7 ms·

I sometimes feel a bit bad about price checking items in a local shop against the web. For example, I wanted to buy some climbing shoes recently. I have never

by stoney 16y ago

I sometimes feel a bit bad about price checking items in a local shop against the web. For example, I wanted to buy some climbing shoes recently. I have never bought a pair before, had no idea what I should be looking for and what size I should get. I went to a local climbing specialist, they talked me through the options, fitted me for a shoe, etc. At that point I could have left the store and bought the shoes on eBay for about 75% of what they would have cost in the store, but I didn't - I chose to pay full price because the store offered me a valuable service. If that store hadn't been there I couldn't have tried on the shoes. So I think there is a place for paying more for goods when you want/need extra assistance. In the case of huge stores like BestBuy that are basically like a warehouse with pretty much no customer service except at the checkout I would have no problem buying from the cheapest alternative provider (Amazon/ebay/whatever).

Qz 16y ago
I went to Best Buy looking for a DVI <-> HDMI cable once. They wanted 40 dollars. I got it on Amazon for 7.95. And they wonder why their stock recently took a big hit...
- Encosia 16y ago
  I hate to get too far off topic, but when it comes to cables, you should know about Monoprice: http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10231 http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102...
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    I second this. Monoprice is great. Their cables are dirt cheap yet at least as high quality as what you'll get anywhere else. They're also great for adapters. I bet 10% of the people reading this have paid Apple $30 for a Mini DisplayPort to {VGA|DVI|HDMI} adapter. I got all 3 for $30-something.
- stoney 16y ago
  Yeah, there's a limit to how much of a premium I'm prepared to pay for the benefit of bricks and mortar! Though cables can vary a bit in price depending on quality, so that might have come into it a bit too.
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    Oh yeah, because you totally need gold-plated connectors on your DIGITAL Video Interface cable to maintain picture quality (for those who are unaware: basically the entire purpose of digital communications is to confer immunity to signal noise and distortion)
- brc 16y ago
  Yeah I had to pay this much just recently. I was annoyed as I knew the same item would be avaialble for roughly $10. But I needed it that day - not an option to wait a couple of days for delivery when you have no display.
racecar789 16y ago
Agree. To consume a local store's customer service resources with every intention "not" to purchase a product there is immoral.
- plmokjn 16y ago
  Bestbuy and customer service aren't normally found in the same sentence
- _delirium 16y ago
  The asymmetry of the extra-legal moral obligations is somewhat odd to me, though. I can accept that extra-legal moral obligations exist, but why not on all sides? When we discuss things on the corporate side, most people seem to be of the opinion that the law is all that matters: if a retailer can find a tax loophole that lets them book all their profits in Bermuda, even though they actually did business in and used the resources of the United States, then well, good for them. But if a person dares waste the retailer's time, even though what the person is doing is every bit as legal as those tax games, suddenly that's a moral issue we should worry about. If a company goes out of its way to uphold ethical standards above and beyond what the law requires, I do try to do the same when dealing with them. But for companies that only go by the letter of the law and play hardball, I don't feel I have any obligation beyond the letter of the law either.
  - gjm11 16y ago
    I quite frequently hear or read complaints about companies' ethics -- exploitation of tax loopholes, spreading disinformation about global warming, getting their press releases to appear almost verbatim as newspaper articles, etc., etc., etc. Perhaps there's a correlation with politics? Most of the politically-charged stuff I read has a leftward rather than a rightward skew, and generally lefties are more concerned about the ethical behaviour of businesses and righties about the ethical behaviour of individuals. (Yes, I know that's a sweeping generalization. And is it just me, or is "lefties" quite a commonplace term and "righties" really weird?) Note: Please let's not turn this into a discussion of any of the particular ethical transgressions I mentioned; the point isn't whether, e.g., oil companies are really spreading disinformation about global warming, nor whether that's a bad thing, but whether they're commonly accused of doing so by people who think it is a bad thing. My experience is that they are.
kgermino 16y ago
I would say that it's OK to walk into a store and price compare with other stores, however I personally agree that it's immoral to use the brick and mortar store to discuss the options and decide what you want to buy, then buy it online. Some stores are for when you know exactly what you want and just want the most convenience and the best price, others are for actually shopping: investigating your options and deciding what works best for you. Helping you shop costs money. It's immoral to steal the stores time discussing what to buy then buy it from Amazon because it's cheaper.
- riffic 16y ago
  stealing time? This may be against your own personal morals but it isn't a crime to waste other people's time.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - jackowayed 16y ago
    He never claimed it was a crime, just immoral, and I agree. If the store provides you a valuable service, like allowing you to try on shoes or giving you significant advice on which product to buy, you should buy the product from them so that they get profits with which to cover the cost of providing that service. Now, it depends how extensively you used their resources and how much of a markup they want. If you were in the store for something else and all you did is wander around to try to get ideas of what else you wanted, I don't think there's much obligation to buy. But if you're spending 15 minutes talking to a salesman about all of the possibilities (especially if you wanted to ask him the questions, as opposed to him seeing you in the area and approaching you to try to close the sale and upsell you) or extensively trying out the demo units, the store is providing you value and you're using resources that cost them money. As long as the additional markup that the store wants is fair (for an example of unfair markup see the guy who chose not to buy a $40 DVI-HDMI cable that costs <$3 on monoprice), you should compensate them for the value they provided you and buy from them.
    - 16y ago
ams6110 16y ago
This is really not new though. I remember back when I was in 6th grade or so and I got interested in photography (this would have been 1979 or so, well before digital, before online retail, etc). I wanted a 35mm SLR and spent a lot of time in the local camera shop asking questions, learning, comparing brands and models, etc. When I was ready to buy, I could have ordered the camera from B&H, Adorama, or one of the other big catalogs, and saved some money. And the thought certainly crossed my mind. But I decided, with some counsel from my father, that the right thing to do was pay the local shop their premium for the advice they had provided.

by stoney 16y ago

Qz 16y ago

I went to Best Buy looking for a DVI <-> HDMI cable once. They wanted 40 dollars. I got it on Amazon for 7.95. And they wonder why their stock recently took a big hit...

