but I entered it again anyway. All I did was hit refresh and it placed the damn order. I tried to cancel it but I didn't see an option. I'm going to contact them and tell them what happened and see if maybe I can cancel or maybe cut to the chase and ask for a discount, but I don't know if I can. I never came close to hitting any type of pay or submit button. I just now e-mailed them so I'll see what they say. I've done this a million times but it's never entered the order without me hitting the submit button. Damn.
I guess the shirt is cool enough not to raise a big stink about if they don't want to cancel my order or give me a discount. I think if I saw it I'd get a laugh out of it. The thing is I just sketched it out really quickly, just to get a price. If they offered me a decent discount I was going to go back and fine-tune it, but it's good enough, and I like the smiley face. In Crazytown now of course that there's limited social-interaction, and very few chances for anyone else to see it. If I end up with it I guess it'll just be a personal one-off souvenir collector's item, although I think other people might dig it too. Ha-ha I was going to say that I'd buy it, but I did buy it. Ha-ha, fuck me! Oh, well, it won't break me. Want one? Have a nice day.
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