mike_s
Contributor
Honestly, I'm a little surprised we haven't seen reports of this starting to occur.
The LDS business model is really broken at this point and needs to change.
I had this "overprice" happen to me once at one of the "local dive shops"
that I don't spend money at anymore.
Everything they sell is "list price". Well that's not great, but I wanted
to get it that day if possible though I didn't really need it that quick.
I asked him how much the items was and noted that it was list price
and a little high. I asked them if they could do any better on price
and they said no.... So, oh well, lemme have it...
Well, like most of their items, they are out of stock of the one that
is "exactly" what you need. So I asked him to order it and how
long it would take. The shop manager told me that it'd be here
next week and that I needed to go ahead and pay for it to order
something. After i got my wallet out and he rang it up, he told
me that there was a 20% special order fee on anything that they
had to order for individuals.
I said "what?", you want me to pay 20% over list price on
something that you don't stock because you are behind on
your ordering? I told him that I could order this out of
a catalog for 40% cheaper than list price, needless to say
not having to charge 20% special order fee.
He then argued with me that if I ordered it that I would have
to pay shipping, etc..
I told him that if I was going to have to pay 20% for him
to place an order form, then I could do it for free and also
get it 40% cheaper. Ending up buying at another shop
that gave it to me for 30% discount off list price.
I haven't bought an item from the "problem shop" since.
Luckily now we've got another local dive shop now that
will give you competitive pricing with anywhere else,
including internet sites.
What happened to the "other store" that charges list price
for everything? I still get emails from them every now and
then with their quarterly newsletter. The last email I got
from them was announcing the "going out of business sale"
at one of their two store locations. I heard that the
other store wasn't far from going belly-up either. It
shows that their "going out of business" issue
was "self inflicted".