I was in the market this weekend for a Spyderco knife. I found a website online offering it for a great price but I like to support local businesses as much as I can, especially in this economy. So I found a fairly local vendor who had the knife in stock. I went to the store and they were selling this knife for $49.99. I asked if they would be willing to do a price match as I can purchase it online for $24.80 and I would add in the $8.95 that the website would charge for shipping. Meaning, I was willing to buy, right then, this knife for $33.75 plus local tax. I was immediately refused. No willingness on this store's part whatsoever to accommodate. As a result, they lost a sale and I purchased it online. I don't know what they purchase these knives for from Spyderco or it's distributor but I would assume, based on my knowledge of mark ups that they would have still made a good profit from this price match sale. I don't have a problem with them not doing the deal as I'm a devout capitalist and have no problem with them wanting to get their price for it but I do wonder, in this economy, about the business sense of refusing me. I also learned from them that this was their last knife of this particular model. A nice chance to clean out some inventory. I even had the proof of the website's regular price for this knife so it's not like I was trying to make up a low ball offer. Anyway, I wish the store well, I got the knife at the price I wanted though I have to wait for delivery and I guess it all works out.
Kind of like the now defunct Saturn division of GM. AFAIK, Saturn started the whole "we don't haggle" concept in the car biz and insisted on calling themselves retailers instead of dealers.
Now that you mention it, I haven't seen a Saturn commercial or dealership in quite a while. Never gave it much thought.
Were you 100% firm on your offer or did they simply refuse to haggle a little. I'll start off similar, but I'm always willing to give a few dollars to buy local and not have to wait. Still, if the owner wasn't willing to go to $35 or $36 on something like this, he just doesn't deserve the sale. Given a choice to make $2 or nothing, which would you choose?
Never got the chance to haggle. I asked if they would meet the price I found and was immediately told, "no, we are not set up to do that type of thing". Never thought there was a set-up involved but, maybe. I think most store's POS systems have some type of a manager override feature. I think, giving the quickness and shortness of his reply, he was just unwilling to consider it. And if they had countered with a different price I might have considered it but they just flat out refused to meet price. A couple of bucks one way or the other would have been just fine with me.
I applaud your wanting to buy local. I frequent my local merchants as much as possible even though a Walmart is closer. I pay a little bit more, but I get much better service
Thanks. You pretty well summed up my philosophy too. Although, I do frequent Wal-Mart (there aren't too many locals left in my area).
