The price of a vacuum (getting hosed)

The Kirby vacuum people were in town the other day. If you haven't heard of them, they do door to door sales of a high end vacuum cleaner, with a million and two attachments and uses. It is admittedly a nice machine, allowing you to do many things. It is made to give a back massage, buff your car, unclog your drain, and it even cleans your carpet. Plus it has a lifetime warranty (with caveats).

Laura's sister has one of these machines, and loves it. Evidently it is really good at getting dust, fur, and anything else that people may be allergic to out of carpets and furniture.

As you would expect with it doing so many things it is on the pricey side.

I don't have a problem with things being expensive. That's part of life at times. I spend more than I sometimes need to. I buy my car from a dealership, because I want the warranty. I'm willing to help the sales person put their children through college. I just don't want to pay for the whole thing.

If you ever look at a Kirby, here is our experience. This is may or may not be specific to the sales team that came by our area. I seem to think it is not though, as I remember an investigative TV show from several years ago talking about the same kind of things from Kerby sales people.

The MSRP is on the box. You need to know this up front.

You will have several people coming and going.

The demonstration will go on for a LONG time. They were in our house for 3 1/2 hours.

The sales pitch includes the old faithful, I just need to sell one to get credit to go to ... In this case Las Vegas. This only affects me if I know I want to buy an item, and am deciding if I want it today or tomorrow. It isn't a sale point.

The sales team covered the price so that we couldn't see it while talking about the price. They started out asking roughly twice (2x) the MSRP! After a lot of demonstrations, and us flatly stating that we are not paying $2k for a vacuum the price went down. It still didn't feel right. So we said 'no'. They uncovered the price (and told us they specifically hide it so that people don't see what they buy them at) and tried to tell us that the MSRP is what they buy them for from the factory. After seeing the price at half of what they started asking we told them 'NO, you need to leave'.

The final offer as they (with our help) where packing up was for under MSRP. At this point we were tired, tired of being pressured to buy, hungry, had a hungry baby, and I don't trust their organization as far as I could throw it. I just don't want to do business with them.

We actualy are interested in a Kerby after the demonstration. But not with that kind of sales (or 2x the MSRP).

If you don't know what MSRP is, it is the 'Manufactures Suggested Retail Price'. The key here is 'Retail Price'. It is the price the factory says you should sell the item for. This price includes a price markup so that the sales person, reseller, store, ... can make some profit. The stores buy from factories at a lower price, often called the 'invoice price', and sell at MSRP. This is how they make money.