Unethical business practices.....

not that anyone asked ... but I Vote with Wilson.
Unethical.

Nedra

"Wilson" wrote in message
...

Kelly E Jones wrote in message
...
In article ,
Wilson wrote:


I also disagree with your title - there is nothing unethical in a
shopkeeper trying to make a profit. If she doesn't, she won't be in
business very long.

You have every right to disagree....I have every right to point out
your
mistake.

She won't be in business long trying to cheat customers and lying by
ommission either.

Look, you asked for a quote, and she gave you one. Granted, the quote
was way high, and late. That doesn't make her unethical, though it
probably makes her a bad businessperson. She has the right to charge
anything she wants; you have the right to accept or decline the offer.
If the price is way high she's either shrewd (if someone actually
pays that price) or dumb (if it puts her out of consideration), but
in no case is it unethical. If this is unethical, so are all purveyors
of
bottled water (they buy it for about $0.0001 per bottle, and sell it
for $0.99 a bottle!), pet rocks, and Windows operating systems.

Unethical: not conforming to approved standards of social or professional
behavior.

I realize that anyone can read anything into that they choose, but I'd
say
lying to a customer would foot that bill.

The problem with your theory is that I asked her for a price on a certain
size liner....she told me she would call and get a price on that size
liner,
she never told me that I had to purchase an entire roll or that I was
supplying her store with inventory. Your comparison of Evian or pet rocks
is
flawed because we all know what and how much of it we are buying....and
how
stupid we are for doing it, I see the price of Evian and I pick up a
bottle
anyway BUT if the clerk charges me 5 bucks for the bottle then grabs the 4
extra bottles and resells them.....that is an unfair business practice.

Believe it or not there is a differece between a liner company selling all
their 4x8 liners for 96.00 and what this moron tried to do. One is greed
or
a nice tidy profit....one is a lie.


There are enough businesses out there which really ARE unethical, that
we should reserve the term for them, and refrain from libeling those
who are merely incompetent.

Which businesses might those be Kelly? Would you give us examples?

Oh btw, to be libel the statement in writing should be false and
"must"
be public and "must" damage(or attempt to) someone's character. Right?
Tell me Kelly, what is the name of the person or business I am referring
to?


~Wilson~

"Nedra" wrote in message
link.net...
not that anyone asked ... but I Vote with Wilson.
Unethical.

Nedra

Ty Nedra.

Phew! I thought nobody was going to take my side :P and it was going to
turn into a flame war............sit down Just Me "Koi"!

I do however see where PlainBill and Kelly are coming from, buyer beware and
if not you just overpaid but there has to be boundaries. A lie is a lie is a
lie.

~Wilson~

Hey Folks,

It is typical. I have a small soap business and I am on several listservs
and people are always selling stuff in a "CO-OP" fashion or a "Fast-Buy"
situation. What is interesting is the the price offered can almost always
be beat almost anywhere on the internet even with S&H, but in many cases
most people don't want to deal the a "Business Organization" but will pay
more (after fees and S&H) for the priveledge to deal with an individual from
the listserv. From what I have ascertained over the years is that people
do get the shaft about as much as dealing with a business.

People feel safer, walking in to a store down the street or near by that
dealing with someone/business on the internet. Plus, business dictates rule
a small business. As an example, I just bought the pistol air pump from
drsfostersmith.com for $46. The LFS, the owner who is a friend, I checked
with him first and his cost was higher than what I got it for plus S&H that
I paid. Of course the only person he sells these pumps to is the University
in the area and they just say buy this pump for me and bills us. Well, with
his costs and markup the cost is about $90.

Small businesses that can not buy in volume are stuck at paying a lot higher
prices for single items or special order items and the same items bought by
big companies are a lot cheaper because of the volume of the total purchase
or the number of items purchased.

So You should not be too hard on the people who are trying to give a
service to the local community. There are always going to be people that
want to have face to face contact with the people that they are dealing with
and if the local business is fair and honest with their customers they will
make it, but if they don't what they are doing and give bad advice and/or
wrong equipment they won't last very long.

It is hard to be local business person giving service to the community.

Tom L.L.
"*muffin*" wrote in message
...
of, course there are people who will pay that much!!!
they are the ones who think they are too good to step inside a k-mart! &
only do their shopping in high-priced stores
(I just cannot get over some people would rather pay $50. for a blender
HERE
than $25 for the same one at k-mart........



"joe" wrote in message
...
Wilson wrote:

What I've learned so far about buying supplies for ponds is you must
look
around, most places prices are way out of wack on most
thing...example:
I
visited a pond supplier in a nearby town that carried barley(my mom
wanted
me to pick her up some for her pond) $45.00 for what amounted to a
1/2
pillow size bag of barley! Unreal.

I've only checked a few places and websites so far but I'd have to say
that
justliners.com is probably the best and cheapest place to go.


Yup. Caveat emptor. It's amazing to me that in an age when you can find
pretty much the best price on any item (even after shipping) on the
internet, people are still willing to just plunk down their hard earned
cash
for over priced stuff.

Just my 2 cents.

Joe



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On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 14:07:37 -0600
john rutz wrote:



Cybe R. Wizard wrote:
On Fri, 18 Jul 2003 18:49:43 +0000 (UTC)
(Kelly E Jones) wrote:


in no case is it unethical. If this is unethical, so are all
purveyors of bottled water (they buy it for about $0.0001 per
bottle,and sell it for $0.99 a bottle!), pet rocks, and


/Windows operating systems/ .

Two out of three ain't bad!

Cybe
registered GNU/Linux user #126326

the penquin rules

Yep, so much so that I've been thinking about getting a nice
refrigeration unit to freeze one of my ponds. I could have a whole
flock of 'em! ;-}

Cybe -silly about his OS

In article ,
Wilson wrote:

Kelly E Jones wrote in message
...
In article ,
Wilson wrote:

I realize that anyone can read anything into that they choose, but I'd say
lying to a customer would foot that bill.

