Originally Posted by
rekmeyata
I negotiate on a lot of things I buy but only on big ticket items. If I'm going to a bike store and they help me with a $35 pump and I know I saw the same pump on the internet for $25, I'm not going to negotiate them to match the price, I'll pay the $35 because they helped me with a product and their overhead is a bit more then most on line stores. I'm not going to cry over $10. However because I've been riding bikes for 40 plus years and because the internet has a wealth of information on anything I want to buy, I'm well enough informed to buy off the internet without the need or help of a LBS...most of the time anyways, and for those times I need an LBS then I'll buy whatever they helped me with from them regardless of the price difference. It's only fair.
We all have a sense of "what's fair" and where I differ from your reasoning is, I ALWAYS go to my LBS first, he knows that and appreciates it. He also knows that if I can buy his $35 pump for $25 on the net and if he sold it to me for $25 and can still make $5 bucks on it, he will love to do that. He profits AND sells that same type of pump for $35 to the next customer (suggested retail). That is called a preexisting relationship to me, or you could call it a win-win relationship as well. Since you've "been a bicyclist for 40 years" you must know that many shops offer "racer" and "good customer" discounts, that's all this is.