Beware of admitting to crimes on the SDMB. I don’t know about where you live, but in NC, you are required to settle up on these taxes you “avoid” when you file your income taxes. This is one of the reasons I don’t tend to buy big-ticket items online.
If I order a piece of sophisticated electronics by online or mail order, I always make sure that in case of warranty issues I can take it directly to a manufacturer-authorized local service shop, rather than have to ship it back. Otherwise it’s put my cash into the local economy and save myself the hassle. In any case, after a certain weight and value, the combined shipping/insurance/waiting time cost often ends up making it cost-neutral WRT buying local.
And delivery can be a serious headache. I remember living in Baltimore and having to deal with UPS, who for some reason only delivered M-F during work hours. The place to go do an in-person pickup was in some way-out business park location halfway to the Pennsylvania state line, and the pick-up hours were VERY limited.
This year our state income tax tried something new – if you don’t have receipts for all of your online purchases, they’ll just charge you a fixed percentage based on your income! I think they wanted $44 in sales taxes from me – that would have been the equivalent of $730 in untaxed purchases! As it so happens, Apple charges Michigan Use Tax, as does Target, as does just about everyone I do online shopping with (Amazon no, eBay vendors no).
I’m curious now, though – if I’d have paid the fixed percentage but had spent considerably more, does this act absolve me (legally) of paying my full share? Hell, I may make it a point to buy a lot more from tax avoidance places.
How do they know what you bought? Lots of folks don’t buy anything online.
Many people like to haggle, and some do their online homework, bring that into the store for them to pricematch. The get the item on the spot, the thrill of haggling (yes some people like this), the ability to return it to a store if there is a problem.
Supporting the local economy is by far my biggest reason for shopping locally, and I try to shop at locally owned “Miom & Pop” stores when I can.
You see, when you do business with locally owned businesses, they often purchase their own goods and services (printing, cleaning supplies, accounting and tax services, lunch, lightbulbs, etc.) from local merchants, too. More of your dollars stay circulating among your friends and neighbors.
Generally, I need to see, touch, measure and fiddle with everything I buy, too.
You can still say you didn’t buy anything from out-of-state. It’s not automatic that they will charge you something. I just pay the percentage (VT state taxes) because I say I have bought from out-of-state, and I don’t keep receipts.
Shipping and handling is part of the cost, so online is often more expensive.
I can try something first.
I can take it back for return if defective when purchased.
I can get it in fifteen minutes.
I know it’s not a scam artist.
I know the sale has to comform to the local and state laws.
Delivery services are not very good. UPS. I found a computer part worth hundreds of dollars in my grill a week after they said it was delivered and I had made calls to the maker and UPS. I luckly opened the gas grill before turning it on to warm up 5 minutes.
Last week I bought a new vacuum cleaner. Researched the prices online then visited five of their stores to buy, as delivery would have cost £8 and there are nine of the stores within a ten mile radius.
Of course, none of the stores had the models I wished to select one from in stock.
So went to their competitor, spent an enjoyable half hour chatting to a very pretty Chinese girl and her husband, she was there on the same mission as me and we eventually both chose identical machines, our first choices too, as it happened.
I had the machine within an hour and a half, despite traipsing around a bit, did my other shopping at the same time. If it goes wrong the store is only four miles from my house and open until 8pm, didn’t have to pay for delivery or wait in for it, which would have involved taking time off work.
It was £10 more expensive than the original store but had been reduced in price by £60 that week and was £100 less than another local outlet.
So for large or expensive electronics items I would always chose a bricks and mortar store - The nightmare I had buying four laptops underscores the advantages of that, but for most minor items I would buy online (CDs for instance) as the choice and availability are greater and the prices often far lower.
Many of you have experiences and perceptions that are new to me.
I’ve never experienced any carrier problems like you’ve described.
I always factor in shipping when comparing prices so that’s not an issue.
I would never buy from an online merchant whose return policy wasn’t clearly spelled out. Sites like Nextag have ratings and reviews of online merchants so you know the reputation of who you are buying from.
As far as supporting the local economy, well, the economy right here inside my house is as local as it can get. I’m more concerned with it than the bottom line of a retailer. Nice to know there is some altruistic spirit among those of you with more money than me.
In my experience price and selection is never as good locally as it is online. Realistically, how could it be?
As far as haggling goes, as I said in the OP, I’ve never had a store salesperson meet an online price or even throw in some cables when asked. If they did I would consider buying from him.
I’m not so impatient as to have to have it right now. It’s something I’m going to own for several years so getting it on Friday instead of Tuesday is minor. I’ll wait a couple of days to save the money.
I recently bought a HD TV which I could not find locally for less than $1,700 plus tax. (That’s at chain stores like Circuit City and Best Buy. Mom & Pops are even higher.) My online price was $1,200 including shipping. I went to a local shop to have a look at it before placing the order and didn’t feel like I was doing anything like stealing. But if I had forked over the additional $500 difference to the local guy and then found it online that much cheaper, I sure would have felt like I had been robbed!
Can’t speak to Michigan, but Massachusetts does exactly that - if you pay the standard percentage of Use Tax, they won’t come after you further, even if they audit you and it turns out you should have paid more. Doesn’t apply to individual items that were more than $1000 though.
