Buying servers?
mmmurf: You can save a lot of money by going with the sales guy.  Just be sure he knows that you are growing and you'll be placing a big order every few months.First go to the Dell website and price out the equipment.  Then when you're speaking to the sales guy, tell him you priced it out on the website and it came out to about 88% of the actual price the site gave you.Then tell him you've heard that talking to the sales guy is the way to start a business relationship and that you were hoping he could quote it out for you.  Tell him you're ready to make the purchase decision immediately but the pricing has to make sense.  Tell him the pricing on the website looks like it's marked up quite a bit.It may take him a day or more to generate the quote.Be aware that he has tremendous room to wiggle on some items, but not on others.  Last order I placed the salesman could discount heavily some items but not others.  You don't really care as long as the overall price makes sense.  So when you eventually go over the quote with him, be sure to focus on your "budget" for the equipment, and not on where the specific pricing comes from.You should also have a simultaneous dialog like this going with a rep from any other companies you'd buy from.To the salesperson, the equation is effort vs time.  If he knows you're ready to buy soon, then he has every incentive to make you a good deal b/c in a day the sale will be made and so he'll be willing to take a small commission in exchange for a quick sale.  He has some constraints about how he can price items, but has a lot of flexibility on price.If you're buying 10 to 20 servers you should be looking at least a 25% discount off of the website price.  The only reason they publish those prices is to give the salesperson a starting point to work down from (or to sucker naive shoppers into paying full price via the web).You want to come across as decisive and ready to buy at all times, if only he can solve the "issues with the pricing".Frankly Dell's sales process stinks, and it is annoying to have to work with some of the salespeople there.  But I've saved a substantial amount of money over the web prices by negotiating with them, so it's worth it.You may also be able to save money by modifying some of the configurations slightly, b/c Dell lets salespeople discount based on the need to move inventory.Don't be afraid to tell the salesperson it's OK if he needs to ask permission from his manager to make the deal, but that you're eager to get the order placed today.  Tell him he can put you on hold while he speaks to the manager.Good luck!