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Saving Dollars and Sense with Scratch-n-Dents

If you need every appliance or piece of electronics in your house to be in impeccable aesthetic condition, this may not be the post for you. However, if you are open to saving 50% or more by buying some of your big ticket items in less-than-perfect outward condition, keep reading for tips on how to do it!

Know how the item is normally priced
To know what kind of deal you are getting, you need to know what the original price was. You can always try to negotiate any price, but you should be getting at least a 20% discount with an S-n-D. Try your best to bargain down to 50% off.

It never hurts to ask
If you don’t know if your favorite store has an S-n-D inventory, call and ask. If not on-site, they may sell their S-n-D items online or offer them at a separate outlet store. But you’ll never know if you don’t ask.

Search for S-n-D specialty stores or outlets
Your area of the country likely has stores that specialize in appliances that have been scuffed a bit, so do an internet search for “scratch and dent store” or “warehouse store” to see what is near you. Many smaller appliance stores list their slightly damaged items on websites like www.craigslist.org, so check there too. Some name brand stores like Sears and Dell have their own S-n-D outlets, so it can helpful to find out if they have a location near you.

Check with furniture and appliance rental businesses
Appliances that have been rented out previously may have a little more wear, but by sacrificing some newness, you can get fantastic deals when rental businesses update their inventory.

Don’t be scared by refurbished or reconditioned items
Refurbished could just mean that an item was returned because it wasn’t the right color or size for the buyer. And a reconditioned product usually has been tested by a technician to make sure it is in good working order.

Know your rights
Just because you bought an item in the “dinged” category doesn’t necessarily mean you have relinquished all your rights. Be sure to find out if you if you can return the item if it doesn’t work, if the manufacturer’s warranty is still in effect, and if you have the ability to buy an extended warranty if you choose. If the answer to any of these is no and you are still interested in buying the product, use this lack of guarantee to negotiate a lower price.

Find out the problem
A lot of times S-n-D goods are sold as-is, so make sure the problem is just cosmetic and not functional.

Make sure you have all the parts
You don’t want to get that new treasure home and find out something is missing. S-n-D TVs in particular are notorious for being sold without the remote, so ask for an owner’s manual that will list all the gadgets and attachments so you can check your inventory.

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