Once upon a time. Adventures in retail.

[rubato]

Once upon a time.

Now both I and my wife are pretty jolly friendly people, well disposed towards others, tip well, try to make other people happy &c &c. But that does not mean that we don’t understand how the world works especially in the ways which are not as they seem on the surface of things.

So when we go out into the world of retail we know that there is an element of, misdirection, involved in discussions of price. You might call it deceit but I’m happy to use the softer term. I like people and I understand why they do things the way they do so it does not disappoint nor surprise me. There might be a possible world which is better where this misdirection does not occur but my equanimity is not upset that we have not reached that point yet. There is deception involved surely but in the end the buyer pays the price the retailer wanted all along and they get a nice story besides to tell their friends; a story where they are the retail hero who ‘got the good deal’ (killed the high price ogre &c.)

A classic example which does not exist to the degree today that it did 35-40 years ago was the pricing of stereo equipment. Most (not all*) stereo equipment was sold by discount retailers who carried Panasonic, Sharp, Technics, Aiwa &c. And the way it worked was that the manufacturers of all those brands published a “retail price” which was wholly fiction, much higher than anything they expected to sell it for so that the retailer could pretend to give you a ‘deal’ by discounting it to varying degrees. If you checked newspaper prices you would prove very quickly that this was true. If say a Panasonic receiver listed for $225 a scan through the ads would show that it was offered most places for $185 so that you, the gullible, buyer could salve your ego by thinking you got a good price. Now there were occasional discounts below the $185 price to be had and patient research would find those now and then. But in fact the price you were paying still gave a large margin to the retailer and the fictional “retail price” still effectively concealed what that margin was.

There was always a ‘story’ about the additional discount involving “clearance” with maybe an improvised embellishment about how the manager ‘overstocked’ and now was paying the sad price by getting a few dollars less per item.
A story, I said because the entire thing is based on creating a plausible ‘story’ to draw the buyer in with. A little narrative with some internal coherence to please the hearer enough that they don’t miss the lack of external coherence.

And like so many stories it all begins with a mythic phrase because that is all that the ‘List price’ ever was. A story opening as ritualized, comforting and expected as “once upon a time.”




Yrs,
Rubato
• Some brands enforced remarkable price consistency, Sony was famous for this, and some high-end brands used a more take-it-or-leave-it approach because their customers were shopping for quality and were not shopping just for price. Nakamichi, B&O, and ADS for example.

[Bicycle Bill]

So what's your point?  Everybody overcharges for everything?  All prices are supposed to be negotiable?  Nobody should ever pay "retail" (i.e., 'list price') for anything?

You work — or did work — for a living, I presume, so your salary or wage per hour is YOUR retail or list price.  I wonder how you'd feel if your employer used the same claim and line of thought that you displayed in your post — that your 'retail price' is totally fictitious, and that he is not out of line in the least to expect to receive some sort of "discount" from you.

-"BB"-

[oldr_n_wsr]

And your stereo system (pre-amp, amp, equalizer, turntable, cassette player, tuner, speakers....) is only as good as those overreasonably-priced "gold" plated cables you hook it all together with.

Let's not forget the power line filter.


We had Crazy Eddie selling electronics here on Long Island in the 70's and 80's.
From wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eddie

Crazy Eddie became a symbol for corporate fraud in its time, but has since been outdone by the Enron, Worldcom and Bernie Madoff accounting scandals.

Antar fled to Israel during February 1990, but was returned to the United States during January 1993 for trial. His 1993 conviction on fraud charges was overturned, but he eventually pleaded guilty during 1996. During 1997, Antar was sentenced to eight years in prison and paid large fines. He was released from prison during 1999.

[Econoline]

During 1997, Antar was sentenced to eight years in prison and paid large fines. He was released from prison during 1999.

So, again, the retail price (of crime, in this case) is a complete fiction...

[Burning Petard]

It is still like that today with mid-to high-end cameras. Photog magazines mostly ignore the list price and write about 'street price'

snailgate

[dales]

Only a chump would pay MSRP for a car.

Except for models with a very high demand rate.

[oldr_n_wsr]

Photog magazines mostly ignore the list price and write about 'street price'

Any word about the "fell off a truck" price?

[Big RR]

I think it is much harder to BS people with the internet, where pricing is pretty transparent and where, with a few hours of research, you could get an idea of the price range of pretty much any product in the $200+ range. After this, it is up to you to determine how much over the minimum you will pay for dealing with someone local; personally, I am willing to go up 10-15% (less for very big ticket items like cars) if I feel comfortable with the dealer. This worked out once when I bought higher end vacuum cleaner (with a HEPA filtration system because of allergies). I brought an internet price in to the dealer and he told me he could not meet it (I do know wholesale prices differ based on volume as well, so I believed him). He was a service center for the vacuum, as well, so I bought it from him at a little less than 10% over the internet price). A few months later, I brought the vacuum in for a minor warranty service and it was done in 2 days--I can pretty much guarantee he wouldn't have done it as quickly if I came in with the internet machine. IMHO, you shouldn't buy solely based on price.

[rubato]

Photog magazines mostly ignore the list price and write about 'street price'

Any word about the "fell off a truck" price?

During one of my welding jobs back in the 1970s people would come by with goods that 'fell off a truck' for a fraction of the usual price. On guy had a load of ironworking vises and anvils, big things you could barely pick up and carry another time it was entire cook sets of pots and pans, a few times it was boxes of steaks. I never bought anything but the unusual selection always made me smile.


yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

During one of my welding jobs back in the 1970s people would come by with goods that 'fell off a truck' for a fraction of the usual price. On guy had a load of ironworking vises and anvils, big things you could barely pick up and carry another time it was entire cook sets of pots and pans, a few times it was boxes of steaks. I never bought anything but the unusual selection always made me smile.


yrs,
rubato

Oh well then...

Once there was a Prince who wanted to marry a Princess. Only a real one would do. So he traveled through all the world to find her, and everywhere things went wrong. There were Princesses aplenty, but how was he to know whether they were real Princesses? There was something not quite right about them all. So he came home again and was unhappy, because he did so want to have a real Princess.

One evening a terrible storm blew up. It lightened and thundered and rained. It was really frightful! In the midst of it all came a knocking at the town gate. The old King went to open it.

Who should be standing outside but a Princess, and what a sight she was in all that rain and wind. Water streamed from her hair down her clothes into her shoes, and ran out at the heels. Yet she claimed to be a real Princess.

"We'll soon find that out," the old Queen thought to herself. Without saying a word about it she went to the bedchamber, stripped back the bedclothes, and put just one pea in the bottom of the bed. Then she took twenty mattresses and piled them on the pea. Then she took twenty eiderdown feather beds and piled them on the mattresses. Up on top of all these the Princess was to spend the night.

In the morning they asked her, "Did you sleep well?"

" Oh!" said the Princess. "No. I scarcely slept at all. Heaven knows what's in that bed. I lay on something so hard that I'm black and blue all over. It was simply terrible."

They could see she was a real Princess and no question about it, now that she had felt one pea all the way through twenty mattresses and twenty more feather beds. Nobody but a Princess could be so delicate. So the Prince made haste to marry her, because he knew he had found a real Princess.

As for the pea, they put it in the museum. There it's still to be seen, unless somebody has taken it.

There, that's a true story.