I used to go to an old timey barber, old school guy, even offered to give me a shave with a straight razor once. But I stopped going there (and started going to Supercuts) when he tried to set me up with his daughter’s 15 year old assistant (the daughter ran a beauty parlor out of the other side of the shop). His pitch included the phrase “Did you see the great tits on her?”
That’s it. I’ve always suspected you’re a creepy pervert, now I know. I’m done.
What crap. Your average “basic model” DSLR camera is around $700 at the big box stores. A 30% premium over that is $910. No advice this guy gave could possibly be worth that kind of markup.
The more people who come into your store to get your advice and then walk out to buy the your recommendations from someone who can sell it cheaper because they can buy more of it and employ people who can’t tell their asshole from a hole in the ground, the more they have to jack up the prices on everything. :shrug:
If you’re not planning on buying anything there, don’t go ask for their advice. It’s that simple. If you think their prices are ridiculous, just don’t patronize them. IMO, to take advantage of the services that drive their higher prices and then not pay the premium makes you a freeloading ass.
I bought a DSLR camera from Best Buy and I got a perfectly good explanation of the differences between a few models from the guy in the blue polo. If Mr. Mom and Pop Camera Shop expects a 30% premium over that, his store better include a constantly running live stage show to test my new purchase.
Used to get this attitude with cycle shops, some ‘know nothing’ would come in, ask a million questions, then go to the nearest bucket shop and buy something from a whole cycle retailer, one that didn’t service, or actually care about what they were selling or to whom - then they would come come back with more questions.
Weeks later they would come in with some sorry looking ppiece of crap that they had tried to work on themselves and screwed it up, and complain when the repair estimate was nearly as much as the cheap pile of crap cost in the first place. Half the time the reason for the high cost of the repair was that the ‘know nowt’ owner had tried to effect a repair with a pair of pliers, a monkey wrench and a hammer.
If you know nothing about something, don’t pester me for my knowledge and the screw me over by going somewhere else, and finally expect me to get you out of the mess you made yourself and all for a pittance.
…yet these ‘know nowts’ always want repairs done for less than they would pay themselves, and expect us to drop everything from our regular customers to put them at the front of the queue.
There is a suspicion by the ‘know nowts’ that trade skilled people are always trying to rip them off, or that these skills ar over valued or whatever, and you can tell by their hands they have never done a proper days work in their lives - self important and self entitled pricks who expect tradespersons to doff their caps and bow down and be grateful for their custom.
Its easy to get rubbish business, to keep throat cutting but as tradespeople close up shop, screw you to all those ‘know nowts’. I can still do it, but you can’t- go and buy a new item and pay more.
Freeloader rant over - resume normal service please.
Then don’t patronize them. If you think you can get good advice and a deal on the product from the bigger chain store, I’m not going to yell at you for going there. My problem is with people who take advantage of the employees of independent stores without giving them anything in return. Not sure what your gripe with me is, if you’re exclusively patronizing the larger stores, up to and including purchasing advice.
It’s got nothing to do with “overvaluing” their advice. They can’t price themselves to compete with Best Buy because they’re not buying 4,000 cameras at a time.
Exactly. It’s a combination of (a) not having the same buying power and (b) generally employing more knowledgeable personnel. So if you don’t like the prices, don’t shop there, and shopping includes getting advice. I fail to see what’s so hard to understand, or what, exactly, you’re objecting to, Justin_Bailey.
That’s odd. Isn’t specialization a big city phenomenon - the grizzled, cranky old dude who works 40 years in a cramped and dowdy nth floor suite doing nothing but electric shaver repairs or invisible reweaving, and who, if he’s good and lucky, gets a write-up in a local magazine or paper?
I’d think a small-town denizen would have to be generally handy, if not a jack/jill-of-all-trades, and that some of them would be things you wouldn’t know about unless s/he told you.
I still know many of The Guys for your fishing needs. I’m That Guy for fishing, although I don’t work at a store anymore.
Sadly, that’s about it. I’d love to have a ton of specialty stores around. I met The Comic Book Guy when I was contemplating getting into reading them, but after an hour long talk with him, I didn’t buy anything. I tried going back a month or so later to make a purchase, but he had closed down his shop.
There’s a shop that specializes in selling razors and other shaving equipment. Don’t care much for that kind of stuff though, so I never bought anything.
I think The Guy has been replaced by The Internets. While I miss Those Guys, I really love the internet.
Because every “Big boxes suck because they drive the little Guy out of business” post is inevitably followed by posts telling people to spend a little (or in some cases, a lot) more and buy from a local retailer.
These confirm my thesis: big cities equal specialization. I think they not only attract specialists, but may actually create them, although I’m not sure how.
I still have my jewelry and watch repair guy. Everyone always asks me about “my guy” for their jewelry problems (my Mom even mailed me jewelry so that he could repair it). He told me that business has been really good lately – apparently people are repairing their jewelry and watches rather than replacing them.
