Posted on 12/09/2011 10:29:04 AM PST by Razzz42
What the hell - computer repairmen have to work too!
But, best of luck with your purchase. And if the salesperson could not communicate with you, they lost the sale.
That is a far different proposition from what I object to here, which is more like a salesperson spending 45 minutes explaining gHz, terabytes, hard disc size, RAM, etc .g wireless vs. .n and using their expertise to fix you up with the perfect machine - then you whip at your smart phone and say "I can get it $5 cheaper at Amazon" and go on your way.
There’s always the chance, like one of the posters upthread, that Amazon won’t beat the price. Or at least won’t beat it by enough to justify the wait especially when the person has the item in hand.
My daughter wanted the latest book from the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. We went to Barnes and Noble. I thought the prices looked high, so I checked Amazon before this new app was released. The books were almost $10 cheaper.
Retailers, local and online each have unique costs. They have to compete regardless. Government interfering and overtaxing is the major obstacle to competition.
Pietro, I'm sure you're being honest and I'm sure you have your reasons, but this comment reminds me of those inevitable comments on a thread such as "McDonald's Corporation in Zoning Dispute" and someone posts "McDonald's hamburgers taste like cardboard."
My thought is always "Yeah, but what's your point?"
True. My comments were about bookstores - for larger-ticket items, the sales tax alone makes a pretty big difference, if shipping is amazonprime.
For books, If I scan a book, I know amazon probably is 10-15% less, plus the sales tax diff., while my discount card is only 10% at the store. If I intend to buy new, why am I scanning at all? If I am going to buy used, I know it is probably ~4$ and will take week or weeks to show up.
Well it’s for everything not just books. Of course books are one place where the instant gratification comes into play strongly for the store. Yeah you can save a buck or 2 on Amazon but you can start reading it in an hour if you get it from the store.
Phone's camera photographs bar code. Software decodes bar code to get the Universal Product Code, sends the UPC to Amazon's web site, gets back Amazon's quote.
And adds to Amazon's database of which products are hot enough to get queried. And at which stores (assuming the customer has authorized his phone to upload its location along with the UPC code).
Sweet!
I’ll have to get that when I get home. Thanks.
Is me looking at a bunch of car dealerships theft? I looked all over before I bought my truck. Took many a test drive. Ended up going where I had the best price. Was that theft of the other dealers services?
Really? So if I go to Amazon and look at a book, the price they're offering--say 20% off MSRP--only applies if I'm in a brick and mortar bookstore?
Markets are based on information. What Amazon is doing is making that information more immediate. Brick and mortar retailers would prefer you didn't have that information at all.
I’ve had an app that would do this for some time. There are some things, like motorcycle helmets, that you can’t very well buy online. Now, some people will go to a store and try on all the helmets, say thank you very much, and go buy the same hat online. *I* don’t do that, but you gotta figure people with scruples are becoming fewer and fewer in bammy world.
I love Amazon.
Last year, when I needed a new external monitor for my MBP, I decided to go for a 30-inch. Those are expensive, so I went straight to Amazon and read the reviews and compared the prices and decided which one to buy. Next, I went to Google Shopping and checked prices. I ended up buying it from B&H in New York, and it was delivered the next afternoon. (B&H is one well-oiled online retail organization, by the way, although I would advise them to cut costs by not sending me any more of those humongous paper catalogs that go straight into the trash.)
So, in that particular case, I ended up doing to Amazon what Amazon's new app is doing to the brick and mortar stores. But most of the time, I buy from them because they make it so easy.
One example from personal experience - I imported some very expensive, Christmas gift-type music sets to sell on Amazon marketplace. Unknown to me when I ordered it, they block it from being listed a "New" in the US because another, foreign site has it in their catalog. So I list it as used, even though it is new. That's my only choice. Then two weeks later they decide they will carry it AFTER Christmas (at twice my price!), and until then they block ALL sales - though you can pre-order (from Amazon only) at their highly inflated price. Happens all the time.
Oh, and when you enter a UPC to list a product, they don't don't tell you it's blocked from US sale. You have to enter all the product information (including that same UPC) and THEN they tell you it's blocked. (But they are quite happy to have had you do the work of entering the description, number of discs, etc for them - so they have it and can order it from overseas now. To sell as new, of course).
And then, of course, since they are clueless about product they attach reviews of other products with a similar name, but won't take responsibility for it when the customer complains you sold them the wrong product.
Yup, real stand-up guys, they.
do you generally go to several bookstores in person, look at the same book in each one, examine it, and carefully consider your purchase?
Noted that fact.
Better yet, Amazon has no political agenda when selling books. Try finding ANY book by Ann Coulter or most Conservative writers at the brick & mortar shops in the Bay Area. We were in the local B&N the other day, and I was looking at U.S. History books. They were lousy with copies the Howard Zinn's fiction take, but nary a copy of Schweikart's tome was to be found. And that doesn't mean that they were sold out of Schweikart's book!
Years ago I learned a neat lesson from my boss. It was at a Marine Corps PX data center where I was a civilian asst. mgr. We had a reliable paper salesman who always gave us the best price he could on computer paper, punch cards, etc., along with good service.
One day this hot shot comes in, reminds us that he is a retired marine, and that we should buy from him. He said that he would beat any competitor’s price by 10%. My boss said “No, go over our want list and give us your best price.” The guy hemmed and hawed and left. My boss said, “Why should I let this guy profit from all the hard work the other salesman did? If he wanted the order bad enough, all he had to do was sharpen his pencil and do some work himself instead of riding on someone else’s back.”
That always stuck with me and I tried to follow that dictum whenever I could. One area I don’t, just to break horns. Wal-Mart and some other stores post signs that they’d meet their competitors’ price. I’d hit the managers and say, “Why should I come back here to check your price if all you’re going to do is match it? Give me 10% BELOW their price and I’ll consider coming back.” Deer-in-headlights response.
“I used this service last night at Best Buy. I needed a new wireless router. I would have only saved about $3 by going to Amazon, but shipping was about $6. The one with free shipping was $7 more than at Best Buy. So Best Buy got my business and I went home knowing I got a pretty good deal.”
It’s called “shopping!” I buy from Amazon and from other on-line retailers as well, but I also buy a lot of stuff from bricks and mortar retailers. A lot of the time, buying on-line isn’t the best solution. The other real advantage (currently) with on-line shopping is state sales tax avoidance. With many states charging as much as 10% sales tax, there is a strong draw to shop on-line to avoid it. And yes, I know about state use tax, but none of them have figured out a way to enforce it. Further, let’s be honest, a lot of folks just don’t want to give any more of their hard-earned bucks to their failed state’s coffers either because they don’t have it or they want to see the state’s budget collapse.
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