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Ordering online - The landscape is changing
- Thread starter Marc61
- Start date
there are other reasons than laziness.
we go to over 12 stores, 6 of them regularly, but none of which stock the particular basses or amps i want to try out at this point. that includes a number of vox bass amps, the hofner ignition or contemporary club bass, the elf 1x10 cab, the Ampeg SVT-210AV 2x10" or the ampeg mini SVT stack (which they used to carry at sam ash in stores but no longer) phil jones 27 cab, and alas, my list goes on
Pre internet, I had to call places and mail them a check. It wasn’t like there were tons of great selection music stores on every corner.
I have not a clue as to what you’re talking about . You make zero points. Someone said I’m not a customer when in fact I spoke with my rep today and he informed me I’m a valued one. The purpose of the thread was not a complaint. It was a debate to discuss the merits of buying online vs in store
What else is a customer service rep supposed to say ?
Maybe, but it obviously came across as such to quite a few people here from what I can tell.
I prefer buying in store if and when possible. Unfortunately, there have been a couple of items that I haven't bought solely for the reason of not being able to try them out in a store first. I'm not into returning stuff that simply doesn't suit me if everything is OK with it otherwise. But that's me.
So you don't understand the words "each specific purchase?" I think now you're arguing for the sake of arguing and that is a game I do not play. Enjoy your day.
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What cracks me up about this kind of customer is the attitude of entitlement. We used to see it all the time at our store. "I've spent so much money in here!" You'd go look up their purchase history and most of them hadn't even spent more than $500 over the course of a decade.
You want special treatment? You're in line behind the guy who outfitted Whitney Houston's entire studio in NYC and behind him is the guy who outfitted a major recording studio in another big city. It's a long line. Get in where you belong.
I’ve been following this thread with interest because I run a small business that has a good portion of its transactions conducted through eBay. I have run that business for over 20 years and watched as Amazon slowly rose to the level of dominance they’ve achieved. I’ve also watched as a small niche oriented business like eBay grew to be the massive retail site it is, all the while wanting nothing more than to be another Amazon. Etsy, as well, has been striving, of late, to be an Amazon alternative. That’s a far cry from the handcrafted merchandise they used to specialize in.
I guess it’s business 101, grow or die. As a result, we’ve lost a lot of great resources over the years both brick and mortar and online. I live in a town where the last of the “mom and pop” stores are confined to a couple of streets downtown. The roads reaching into town are littered with Walmarts, Home Depots, etc.
This thread about free shipping grabbed my interest for a number of reasons.
First, to all you consumers out there, did no one ever tell you “There’s no such thing as a free lunch?”
Do you honestly think that any successful business is simply going to eat the cost of shipping you merchandise? All free shipping has done is relieved you of the necessity of clicking a few more boxes to determine the total cost of your item. People like Jeff Bezos realized that the fewer clicks to complete a purchase, the less likely it is to lose the customer to anything ranging from second thoughts to distractions running the gamut.
Free shipping means that any responsible retailer, interested in actually staying in business, calculates the most it will cost to ship an item across the country. They then price the item accordingly. That may mean the total price is the cost of the item plus the cost of shipping from NY to CA or they may have a sophisticated algorithm (more likely) that effectively determines the best price to charge factoring in the likelihood some of the items may ship from NY to CT while others may go from NY to MO and others may make the trip all the way from NY to WA.
The bottom line is that anyone who thinks they are not paying for shipping is a fool, period.
What’s worse is if you happen to live near the business you are buying from, let’s say someone in NY buying from ZZounds in NJ, that algorithm they use to determine the “one price fits all” for “free shipping” may mean you’re actually paying more than if you could actually go back to the old ways of calculating your shipping cost based on your zip code.
Another issue that I find particularly repugnant with regard to the notion of free shipping, is that it takes out of the equation of purchasing, where the item is shipping from and the insane cost of actually shipping an item. I don’t mean the dollars you pay or don’t pay, I’m talking about the cost, environmentally, when you buy an item on the other side of the country because it may cost $499.98 as opposed to $500.00. Believe me, I see this happen all the time. A consumer, let’s say in CA forever in the search for the absolute lowest price, is more than happy to buy an item for $499.98 from a seller in NY as opposed to buying the same identical item from a seller for $500.00 who might be only a few hundred miles away. Think about the waste in time, labor and fuel expended simply because an item was a few pennies cheaper from the seller on the other side of the country. It happens all the time.
Now I realize that for a portion of the population the concept of “free shipping” has been a boondoggle. I remember reading an older Amazon review where the customer located in Alaska was thrilled because they were able to order their entire town’s supplies through Amazon with “free shipping.” It saved them a ton of money and helped with their budget. It’s sad that they don’t realize that the rest of us consumers wind up ultimately paying for the cost of shipping to their remote location. Just a little socialism there for you libertarians.
I guess it’s business 101, grow or die. As a result, we’ve lost a lot of great resources over the years both brick and mortar and online. I live in a town where the last of the “mom and pop” stores are confined to a couple of streets downtown. The roads reaching into town are littered with Walmarts, Home Depots, etc.