Knowledgable salespeople will keep me coming back to a brick and mortar store. We recently bought a video camera. We wandered into a local store, and picked the brain a salesman for about 45 minutes. We learned which camera was on it’s way out, so the price was being discounted. We learned which ones had a history of returns due to faulty product. He told us which machines looked good, but went through batteries like crazy, and which one had worked well for him while he was on a trip.
Yes, we paid probably 5% more for it, but it was well worth supporting a store that has a knowledgable sales force.
Well… depending on the price and shipping costs, it may well cost less to buy locally and pay sales tax, rather than buy online and have it shipped, with the bonus of having it immediately.
At work, it’s completely an immediacy thing. If we know we need hard drives or something ahead of time, we order them online. If we need them NOW, we buy locally.
Personally, it depends. If it’s a game or something, it’s usually an impulse buy, and I buy locally. If it’s an upgrade, say… a SATA DVD burner, for example, I’ll scrounge up the best deal I can, which is usually online with shipping.
As for the knowledgeable sales force… you can learn more yourself by doing some basic research, than most sales guys know at say… Circuit City or Best Buy. I’ve had some computer sales guys tell me stuff that was ignorant at best, and fradulent at worst. Digital cameras are the worst; the sales cretins harp on megapixels and zoom(worthless IMO), instead of battery life, size, and shutter delay, which are much more pertinent in a real-world situation.
I mean, how many people print pictures larger than say… 6x9" on a regular basis, and in 99% of cases, if you need a zoom, you can just get closer, or crop later on. The longer the zoom, the worse the image quality, in general, but sales people will tell you that a larger zoom is better!?
Notes about megapixels:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/21pogues-posts-2/
I also live in a state where I very rarely avoid state sales tax. Plus, the cost of sales tax is often lower than the cost of shipping and handling.
You have to agree that some men like to go to Best Buy and such just to putter and browse, kinda like some (but not all) women like to go clothes shopping for the fun of it, and an online store just doesn’t offer the same experience. ( Men particularly like to visit BestBuy when the alternative is going into the Gap with their girlfriend. ) A coworker of mine used to have a horrible rush hour commute, on more than a few occasions he’d hit Best Buy just to wait for traffic to die down. So you stop in to BestBuy and remember you might want a new camera … and hey, lookie there! A few hours later you’re at home with your new toy. I actually have a theory you can classify men as either “BestBuy guys” or “HomeDepot guys” in terms of their puttering preferances, although I’m sure many men fall somewhere in between on the spectrum.
The other thing to keep in mind is in most cases, home electronic purchases are a pleasure, not a necessity. If having the camera in your paws that night gives you $100 more entertainment, then it was worth the money. A cheaper, more carefully selected camera is still a pleasure purchase. And when you spend $1200 on a TV instead of $1700, you didn’t save anything, you still spent $1200.
Sounds like semantics. I know you don’t save by spending. But if me and my brother both start with $1700 each in our pockets and he spends $1700 and I spend $1200, I’ll have $500 in my pocket to his $0. I’d rather be the guy with the $500, wouldn’t you?
Oh certainly. However as we have all mentioned there’s myriad factors, some tangible, some not, that go into shopping at local (whether local-local, or merely chain branches) bricks-and-mortar retailers.
Choices for tastes, isn’t that wonderful?
You are satisfied with your deal, which means the product plus some cash to spare; we are satisfied with our deal, which means the product plus the showroom experience plus immediate use plus a human face to the transaction. At the rawest level of economics, we BOTH got a good deal.
HOWEVER, if the difference IS as in your example $1200 vs $1700, the local-shopping experience had better add me as much subjective value as would using the $500 to hop over to Puerto Plata for the weekend. But for the majority of** my** transactions it’s not that much of a difference either absolutely or percentagewise.
So will go most answers to the question, I believe (which if I may say so, is by now closer to an IMHO than a GQ).
Well, I would be the girl at with $1700 in her pocket watching TV on her 8-year-old 23" tube. Or if there’s a game tonight I might be getting to know your brother 
But as just described by JRDelirious, the $500 just bought the hypothetical brother a set of intangibles. Now, I personally agree that the extras of the brick and mortar experience aren’t worth $500, but if you just spent over $1K on a TV then you probably have an extra $500 to piss away at your pleasure.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried explaining to customers that you don’t. need. a. 7mp. camera. for. general. photography.
One of the best cameras on the market at the moment is, IMHO, the Olympus FE-210. It’s a nifty little point n’ shoot, runs on 2xAA batteroes, uses the xD memory card (superior to SD, IMHO), they take great photos, and they’re very easy to use- and they’re a bargain at around AUD$200 or so.
But our customers are only interested in paying as little as possible (Which apparently means “Under $100”, which just isn’t going to happen) or getting a wafer-thin camera because it goes with their handbag or whatever, even if it’s got horrible feature creep, takes average photos, and chews batteries like they’re going out of fashion. :smack:
My only hope is to get into Regional Management or Admin, where these things are less of a concern, I think…
That’s not a fair assessment. Why is it just because someone was able to save $1000 for something they like and want automatically imply that they’re some rich asshole who has $500 they can piss away without batting an eye? It’s like, hey, if you can afford to super size your value meal, then you’ve got some spare change you don’t mind giving to the addict on the corner, right?