Negotiating a Deal and Margin Percent?

I just talked with a Dell rep about negotiating down my price and he mentioned that I was already at a 3.17% margin. Does this mean that Dell is only profiting 3.17% from my purchase over its cost? Does anyone know what the usual margin is and how low it can go? Are there certain allowances that Dell reps get to drop prices when the purchase hits certain margins?

Thank you!

 

I used to work for a large computer selling chain, and the "cost" of the computers that they gave to us salesmonkeys was drastically inflated. It usually had a good chunk of the overhead already added in, so to his knowledge that's what the margin is. There's no way Dell is only making 3% on their computers, I mean, look at how drastic their sales sometimes are.

He's probably just straight up misleading you though, Dell reps like to do that...

 

Actually, the reps on the phone have a lot more leeway to cut the price as opposed to an online order.

So, yes, it is possible that that's all the profit was.

And, yes, most certainly there are certain sales that have higher availability of price drops (quantity of item and type of item).