This thread about free shipping grabbed my interest for a number of reasons.
First, to all you consumers out there, did no one ever tell you “There’s no such thing as a free lunch?”
Do you honestly think that any successful business is simply going to eat the cost of shipping you merchandise? All free shipping has done is relieved you of the necessity of clicking a few more boxes to determine the total cost of your item. People like Jeff Bezos realized that the fewer clicks to complete a purchase, the less likely it is to lose the customer to anything ranging from second thoughts to distractions running the gamut.
Free shipping means that any responsible retailer, interested in actually staying in business, calculates the most it will cost to ship an item across the country. They then price the item accordingly. That may mean the total price is the cost of the item plus the cost of shipping from NY to CA or they may have a sophisticated algorithm (more likely) that effectively determines the best price to charge factoring in the likelihood some of the items may ship from NY to CT while others may go from NY to MO and others may make the trip all the way from NY to WA.
The bottom line is that anyone who thinks they are not paying for shipping is a fool, period.
What’s worse is if you happen to live near the business you are buying from, let’s say someone in NY buying from ZZounds in NJ, that algorithm they use to determine the “one price fits all” for “free shipping” may mean you’re actually paying more than if you could actually go back to the old ways of calculating your shipping cost based on your zip code.
Another issue that I find particularly repugnant with regard to the notion of free shipping, is that it takes out of the equation of purchasing, where the item is shipping from and the insane cost of actually shipping an item. I don’t mean the dollars you pay or don’t pay, I’m talking about the cost, environmentally, when you buy an item on the other side of the country because it may cost $499.98 as opposed to $500.00. Believe me, I see this happen all the time. A consumer, let’s say in CA forever in the search for the absolute lowest price, is more than happy to buy an item for $499.98 from a seller in NY as opposed to buying the same identical item from a seller for $500.00 who might be only a few hundred miles away. Think about the waste in time, labor and fuel expended simply because an item was a few pennies cheaper from the seller on the other side of the country. It happens all the time.
Now I realize that for a portion of the population the concept of “free shipping” has been a boondoggle. I remember reading an older Amazon review where the customer located in Alaska was thrilled because they were able to order their entire town’s supplies through Amazon with “free shipping.” It saved them a ton of money and helped with their budget. It’s sad that they don’t realize that the rest of us consumers wind up ultimately paying for the cost of shipping to their remote location. Just a little socialism there for you libertarians.
How exactly could anyone "interpret" your post any other way? You said:
"My challenge as a consumer though is it makes it difficult to try out instruments. I ordered an inexpensive ABG, now I'm returning it and it's going to cost me $25-30 to have checked it out."
You're a parasite of commerce if you use online retailers' money to allow you to try out instruments. And those are your words.
Roland GR 88
Commercial User
Buy in store....use your own time and transportation....free returns.
Buy on-line....use someone else's time and transportation....pay for returns.
Simple & obvious.
You, my friend, have opened the box owned by Pandora. Please, do not get me started on Amazon, it is the pariah that is eating our country.
I used to think Walmart was bad but Amazon has eclipsed Walmart as the evil retail empire.
Again I have no clue what you’re talking about. I’m not a tire kicker. In all the years I’ve purchased online I’ve returned two items Inckuding this one. The other was a Fender Custom Shop bass that was pure garbage. What was common about both items was they were not items that I could not try in local stores. All online stores say the same thing. They’d prefer you return the item rather than keep something you’re not satisfied with
What cracks me up about this kind of store is - screw 'em. There are plenty of stores that treat customers well even if they're just buying a strap that day. Top notch service across all customers, not just the handful of high rollers.
I guess you didn't get that the OP is expecting free shipping on items he isn't buying. That's not really offered anywhere, to anyone, across any group of regular customers that I'm aware of. It's not a "lack of top notch service" to enforce reasonable return policies that everyone in the business follows.
Yes, it's a fact of the business that there are VIP lists. As far as I know, all the larger stores have or had them. But what he's asking for is for the rules to be broken that we all live by just because he thinks he belongs in that category.
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Yes, and it's not sustainable as a business model. Let's take the example of the guy who has spent $500 and believes that because he's a prior customer who has made several purchases he should get free shipping even on things he returns.
In a competitive market, let's say that the average markup on products is 20%. That means that 80% of his $500 spent was wholesale cost. That's $400 it's costing the dealer just to have the products on hand to sell. Over the course of whatever time frame it took him to spend that $500, the store has made $100 profit. That doesn't consider whatever overhead costs there are, which include things like advertising, online maintenance, management and staff, etc.
I don't know what those costs might be but let's say the store operates without worrying about any of those other costs, which is a fairy tale, but it makes this easier.
Now, think about how much it costs you to ship a bass across the country. Maybe $90? But you're not getting that big discount that the big stores do, so let's say they pay $35.
How many times does the customer get to return a bass with free shipping both ways before the store has lost money?
