Stop it.
Actually, you are, so I really can’t complain.
Seriously, 99.9% of the time, you’ll just hose yourself by underpricing the competition.
Are you providing worse quality merchandise than your competitors?
'cuz most consumers will think you are. Either that or your return policy sucks, or your employees are inept, or you’re inept.
The public by and large assumes that quality equates to price and vice versa.
You’ll wind up being the Fram or Cyrix of your local XYZ industry if you’re known as the low price leader.
Got to agree with this. The public at large really doesn’t appreciate the low price as incentive approach. I wish I had learned that earlier in my stint in business. They do however appreciate gimmicks – which I always found insulting, but usually after being asked why I didn’t use this gimmick or another by a customer, and taking pains to explain to them how I was really the better deal because of the hidden costs my competition put in to pay for their gimmicks, the usual respose was…“Yeah, but a free set of ginsu knives is cool!” 
There is a reason there are all those “But wait, order now and we’ll include a free…” ads on TV – sadly they work.
-rainy
Of course, there’s a chance our dr. dra is in one of those odd markets where his consumers ARE remarkably price sensitive and he can make up on volume what he loses in mark-up. But he’d have to have an inside line on getting items cheap at wholesale.
Or, perhaps he’s in a service industry and using non-union labor and his equilibrium price really is lower than his competition.
I really should have accounted for gotchas in my previous post.
I ran a side business for YEARS and discounted 20% versus the competition. I later figured out that if I had simply had more confidence in myself I could have charged the market rate and made that much more money the whole time.
My late aunt used to own a small clothing shop on Madison Avenue.
It was the size of a walk-in closet, basically a tiny hole in the wall.
She flew to Italy every month and basically hand picked the garments she would sell in her tiny little shop. I remember her telling me how Dustin Hoffman came in one day and bought a silk scarf for his wife at a ungodly amount.
I can’t remember exactly, but her rent was out of this world, something like 10k per month if my memory is correct.
This was 20 years ago when I was there, and for a 21 year old youngster at the time (me), I was in awe at how much the rent was.
She explained to me that Madison Ave was considered to be the “Window of the World” with regards to retail. She explained how “anybody who is anybody” has a store front here because their global image requires it, and they want to have the luxury of having a prestigious Madison Avenue address on their corporate letterhead.
She also told me that several big name stores run at a loss each year, but it’s not really a loss ‘per se’’ because it is advertising, and the stores in the other cities make up for it.
So in this case I can see how a company can operate at a loss.
Well its Fresno, CA, pretty big city and its growing like a weed but a very large lower middle class. A high percentage of my calls from people shopping around for phone estimates. Some of those customers I am sure could afford more but I convert many because I throw out a bid that is $5-$10 less than ChumpUSA down the street a ways. As far as gimmicks go, I am putting in a coupon in the next phone book with a corresponding increase in the labor rate so no coupon = more money where coupon maybe snags coupon clippers that may have gone elsewhere “but they have a coupon!!” for the same rate I have been charging. My biggest competitor in town also has a coupon, mine is ever so slightly more generous.
So far its just me doing all the work out of a shop in a spare bedroom so I have very low overhead, most of my big expenses are in phone book ads.
As far as incompetent, well I kinda AM 
never actually worked in the biz, no formal education at it, just kinda been everyones “geek kid next door” fixing for pocket money here and there as my work schedule permitted. Got tired of the corporate grind, had a little cash on hand for startup expenses, said what the hell…
So here I am 4 months later and $80 in the black for this month, first time making anything above expenses and even that paltry sum feels pretty good right now. 
and have 2 machines being worked on that are not in that number…
And I get to dope while I watch the virus scanners do their work…
One of the other things to consider in my case is are people willing to pay more than a couple hundred to get a computer fixed when they can often get a new one for just $499 after mail in rebate.
Given that it appears your discount versus market rate seems to be:
Big Guys: $179
Dr. Dra: $169
Big Guys: $65
Dr. Dra: $59
I’ll say that the kind of pricing you’re doing isn’t insane. I’m still going to say your bottom line numbers would look better at the end of the year if you confined your discounting to coupon customers or volume/contract accounts.
I will remark that giving quotes to people over the phone for PC service SUCKS. If they could describe the problem well enough for me to know exactly what will be involved in fixing their PC, they would be fixing it themselves, not calling me. I hate when I have to eat two hours labor, or alternatively go back to the customer with a higher rate.
Somebody ought to tell Wal-Mart about this. They appear to have done quite well using this incentive.
For me right now I eat a ton of labor but all guilt over calling a customer back and bumping a bit for a truly sticky problem is long gone now.
If I have to do a bunch of reading I don’t fault the customer for that, but if they have to have 3 gigs of photos rescued from an unstable virus laden machine that I can’t just wipe and reload…bill it baby. I have already done a couple like that, they are usually willing to pay well to get their files recovered.
Yeah, well, I was making that comment specifically with my experience as a small retailer in mind, not the big box stores.
But, fair being fair, Walmart also enables you to buy practically friggin’ everything (groceries, electronics, clothes, outdoor equipment, automotive) in one stop. I’ve always thought this was a huge part of their appeal. They are the modern equivalent of the general store.
-rainy