> The problem stems, I think, from greed. People consider saving money in > the short run (as when making a purchase) more important than what > benefits > the community as a whole in the long run, such as tax revenues that > support > schools and road repair and fire and emergency services... > > ---------------- > > I wouldn't classify that as greed. It's simple self-interest and money > management. When you prchase online it's not because you're greedy. It's > because you have a finite amount of money to spread around on all yours > needs and wants.
The store I worked at is in a very affluent area. Hell, most of the San Francisco Bay Area is affluent, but where Reed's is, there is a hell of a lot of money floating around. Time and time again, I and my fellow salespeople were faced with customers who wanted us to match or beat prices they found on the internet. Granted, not everyone was rich, but there were people who came in looking like a million bucks who refused to pay a little more for our services. There were people I knew for a fact were extremely well off who would try to haggle us down on the price of a camera, even though they weren't buying anything else nor had they ever been a customer before. They had money to burn, but the way I saw it, they were too greedy to pay for the services I/we provided. That pissed me off to no end. When a well-off person asked, at the end of the sale, "Now, what can you do for me?" or "I'm buying all this stuff, so can I have a discount?", I just wanted to punch them in the face. I could understand Joe Shmoe needing a discount, but Daddy Warbucks? No, sir. This is my experience in retail, but I realize there are myriad other situations out there. All I want to do is encourage people to try to buy from smaller shops when possible. If those smaller shops are no good for some reason (lack of product, stupid employees, exorbitant prices, etc), then by all means buy where you want. I'm just asking people to give their local shops a chance before they go the way of the Dodo. It's happening as we speak. Camera shops are closing all over the US, according to one of the last industry newsletters I saw before being laid off, and even big chains like Ritz/Wolf are closing dozens of stores. People are treating cameras like they treat any other piece of consumer electronics, and are driving the specialty shops out of business, no matter how good the shops are. John Celio -- http://www.neovenator.com AIM: Neopifex "Hey, I'm an artist. I can do whatever I want and pretend I'm making a statement." -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
