The other side of the coin? A guy was in a few weeks ago. He's in the shop well over an hour, I spent at last 30-45 minutes with him. He came back today, even told me he's been to other shops and had a look. He takes up another 45 minutes or so today, mostly asking about the differences in bikes, even though I've gone over them a dozen times, and he doesn't uderstand anyway. How many times do you have to lift a kid's bike to see how heavy it is? So between my time, plus the labor to build the bike, we're 2 hours into it, at $18/hr, and this is a sub $300 bike. We've already got the bike marked down 10%, and he wants to know if we can go any lower. Nope. He's got 2 kids, he'll need 2 bikes. Ok, I'll knock the loose bills off the top - $9. He wants an accessory (under $10) thrown in. Nope. So am I mean? I don't think so. He asked for my advice on what would be the most approriate bike, and I told him. I explained the specs on all the bikes he looked at. I provided the best service I could. Why didn't I give him a discount? If I did, he'd want to take up all our time, and then get him to give it to him at the lowest margin. Yes, we want his business, but at what cost? I could have sold 2 more bikes with accessories and higher margins in the time it took to help him.

Maybe this was just a rant, but hopefully it gives you guys some insight into how it works, at least at my shop.