Tactics when buying a kitchen / how to negotiate properly?

Yes, the book is really good. There is another one by him, about furniture buying in general. His free newsletter is also worthwhile!

For 20k you don’t get an overly large kitchen. It’s medium good appliances and nice size. But nothing more. If I read your description correctly, rather 30 to 40k.

We will have a Schüller/Next mix. Two rows, each about 4m. One row up to the ceiling with an oven, steam cooker, warming drawer, and 1.78m refrigerator. The other row with a dishwasher and 60cm sink, only base cabinets. Cooking island 2.70m with cooktop. Appliances from Miele, refrigerator from Siemens, cooktop Bora. For us, 27.5K €. I think 20K is a good estimate for you.

For us, 27.5K €.

Would you like to tell how you arrived at the price? So, how many studios you visited and how much you negotiated?

We were at a kitchen studio and at the self-proclaimed largest furniture store in Germany. In the Eifel. Kitchen studio first, then furniture store as a comparison. The managing director of the studio took more than 12 hours in advance for the planning. First like this, then like that, then again like this. He was very patient, critical, inspiring. 12 hours and he didn’t even know if he would get the order. We were at the furniture store for 2.5 hours. Admittedly with the ideas from the studio. Still, the salesperson was done after 2.5 hours. He told us he could do 27.5K € for us. Important to note, worse equipment. In the end he said, if we now called the boss and told him to do something with the price, we would probably get 25K €. Yuck. Included discount. That was basically already decided for us, we would go with the studio. Some around us said we should get more offers. But the feeling with the studio was just right. They now have the order. And we feel good about it. In the end we didn’t really negotiate. The only thing we did: At first we were at 32K €. We said that’s not possible. So together(!) with the studio we looked where we could save without completely changing the kitchen. In the end it was different fronts. He ultimately gave us a "Schnapps" discount on top and we accepted. It’s only a gut feeling, but from my point of view he really couldn’t have given more. There’s no point in trying to squeeze the guy dry. They’re supposed to deliver solid work.

Yes, it's a good price, but he will probably still pay under 10k for the kitchen. But he needs the margin for the business..