Nice example. but you missed one thing. The discount wasn’t upfront at the point of sale. It was Mr. Widget seller knocking on my door even before I went to the market to assess the different widgets with a free gift claiming he was making door-to-door gift deliveries. The gift was a key chain that frankly I didn’t need or want and I told him so. Then Mr. Widget seller says “Oh keep it anyway, you may need it if you buy a new car”. I say “well, since you insist” and I keep it. I gets lost in my pocket and I frankly don’t know what I did with it. Then I go to the market and hey, look who’s there but the friendly Mr. Widget Seller. He waves at me and I greet him but move on to look at widgets. He shows me his, and naturally I look at them closely. If all things were equal, I might be willing to pay a little extra even since the widget seller was so friendly but since they are not, I politely let him know and pick the widget from the grumpy old fellow at the corner who doesn’t greet me but has good widgets at a good price.
If now Mr. Friendly Widget Seller throws a tantrum, whose fault is it?
I don’t think it’s fair to say Mr. Friendly Widget Seller threw a tantrum. It’s rather more accurate to say some of his dogs growled and barked a bit at Mr. Widget Buyer from their kennels. But what can a guy do?