Was this guy a walk-in, or was he lured by marketing?
Right! When we sell a guitar for $450 we don’t make $450. We paid x for the guitar , Y for the building to display it in so consumers can try it out, and Z for the sales persons pay. That translates into a lot less profit than an online warehouse with few employees.
Again, why should the consumer care about that? It’s not their problem right?
Wrong! If you want that store to be there so you can try things out and stop in to pick up whatever else they carry then you need to understand that it costs a little extra to support them. It’s all connected and we seem to be forgetting that.
Or, eventually we’ll have not guitar stores, but “Guitar Education Centers”, where you can go to talk to an expert, perhaps play a floor model or two, and spend $40 for an hour of advice and hands-on examination. Then you’ll go wherever you want to actually buy one.
Or people will rent guitars, like they do carpet cleaners.
Or UPS gets rich off people buying and returning guitars online.
Or guitars become something only rich people dare gamble on.
Or people get used to playing crap guitars.
While I try to avoid Darwinianing social constructs, the fact seems to be that brick-and-mortars CAN’T compete in the long run. Right now, service is not important, no matter what we say about it. So the brick and mortars will indeed die out, and some other form of commerce will rise to take over that niche market that people will be willing to pay for.
And the guy was a jerk and the whole thing is totally frustrating, I agree.
WhyNot,
Manager of Blockbuster when Netflix was pending.
I wonder why that matters but he was a walk in.
Again, our price was exactly the same as the online stores. He wanted to avoid sales tax by having us pay it for him.
I also offered a good case cheap. About $80 to $100 new. I offered it used for $20 bucks. It was scuffed but very sound. He said he preferred a new case with his new guitar. Okay, thats his choice. If you’re willing to pay extra for a new case then why not a little extra to support your local store and the saleperson who helped you.
Part of the issue for me is the amount of time he took up. As a previous poster said. He used the stores resources which included me to make his decision and then left over a nominal amount.
Honestly, even though he seemed like a nice guy, for many shoppers it’s a game they feel they have to win. If I don’t get some discount or the discount I want then I’m walking. Often it’s more about that than the actual dollar amount.
I understand people doing their research and then wanting to come in and check it out in person. Even then, if the difference is nominal then support your local store. If you saw it there and the actual seeing convinced you it was what you wanted give them your business. If there’s a huge difference then bring them the evidence that you can get it a *lot * cheaper online and give them a shot. They may not be able to maych it but they may get a lot closer and have soething else to offer.
I worked in a Chicago pet store that had been in the same family for over 70 years. Then a PetScare opened up down the block, and within 5 years the store I’d worked at was out of business. People would come into our store and pick our brains–few hobbies are as information-intensive as pet husbandry–and then walk down the street to save a buck.
It’s dishonest and selfish.
To insist, as nyctea and Eonwe do, that that’s just tough titties, that only the bottom line matters, is quite simply wrong. Service is, wait for it, a service. Just because it’s not itemized on your bill doesn’t mean that it doesn’t add value to the product.
As far as I’m concerned, the pet store I worked at was closed due to an epidemic of theft-of-services.
My response to any attempts at price-match shenanigans at the art supply store I worked at was “If it’s cheaper somewhere else, buy it there.”
Plus, all the instrument-playing friends I have say they like to play before they buy, as it’s all hand-made and all.
But… I did get $300 knocked off a camcorder at The Good Guys just by asking for it.
After he left the store this guy shopped online and found a guitar bundled with a buncha neat shit they couldn’t ordinarily sell, like a bright purple case, seven Sammy Hagar picks and a Mel Bay book.
He’s a cost of doing business. Start branding your store as an “answer shop” and maybe you’ll mitigate this guy’s effects.
A passive effect of leeches: the traffic makes your store look less like a sarcophagus. After all you’re in Nashville – selling guitars to random peckerwoods should be second only to blowjobs.
Thanks. Succinctly put and pretty dam accurate.
That is my point. People want the service but think they can still get it and wisely avoid paying for it. Guess what? You can’t. Service costs money to provide and you should be willing to pay something for it.
If a local store offers you something of value, as in, good information and customer support then give them your business even if it costs a little more. If you’ve done the bulk of the research yourself which some customers like to do, and you know what you want then you have every right to shop price.
Even then you should keep in mind that it costs money to have a showroom to let you try stuff out. After enough people have bought from Musicians friend to close their local music store they shouldn’t bitch that they have to drive an hour or two to check something out. They had a direct hand in that result.
It all comes down to value really. I doubt any shop gives $300 worth of service when you buy a keyboard from them. They should lose the sale if they think their leval of helpfulness was worth that much to the customer.
On the other hand help from a shop (especially good advice saving you from buying the wrong product for your needs) is worth maybe $10 to $50, especially if there is after purchase help available from the shop as well.
It’s not stealing if you’re giving it away for free. At any point your pet store had the option to set up a consulting/training business and charge for it. They didn’t; ergo, it was free for the taking.
Nah, down that route lies bankruptcy. The cost of operating an offline store is too much higher than that of an online one to compete solely on the price of goods. If brick and mortar stores want to succeed, they need to sell services and treat the knowledge of their employees as a commodity.
If you don’t sell the item, you’re still out $800. The customer may only walk away with $50 in profit, but the total cost still counts against your bottom line.
