Our experience with buying a kitchen

You have an orientation where the room for negotiation ends.

And, what is that supposed to achieve now, if you see some discount numbers there detached from any planning and other information? You buy a kitchen at a final total price and that counts. A nicely mentioned high discount rate does not count.

You exactly do not have that. The range of pricing from the offering kitchen dealers/furniture stores etc. is so widely spread that you can draw absolutely no conclusions from it. From many experience reports on Kuchen-Forum.de, it is rather the case that you can buy at the biggest discounts in large furniture stores because their main sales strategy is still to lure customers with percentages. Many small studios and local kitchen dealers work with immediately very realistic prices. There, negotiating is often limited to rounding down to the nearest 100, 500, or maybe even 1000.

Kitchen planning and pricing is something very individual. You can get a kitchen that initially looks visually identical probably for double the price if, for example:

[*]Panels etc. are lacquered instead of plastic
[*]Drawers with glass sides or made of wood instead of standard tubs
[*]Luxurious lacquer finish of the fronts instead of melamine fronts or to-be-avoided foil fronts
[*]Higher carcass (e.g. 78 or 80 cm) instead of the so popular 72 cm high carcass from Nobilia and together with the higher carcass more drawers

All these can be things that are not recognizable at first glance, which unfortunately also makes it quite difficult to compare different offers with each other

You simply don’t have that. The range of pricing from the kitchen dealers/furniture stores, etc. offering kitchens is so broad that you can’t deduce anything from it. From many experience reports on Kuchen-Forum.de, it’s rather the case that you can get the highest percentage discounts in large furniture stores because their main sales strategy is still to lure customers with percentages. Many small studios and local kitchen dealers work with immediately very realistic prices. There, bargaining is often limited to rounding down to the nearest 100, 500, or possibly 1000.

Kitchen planning and pricing is something very individual. You can get a kitchen that looks initially visually identical for probably double the price if, for example:

[*]Side panels, etc., are lacquered instead of plastic
[*]Drawers with glass sides or made of wood instead of standard tubs
[*]Luxurious lacquer finish on the fronts instead of melamine fronts or to-be-avoided foil fronts
[*]Higher carcass (e.g., 78 or 80 cm) instead of the oh-so-popular 72 cm high carcass from Nobilia, and together with the higher carcass, more drawers

All of these can be things that are not recognizable at first glance, which unfortunately also makes it quite difficult to compare different offers

Exactly this way of thinking is supposed to be created in the customer by the seller. After an odyssey of numerous renowned kitchen studios, the business practices of the salespeople emerge. Eventually, you know your kitchen and the prices. But sometimes maybe it’s better not to know that there was still a margin of €5,000 or more.

Our L-shaped kitchen at the kitchen specialty store with AEG appliances will cost €10,000 including the Ich-frag-den-Chef discount. Whether the price is reasonable is hard for us to judge.

There are certainly fair kitchen salespeople who do not charge a 50% markup; and the smaller ones are generally fairer. Nevertheless, as always with large amounts, one should compare.

Our experience with buying a kitchen was quite straightforward: We went to the furniture store, first there were astronomical prices, then immediately the first discount. That already put us under our budget (about 40% discount). However, since we didn’t like the planning, we informed ourselves at Ikea. Also pretty good kitchens, at a pretty good price, one has to say.

But then we went to a smaller studio nearby. Already at the first appointment we were there for 3-4 hours. In the end, there was solid planning and we received render photos of our kitchen. The following week we were invited to a cooking evening, where you could also try out the appliances live. Another week later came the next 5-hour appointment with a detailed offer. Everything was explained and discussed to us in detail, so that in the end we had a finished plan.

Since we were shortly before the workshop planning, we then signed immediately after a short negotiation at a reasonable price (in our opinion), 4 days later we had dimensioned plans for our house workshop planner. In addition, everything we had dreamed of, but thought it wouldn’t fit the budget.

The smaller ones seem partly not to participate in this discount battle.