UK's first online haggling site launched

Monday, April 30, 2012 - 11:23 by Simon Crisp

Usually when you want to buy a particular product when shopping online you can head to your favourite major site, such as Amazon or Play.com and find out how much it costs, before completing the transaction.

Those who want a real bargain have the option of using price comparison sites, or even the basic price aggregation service offered by Google, to seek out the best possible deal.

Let's Haggle, a new e-commerce service launched in the UK, is the first of its kind to actively engage the consumer in a negotiation over the price of particular products and services.

The new site has an impressive list of brands on its books already, with big name firms like Sony, Samsung and Gucci, signed up to give you the chance to make significant savings.

Let's Haggle founder, Madhur Srivastava, spoke out about the benefits of choosing this new method of safe shopping online.

He said that the site introduced an element of social gaming which had previously been missing from e-commerce in the UK.

When you find a product you would be interested in buying, an automated online shopkeeper will present you with all the information you need to get a deeper understanding of the item, ideally allowing you to work out its intrinsic value.

It is then possible to make an offer and begin haggling, to see at which price you will be able to get accepted and complete the sale. Significantly, you will never be charged unless your offer is accepted, so there are no strings attached.

The site boasts that you can save up to 86 per cent on the recommended retail price across a wide range of items.

This is certainly a novel type of deal site which could gain traction in an increasingly crowded market, but whether Brits will want to haggle to get what they want, remains to be seen.