I really do see it as stealing, just as much as your example. A store may charge more, but part of that is to cover the cost of the knowledgable salespeople, which is a little pricier than having a picture & description online. If someone goes in and uses the salespersons’ expertise without any intention to buy, then they are clearly not paying for the service they have been given. This is not to say that one can’t comparison shop, or decide not to buy from a given store, for whatever reason. But to purposely go to a store to gather information, with full intent to then go purchase the item somewhere else cheaper is stealing, IMO.
Yeah. Someone else described it as theft of services and I can see that. The other down side is I see a trend to reduce it to a purely financial transaction rather than a human relationship. Too bad I think. It used to be that we might go out of our way to help someone without asking for much or any compensation. It was community and that person you helped today would remember that help and give you their business when when they were ready to buy. Now it seems people will take that help and then just walk away to save themselves a couple of bucks. What about that person who just helped you and their lively hood. What about the business that help provide the service? It’s not an obligation. It’s just realizing we’re dealing with real people rather than just numbers. Our survival response is to not offer the help and to have a fee for everything.
If we got exceptional service from a waitress and then walked out without leaving a tip how would we be labeled? A previous poster suggested that if you’re giving away the information and service then that’s tuff luck. Why should people pay for it? The same relationship is implied in the waitress scenario. If the waitress gives you good service then she has earned the right to expect a decent tip. If a store /salesperson gives you good service they have earned the right to expect your business. Taking their service and then going elsewhere to purchase the item they showed you to save a buck is just being a cheap bastard.
We still get people that need some help and we’re willing to help but the sense of community is fading. People will take the help but have no sense of community when it comes time to make a purchase. IMHO it reduces us to numbers and a sense of “what’s in it for me?” Maybe I’m too nostalgic for small town life or just resisting the inevitable. It’s normal for shopping trends to change. I just want people to understand the relationship and the longer term consequences of their choices.
I’d agree with that. Keep in mind a small local store can’t get the bulk buy deals that major online dealers do. If you want them to remain there you might have to widen your expectations oif what their presence is worth. Having the item there for you to to try out is worth something even if no salesperson ever helps you. Online stores can’t give you that.
Sales tax is another issue. I’m begining to think to even the playing field and to help support state highways schools etc online stores should have to charge state sales tax for the state of the purchaser. In my example the price was exactly the same and it was only the sales tax that made a difference.
States that support their infrastructure with sales tax can really get screwed.
So what? I can always sell the item to somebody else. What I was commenting on was the attitude “I am spending X amount of dollars so I am an important customer”.
Is it just me or isn’t everyone supposed to report all online purchases to the IRS and still pay sales tax on them? You could at least tip them off to his tax-fraud.
Isn’t sales tax a state thing? In our state, we can use a formula they give to cover guesstimated sales tax on items shipped in from out of state.
I don’t believe the IRS cares about state sales tax, except when used as a deduction (not a tax accountant or lawyer though, so I could be wrong). However, the state revenue agencies care greatly about out-of-state purchases (not just online) when sales tax is a revenue source.
Bah. Shows what I get for opening a window and replying to it 45 minutes later without previewing. Sorry gigi.
Now now, I don’t think that only the bottom line matters. As I said, if the difference in cost is significant enough, then it becomes an important issue. $30 dollars on a $300 guitar, if I’ve used up a fair amount of a seller’s time? I’ll pay it gladly. $200 on a $2000 item? Well, it kind of depends. I admit that it wouldn’t rank #1 on Miss Manners’ list of things to do, but I don’t know that I could really fault someone on it. “Come on, guy, I just helped you out!” “Yeah, but not $200 worth of help.”
And, I think the comparison to theft is just wrong. Ultrafilter has said it already, but you’re giving help away for free. It’s a service that stores provide customers and non-customers alike.
In fact, I’d even say, particularly when thinking about competing with non-service retailers like online stores, that help and attention from sales staff isn’t a service at all, it’s a marketing strategy. Like an advertisement, or a rebate, or anything else, having it is an attempt to first draw the attention of potential customers, and then hopefully make a sale.
Good service is a tool meant to bring people into a store; meant to get potential buyers to look at your merchandise. And, it’s meant in part to build loyalty and hopefully make potential customers want to give you their money. Just because it doesn’t work doesn’t make those individuals jerks. They just weren’t drawn in by your marketing strategy.
I agree that wasting the time of a salesperson is rude if you then go and buy it elsewhere.
However, I find something happening more and more that is very frustrating, and that is the difference between online prices and store prices from stores that have their own websites, like Target or ToysRUs. Quite often before I go shopping for an item I like to narrow down my choices by going online first, and doing research and price comparing, then I’ll pick up the item myself at the store to save shipping, especially for bigger items.
For example, a few months ago I wanted to buy my son a little sandbox for the yard, and I looked online and found one I liked at ToysRUs. The online price was $45 with $20 shipping for a total of $65. I went to the store and the same sandbox was $70. At this point I am thinking “I am paying $5 for the priviledge of driving here myself and packing it in my own car and taking it home” This is backwards to me since in my mind the convenience of having an item shipped directly to me and buying it from my home is what I would pay extra for. For items like this I wish the stores would at least have ‘online’ prices and ‘in store’ prices listed for the item so I know that if I go to the store the price is different. It makes it impossible to price shop without driving around or calling all the stores, which is what I want to use the internet for! To save myself that trouble.
I have worked in sales and customer service myself though and I do agree that using a salesperson for info and then buying elsewhere is tacky at best. I am just talking about buying items that don’t need technical help or usually sales help, like everyday stuff you buy at Target or toys or whatever. I have a hard time justifying the extra to pay for the ‘expertise’ of the average ToysRUs salesperson.