This actually comes up a lot among knitting people in my area. Retail stores are extremely expensive and yarn stores apparently make very little profit per item sold. The idea of buying yarn in person is that you get to touch it and see the colors for yourself, you can compare two skeins through the sunlit window for yourself instead of relying upon dodgy thumbnail sized pictures which probably weren't color-adjusted. Plus the people working in the shop are generally knowledgeable and will offer suggestions for yarns that might substitute in a pattern.
However, one can buy yarn online, usually for 20% less and free shipping. Compared to driving somewhere, paying for parking, dealing with snooty clerks who think fat women shouldn't be helped when there's a skinny woman there, only to be told the store will be glad to order the 7 of 8 skeins that are needed (for full price plus handling fees) so the process will need to be repeated again next week when picking up the order. (Nefarious people will say ordering online means no sales tax either although one is supposed to remit the tax owed annually.)
So if I shop for yarn in person, I either go to a store that has unique things or I buy just one thing. And even though I buy a lot of yarn, I very very rarely go to the stores in person so I do not feel obliged to buy overpriced junk.
The interesting aspect of the shopping that you didn't touch upon is the implied contract that if you enter a shop, you are obliged to buy something. If the clerk helps you, you're supposed to buy more things. "Looky-loos aren't welcome inside the shop. That's what window displays are for."
Restaurants around here give significantly worse service if you do not buy a beverage and just drink water. If it's evening, they give worse service if you do not buy alcoholic beverages. At lunch they do not push alcohol and merely ask if you'd like something to drink. At dinner they say, "Some wine, something from the bar, just to get you started? A glass of our [expensive] chardonnay will go nicely with the mussels we have as tonight's special appetizer." A single mixed drink from the bar sells for the cost of the entire entree at lunch at the place around the corner. Admittedly the dinner entrees are more expensive, so the proportion is less that 100%. Non-alcholic beverages at restaurants have become so expensive at all that places which used to have stereotypically outrageous drink prices like movie theaters and airports have bargain priced cokes now comparatively. (This is regionally specific to my location. When we visited the middle of the country to see family, you could get a coke for a buck instead of 3.) I do not buy a beverage unless I want one. If I get bad service, I do not go back. If they need people to buy beverages then they should sell it that way and charge more for it, "Beer included with lunch!"
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Date: 2011-02-14 04:37 pm (UTC)However, one can buy yarn online, usually for 20% less and free shipping. Compared to driving somewhere, paying for parking, dealing with snooty clerks who think fat women shouldn't be helped when there's a skinny woman there, only to be told the store will be glad to order the 7 of 8 skeins that are needed (for full price plus handling fees) so the process will need to be repeated again next week when picking up the order. (Nefarious people will say ordering online means no sales tax either although one is supposed to remit the tax owed annually.)
So if I shop for yarn in person, I either go to a store that has unique things or I buy just one thing. And even though I buy a lot of yarn, I very very rarely go to the stores in person so I do not feel obliged to buy overpriced junk.
The interesting aspect of the shopping that you didn't touch upon is the implied contract that if you enter a shop, you are obliged to buy something. If the clerk helps you, you're supposed to buy more things. "Looky-loos aren't welcome inside the shop. That's what window displays are for."
Restaurants around here give significantly worse service if you do not buy a beverage and just drink water. If it's evening, they give worse service if you do not buy alcoholic beverages. At lunch they do not push alcohol and merely ask if you'd like something to drink. At dinner they say, "Some wine, something from the bar, just to get you started? A glass of our [expensive] chardonnay will go nicely with the mussels we have as tonight's special appetizer." A single mixed drink from the bar sells for the cost of the entire entree at lunch at the place around the corner. Admittedly the dinner entrees are more expensive, so the proportion is less that 100%. Non-alcholic beverages at restaurants have become so expensive at all that places which used to have stereotypically outrageous drink prices like movie theaters and airports have bargain priced cokes now comparatively. (This is regionally specific to my location. When we visited the middle of the country to see family, you could get a coke for a buck instead of 3.) I do not buy a beverage unless I want one. If I get bad service, I do not go back. If they need people to buy beverages then they should sell it that way and charge more for it, "Beer included with lunch!"