Originally Posted by
pablosnazzy
without derailling the thread, let me just say....
what many people may not understand is, a bike shop has heating, water, salaries, internet, phone, and other expenses they must pay to keep going and keep providing the knowledge and experience to people who need it. yes, you can always get things online cheaper, which is great if you are going to do all the work yourself and don't care about supporting local small business. some people act like bike shop prices are arbitrarily made up, and they charge whatever they feel like, which isn't true. a bike shop must figure out the line between making enough money to stay in business and charging so much no one will pay.
Sure they have to make enough money to stay in business. At the same time they have to offer enough value to justify the higher prices they charge, and to accept that "I can order it" doesn't help a lot of customers. If I order something via my LBS then unless it's something pretty mainstream they need a commitment to buy it, give me a discount of about 10% off the retail price, and take a few days to get it in. What value does that offer when compared to click-click-click and it's at my doorstep tomorrow morning at a 50% discount off the retail price?
I want to support my local business but they have to make it easy for me. Even if they aren't making a penny in profit on their higher prices I've got to use my own resources efficiently as well. I know small businesses are struggling but it's not as if the man in the street is awash with cash either.
back to the original thread. as i stated, you can ALWAYS ask if there is a discount, but if you don't get one, you shouldn't get angry and threaten "i'll take my business elsewhere" because that makes you a blackmailer, and when people say that, we don't want them as customers anyway. do that enough times and you have nowhere to shop.
I guess it depends how you phrase it. "Give me a huge discount or I go elsewhere" sounds in-yer-face but I don't see anything wrong with making it clear how much you can afford to pay and seeing if the guy can match that price, which makes it equally clear up front that if he can't match it you won't buy it. I've gotten online retailers to honour week-old sale prices a couple of times just by telling them that if they can still honour it they get the order right now and if not they don't.