With one exception: medical-related stuff… now there’s something you shouldn’t try to save a buck on in my opinion.
If I have to choose between two computers and one of them costs more but is 10% better, there’s no way I’m buying it. Paying double for a 10% performance increase? I don’t think so.
But if there’s a medical treatment that costs two times more but is 10% better, I’ll take it. No room for compromise when it comes to your health.
But as for everything else, always do everything you can to reach an optimal price/quality balance.
For low value products/services, I don’t negotiate directly with the company I’m buying from because it’s not worth the time. I perform a few searches for coupons before buying and that’s it. If I find a coupon, I use it. If not, c’est la vie.
But for larger purchases, I often negotiate directly with the company in question, even if they never mention anything about discounts on their site and even if I don’t find any information online. Contact them, negotiate and you’ll most likely figure out a solution that works for both parties.
Domainers/entrepreneurs shouldn’t be afraid to negotiate.
It’s not even all that hard once you get the hang of it and believe me, it *will* add up!
April 1st, 2013 at 6:40 pm
I used to think the same thing but on a recent trip to Mexico I had 9 dental crowns put in. Dental work is crazy expensive in Canada especially if you have no insurance so when I ran into someone else that had some done I went for it. I paid about $2500 which included a cleaning and whitening for everything! Back home it would have been over $12k easy. My wife was quoted $3k for ONE last year in Canada. My teeth have never been better. Apparently they get clients from as far away as Sweden and Germany due to the savings. You can get your teeth fixed and have a great holiday for a fraction of the cost back home.
Cheers.
April 2nd, 2013 at 3:52 am
@Steve: for things that are fairly simple and not life-threatening sure, medical tourism makes sense. It’s actually a very big industry, especially for things like dental work.
But for something more complex, I’d definitely advise against choosing a cheaper country because:
1) in a lot of cases, the necessary equipment is ridiculously expensive and there’s the risk that the facility in question will use obsolete equipment
2) the doctors + staff aren’t as well trained; they do their best and probably even go to international conferences in some cases but it’s not the same thing as actually studying and being trained in a competitive cutting edge environment
3) the medical system itself is not as developed, so all in all the likelihood of finding a facility with cutting edge equipment *and* well trained staff 0to use it is fairly low (there cases when you’ll find great or even new equipment but the main issue is that the system in general isn’t mature enough and again, the likelihood of finding a facility with equipment *and* staff in Mexico at the level they’re at in let’s say Vancouver is not high)