Encosia 16y ago
I hate to get too far off topic, but when it comes to cables, you should know about Monoprice: http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102&cp_id=10231 http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=102...
- jackowayed 16y ago
  I second this. Monoprice is great. Their cables are dirt cheap yet at least as high quality as what you'll get anywhere else. They're also great for adapters. I bet 10% of the people reading this have paid Apple $30 for a Mini DisplayPort to {VGA|DVI|HDMI} adapter. I got all 3 for $30-something.
stoney 16y ago
Yeah, there's a limit to how much of a premium I'm prepared to pay for the benefit of bricks and mortar! Though cables can vary a bit in price depending on quality, so that might have come into it a bit too.
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Oh yeah, because you totally need gold-plated connectors on your DIGITAL Video Interface cable to maintain picture quality (for those who are unaware: basically the entire purpose of digital communications is to confer immunity to signal noise and distortion)
brc 16y ago
Yeah I had to pay this much just recently. I was annoyed as I knew the same item would be avaialble for roughly $10. But I needed it that day - not an option to wait a couple of days for delivery when you have no display.

racecar789 16y ago

Agree. To consume a local store's customer service resources with every intention "not" to purchase a product there is immoral.

plmokjn 16y ago
Bestbuy and customer service aren't normally found in the same sentence
_delirium 16y ago
The asymmetry of the extra-legal moral obligations is somewhat odd to me, though. I can accept that extra-legal moral obligations exist, but why not on all sides? When we discuss things on the corporate side, most people seem to be of the opinion that the law is all that matters: if a retailer can find a tax loophole that lets them book all their profits in Bermuda, even though they actually did business in and used the resources of the United States, then well, good for them. But if a person dares waste the retailer's time, even though what the person is doing is every bit as legal as those tax games, suddenly that's a moral issue we should worry about. If a company goes out of its way to uphold ethical standards above and beyond what the law requires, I do try to do the same when dealing with them. But for companies that only go by the letter of the law and play hardball, I don't feel I have any obligation beyond the letter of the law either.
- gjm11 16y ago
  I quite frequently hear or read complaints about companies' ethics -- exploitation of tax loopholes, spreading disinformation about global warming, getting their press releases to appear almost verbatim as newspaper articles, etc., etc., etc. Perhaps there's a correlation with politics? Most of the politically-charged stuff I read has a leftward rather than a rightward skew, and generally lefties are more concerned about the ethical behaviour of businesses and righties about the ethical behaviour of individuals. (Yes, I know that's a sweeping generalization. And is it just me, or is "lefties" quite a commonplace term and "righties" really weird?) Note: Please let's not turn this into a discussion of any of the particular ethical transgressions I mentioned; the point isn't whether, e.g., oil companies are really spreading disinformation about global warming, nor whether that's a bad thing, but whether they're commonly accused of doing so by people who think it is a bad thing. My experience is that they are.

kgermino 16y ago

I would say that it's OK to walk into a store and price compare with other stores, however I personally agree that it's immoral to use the brick and mortar store to discuss the options and decide what you want to buy, then buy it online. Some stores are for when you know exactly what you want and just want the most convenience and the best price, others are for actually shopping: investigating your options and deciding what works best for you. Helping you shop costs money. It's immoral to steal the stores time discussing what to buy then buy it from Amazon because it's cheaper.

riffic 16y ago
stealing time? This may be against your own personal morals but it isn't a crime to waste other people's time.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- jackowayed 16y ago
  He never claimed it was a crime, just immoral, and I agree. If the store provides you a valuable service, like allowing you to try on shoes or giving you significant advice on which product to buy, you should buy the product from them so that they get profits with which to cover the cost of providing that service. Now, it depends how extensively you used their resources and how much of a markup they want. If you were in the store for something else and all you did is wander around to try to get ideas of what else you wanted, I don't think there's much obligation to buy. But if you're spending 15 minutes talking to a salesman about all of the possibilities (especially if you wanted to ask him the questions, as opposed to him seeing you in the area and approaching you to try to close the sale and upsell you) or extensively trying out the demo units, the store is providing you value and you're using resources that cost them money. As long as the additional markup that the store wants is fair (for an example of unfair markup see the guy who chose not to buy a $40 DVI-HDMI cable that costs <$3 on monoprice), you should compensate them for the value they provided you and buy from them.
  - 16y ago

ams6110 16y ago

This is really not new though. I remember back when I was in 6th grade or so and I got interested in photography (this would have been 1979 or so, well before digital, before online retail, etc). I wanted a 35mm SLR and spent a lot of time in the local camera shop asking questions, learning, comparing brands and models, etc. When I was ready to buy, I could have ordered the camera from B&H, Adorama, or one of the other big catalogs, and saved some money. And the thought certainly crossed my mind. But I decided, with some counsel from my father, that the right thing to do was pay the local shop their premium for the advice they had provided.