That must be a fairly tightly held secret where I live. I'm never at the doctor's, but the people I work with and family members are there a bunch and none of them have ever entered into negotiations with their health care providers. I'll have to pass this little gem along.

As far as negotiating with retailers goes, unless the item is used I never do it. I work in a retail environment and on big ticket items our margins are 7%-10%, not the 50%-100% mark-up everyone thinks. We make the majority of the profit on accessories, and a large number of those items still just have 20%-25% margins. I don't have any idea what a bike shop's margins are, so, I can't comment on that.

Another little item to remember when try to squeeze the local guy - the folks that try to talk you out of every last little penny of profit are remembered by the folks that work there and, believe me, they end up not wanting to give you any service when they can be waiting on someone that doesn't constantly try to beat them down.

The local shop I do business with does a lot of business and I talk with them on a regular basis. The guy that runs the place told me it's getting much more difficult to make any money because of the competing internet businesses. I would hate to think of a world where all I had to pick from was Nashbar, Performance, and Bikes Direct.