Interestingly most of the people I’ve heard express the idea that being a merchant means you’re a scammer, or you’re getting money for nothing or otherwise shady were all working for a wage from an employer. None of them had ever sold things as a source of income. NOTE I am not claiming this is a mainstream idea or the majority opinion, but I have heard variations on it from enough people and more than one baffles me.
I have heard this from multiple people in different countries including the USA.
That merchants are scammers because they just buy things then mark up the price, that it is disgusting to do that to customers, that marking up things and selling them for a profit to your fellow man is one of the problems with the world. That the idea of profiting off it is disgusting. When I pointed out they shopped at a grocery or walmart for stuff they just started on a corporations evil bent.
When I mentioned I used to sell on ebay so I had experience being a merchant.
One person said if they had items people wanted they would only charge cost and no more, one person said when I said a merchant has to make money anything more than 10% markup should be illegal, and if you need to make money get a job like a decent person. Or I should have told my customers where I was sourcing items instead of scamming them by profiting from their ignorance. When I asked what they would do if they needed to get rid of something for money they said either give it to a friend for free, or charge cost or less only.
A common claim was decent people work for their money, not making profit off selling things. When I pointed out selling things is work they would say it wasn’t because their was no labor just scamming people.
Is this as real a fringe idea as I have found it to be? Do most people even understand how merchants make money?
Oh and if I compared it to buying or renting a house, I think the only class of entity hated more was landlords or mortgage companies. Many said just like laws about profiting off selling there should be strictly controlled laws about how much profit can be made off rent or selling a house or property.
I got the feeling people saw themselves as consumers, and merchants were a other alien type of person who did nothing but profit off them, they did not even want to think of themselves as possible merchants too. Even ebay sellers were looked down on.
Do these people who want a merchant to sell them things at cost plan on letting the merchant live in their house and giving him meals? Because I’m not seeing how the merchant is going to be able to buy his own room and board.
Are they going to buy every item the merchant sells? Merchants have to cover the cost of the products they buy and can’t find a customer for.
Do they find it convenient to go to one place to buy all the goods they want? A merchant keep his store open if he isn’t making a profit.
Of course, they’re free to try the merchantless lifestyle if they wish. All they have to do is start buying all the products they use directly from the producer. I expect they’re going to find their new lifestyle a little inconvenient.
I am ignoring the actual whackdoodles, quasi-anarchists and the type you’d see at occupy demonstrations. I remember someone who was a middle class parent hating on ebay sellers for the Wii or some other console, they were like they waited in the cold at 4am to get one for their son and it was disgusting other people took it and sold it for a markup to parents just trying to make their kid happy.
Same here. I’ve heard people say that specific merchants are scum, but not the entire line of work. It doesn’t really make any sense, stores are essential to the economy.
I think the parent here has a reasonable argument. The eBay seller in this example is not a merchant. They’re exploiting a situation of a rare commodity and not adding any value. They’re buying an item from a merchant and depriving end customers of the product while speculating that rarity alone will allow them to insert themselves between the merchant and the end customer for a profit the manufacturer never intended.
It’s not exactly profiteering. Nobody needs a Wii U for Christmas like they need food or gasoline and generators in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane, but it’s in the ballpark. It’s more analogous to guys who buy limited commodities like tickets to a concert or sports event with the specific purpose of reselling them at a steep profit. They don’t call those guys merchants, they call them scalpers and it’s not meant to be a flattering label.
In general, the attitude you’re describing is insane. Things must be sold at a profit or nobody would sell anything. But the specific example given here is a terrible example of a disapproval of merchants. It’s a disapproval of scalping, something I think many people find distasteful.
If a bunch of people REALLY were in need for say food, and some people who had food were only selling for outrageous prices, then I’d say they are scum. I’ve heard of some people doing so during gasoline shortages.
I heard that down at the temple, there are money-changers making a profit off converting one currency to another! Someone really ought to do something about that.
I don’t think this is a widely-held belief about merchants. I do think lots of people have the attitudes towards prices and costs that you’re getting at, I just think they’re so ignorant that they don’t realize that every merchant prices things based on making money. They’ll gladly rage against any example they notice (restaurant pop supposedly only costing 13 cents or whatever to make, one-way airfare not being exactly half the round trip, etc.) but think it’s some terrible criminal thing that the good stores never do.
There’s a grocery store in my town that exploits this type of thinking. They charge (supposedly) a fixed markup of 10% on everything (coincidentally they don’t include this markup on the pricetag) and sell this as being more honest and fair than charging a nasty old PRICE like the con artists in the regular stores.
I’ve certainly come across plenty of this attitude, even if not concerning precisely the same things or to the same extent as the OP has. I came across variations on the theme a lot in debates on copyright and downloading. IME it is not at all uncommon for people to consider markup to be somehow obscene: “do you realise this item cost $X to make but they are selling it for $Y? What assholes!”
Yeah, I was going to ask whether the OP was hanging out with people from the 18th century. The idea that merchants are disreputable makes me think of a pre-industrial society. People I know enjoy the modern economy and the rampant consumerism made possible by merchants.
I’ve heard this sentiment a lot online regarding Ebay sellers of collectibles such as video games. They bemoan that video games and other collectibles such as D&D modules have shot up in price the last several years mainly due to the presence of certain nefarious people who’ve attempted to corner the market by buying up large quantities of collectibles while they’re cheap then selling them at inflated prices.
Historically, the merchant class was considered somewhere between the nobility and the peasantry although it’s accorded the distinction of supplanting feudalism. Then there’s the present-day “yuppie”, or whatever latest terminology applies, who looks down on anyone who makes money from selling goods as plebeian.
That is a thing that I’ve come across in my days in the service industry.
Usually along the lines of “Why are you charging £2.50 for this bottle of beer? I can get it in the supermarket for less than £1!”*
Yes, fair enough. But we also have to pay to have somewhere to store it, the building you’re standing in, the nice comfy sofas for you to sit in, the fridge to keep it cold, the glass to serve it in, my wages to serve you the beer and clean up after you, heating, lighting, etc etc… when you add it all up, suddenly the charge doesn’t seem so outrageous, but people don’t tend to think about that sort of detail.
In general, though, I think it’s well understood that merchants make a profit and most people don’t have a problem with that. What a lot of people don’t realise, though, is how thin the margins are on many retail items.
10% may seem like a healthy profit margin, but consider this: If you have a turnover of £1 million annually, that means average sales of just over £3,000 per day (assuming you’re open six days a week) - so, a fairly busy operation. At 10%, you’ll end up with £100,000 in gross profit - out of which you have to take building rent, utilities, staff wages, etc. All of a sudden, you’re not seeing all that much profit (as a WAG, maybe £30-£50k if you’re lucky) out of your million in sales.
*Interestingly, in one pub I worked at, it was cheaper to buy bottled beers from the local supermarket than it was wholesale from the brewery - but by the terms of the lease on the pub, we were obliged to only buy beers from the brewery. That’s why pub beer bottles are often labelled slightly differently to retail ones (extra coloured bar on the label, that sort of thing).