Four or five times a day – I live in San Francisco, where busking is a constant.
Good to know. I see that the NYC subway system is also quite the happening place for those folks. It’s been so long since I was in downtown Nashville in the daytime that I can’t say one way or the other about the ones who used to be on almost every corner. Some were old in the 60’s and must have moved on to another venue by now. But I wouldn’t be surprised if some new ones are taking their places. I just don’t know…
OK, right here is a major reason “The Guy” isn’t around any more. I daresay the average owner of a clothes dryer a) wouldn’t be able to locate the heating element; b) know how to remove it, or c) drive to the hardware store, in a timely fashion, in order for it to be examined by five interested parties. I’ve heard of this kind of thing being done in the past, much as the grocery shopper would make stops to the bakery, greengrocer, and drop off a nice wool skirt at the tailor’s to be let out.
Dryer not working? Either a repairman is called, or it’s off to Sears, pick out a new dryer, pay for it on credit card, and go home to wait for the Sears ‘guy’ to show up, install, and sometimes remove the defunct dryer.
I discovered an interesting method of dealing with this problem when, a couple of years ago, I went to a specialty/professional video and photography store in San Francisco (Adolph Gasser) to look into buying a relatively high-end video/ENG camera.
The model I was inquiring about happened to be a Canon. The knowledgeable salesman spent a good amount of time taking, and ably answering, my rather “high-level” questions about the camera and related issues (warranty and whatnot).
We talked price, with both of us being fully aware that Gasser would not be able to meet the big online outlets’ prices. For me, it was a matter of just how much more would the camera cost me at Gasser. If the markup was acceptable (in my subjective judgment) I would’ve preferred to make the purchase at Gasser, in part for some reasons I’ll get into below. (It’s not important for this story but I ended up buying a different make/model video camera).
It turned out that their markup was just too much, and I was frank about this with the understanding salesman. But what followed next is the interesting thing; though I don’t recall exactly how it worked so I may have some of the details wrong.
He asked if I would be willing to give some personal information (name, address, email, phone number, etc.) to submit to a program run by Canon. In essence, the way the program works is: if I end up purchasing that particular model of camera from any other authorized Canon dealer then Canon compensates Gasser for their time spent/information given that ended up (presumably in a very large part) making the sale of Canon merchandise.
I don’t know how much a retailer, such as Gasser, would be compensated, and what form it would take. And, I’m not sure if other manufacturers have a program like this, or indeed, if Canon still does. But it made a lot of sense to me, and I wondered why this couldn’t be done on a wider basis to help make up for the phenomenon of so many consumers getting expert advice from “The Guy”, and then buying the item at a better price online or at Wal-Mart (etc.).
I’m not sure this would make economic sense outside of medium-to-high end merchandise. I also know that for me, buying something like a medium/high-end video camera that I’ll end up using professionally (at least in part) is different than buying a more “consumer-like” product like a huge-screen TV. Even if the amount of money spent is similar.
That’s because in my field, and I suspect in some other professions as well, good relationships with big local dealers is important. For that reason alone it is usually worth paying their markup on big-ticket items. Because I might be buying a video camera one day, but a month later I might need an emergency last-second rental of a lighting rig and two tripods because I am on a tight shooting deadline with maybe 10 or 20 other people getting paid whether or not we’re rolling.
***That’s ***when buying gear at a big markup from “The Guy” will end up saving your ass.
Mostly, it’s option 2-- just buy a new one. This is, in part, why so much American money is going overseas. It helps drag our economy further down, and increase our trade-deficit.
Instead of paying someone locally maybe $100 to fix a perfectly good dryer, we pay $200 - 300 (I don’t know how much a dryer costs) to buy a new one. Instead of staying wholly in our economy, the money goes:
To some Chinese factory where at 80 cents an hour (or whatever) for labor, the dryer is manufactured for say 50 man/hours, or $40 labor.
To manufacturing parts suppliers that are mostly overseas (maybe another $40 in parts).
Some $$$ does stay here at home in the accounts of wealthy (and not-so-wealthy-- for example people in mutual funds) investors in Maytag, Whirlpool, etc. A well as the overworked, minimum-wage worker drones at BigBoxMart.
Number 3 does have some stimulating effect on our economy, but mostly for polo instructors and fur-coat retailers. I’d rather a more direct invigoration from “The Guy” getting his $100.
And of course, repairing instead of re-buying helps keep metric shitloads of junk out of landfills.
We’ve accepted the fact that the USA has lost millions of manufacturing jobs that are never coming back–that we are now a “service-oriented economy”. Now we’re effectively going to send the service jobs overseas too (by trading them for even more overseas manufacturing jobs because we just throw shit out when it’s slightly broken).
Since it seems to be too late for “BUY AMERICAN” anymore, how about “SERVICE AMERICAN” at the very least?
Note: The prices, wages, etc., are just guesswork. The point, however, still stands IMO.