The problem with your theory is that I asked her for a price on a certain
size liner....she told me she would call and get a price on that size liner,
she never told me that I had to purchase an entire roll or that I was
supplying her store with inventory.

She's not forcing you to purchase an entire roll (if she is, that's
new information, you've never stated that before). Just because her
price is equal to what you would pay for an entire roll elsewhere,
doesn't mean that's how whe set her price. Even if she is, that's
STILL not unethical. Doesn't the grocery store 'force' you to
purchase an entire loaf of bread? Lots of places have minimum
purchase requirements, ESPECIALLY for special orders. Frankly, I don't
see how she's lied to you: she said she'd give you a price, and she
did.

I must differ with this one part of Tom LaBron's post:

"People feel safer, walking in to a store down the street or near by that
dealing with someone/business on the internet."

Admittedly, I got into the Amazon.com habit when we lived in northern
Vermont, where there was actually quite a bit of stuff we couldn't find
nearby. And then, we really learned to love Amazon because my CPA hubby
could order the specialized books he needs, but that no bookstore would be
likely to sell ($50-90 with no guaranteed market).

I suppose that I might feel "safer" (or more trusting) if I could go to a
store "down the street" but the only thing less than a 10-minute drive
(one-way) is a gas station & hairdresser. Soooo...... to make my point, I
buy online all the time (just as I ordered from catalogues for 20 years
before that, *especially* for Christmas presents, as life is too short for
me to box up stuff & stand in line at the post office).

Just my $.02,

Anne Lurie
[just outside] Raleigh, NC [in horse/cattle country]



"Tom La Bron" wrote in message
...
Hey Folks,

It is typical. I have a small soap business and I am on several listservs
and people are always selling stuff in a "CO-OP" fashion or a "Fast-Buy"
situation. What is interesting is the the price offered can almost always
be beat almost anywhere on the internet even with S&H, but in many cases
most people don't want to deal the a "Business Organization" but will pay
more (after fees and S&H) for the priveledge to deal with an individual
from
the listserv. From what I have ascertained over the years is that people
do get the shaft about as much as dealing with a business.

People feel safer, walking in to a store down the street or near by that
dealing with someone/business on the internet. Plus, business dictates
rule
a small business. As an example, I just bought the pistol air pump from
drsfostersmith.com for $46. The LFS, the owner who is a friend, I checked
with him first and his cost was higher than what I got it for plus S&H
that
I paid. Of course the only person he sells these pumps to is the
University
in the area and they just say buy this pump for me and bills us. Well,
with
his costs and markup the cost is about $90.

Small businesses that can not buy in volume are stuck at paying a lot
higher
prices for single items or special order items and the same items bought
by
big companies are a lot cheaper because of the volume of the total
purchase
or the number of items purchased.

So You should not be too hard on the people who are trying to give a
service to the local community. There are always going to be people that
want to have face to face contact with the people that they are dealing
with
and if the local business is fair and honest with their customers they
will
make it, but if they don't what they are doing and give bad advice and/or
wrong equipment they won't last very long.

It is hard to be local business person giving service to the community.

Tom L.L.
"*muffin*" wrote in message
...
of, course there are people who will pay that much!!!
they are the ones who think they are too good to step inside a k-mart! &
only do their shopping in high-priced stores
(I just cannot get over some people would rather pay $50. for a blender
HERE
than $25 for the same one at k-mart........



"joe" wrote in message
...
Wilson wrote:

What I've learned so far about buying supplies for ponds is you must
look
around, most places prices are way out of wack on most
thing...example:
I
visited a pond supplier in a nearby town that carried barley(my mom
wanted
me to pick her up some for her pond) $45.00 for what amounted to a
1/2
pillow size bag of barley! Unreal.

I've only checked a few places and websites so far but I'd have to
say
that
justliners.com is probably the best and cheapest place to go.


Yup. Caveat emptor. It's amazing to me that in an age when you can
find
pretty much the best price on any item (even after shipping) on the
internet, people are still willing to just plunk down their hard
earned
cash
for over priced stuff.

Just my 2 cents.

Joe



-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----

In article ,
Wilson wrote:

Kelly, sigh...one more time, I asked her to give me a price for a specific
liner...she agreed that she'd get a price for a specific size liner, she
then priced me a roll of liner and tried to pass it off as a 4'x8' price.
Your bread analogy doesn't work well...I go into the store WANTING a whole
loaf (LOL) I didn't walk into her store wanting a whole roll of liner. But
the point is she lied about it, she called me back and said the price of a
4'x8' liner was $96.00.

No lie. That's exactly what she was planning to charge you for a 4X8
liner; that was her price. If you don't get it, that's OK, I can deal
with it.

In the meantime, thanks for the tip... I'll investigate
justliners.com for my next liner as you recommend, and stay AWAY from
any dealer asking 4-5X the going rate.

Kelly

Bill, I initially had the same thought you did about a special order, until
it occurred to me that the store owner could have ordered from the same
place Wilson did! Even allowing for a small mark-up, the price would have
been reasonable.

Or, if she did not have a source for such a special item, she should have
honestly said that it was not cost-efficient for her to research prices for
something for which she was not likely to have any other customers.

Anne Lurie
Raleigh, NC


"PlainBill" wrote in message
...
I'd like to point out a few things you perhaps failed to consider.
Your local place most likely does not stock pond liner. To fill your
request, she would have to special order a roll of material, then keep
the balance on hand until another buyer came along. All the while she
has the money tied up in inventory, AND the remainder of the roll
taking up space in the stockroom. This is why I seldom ask a business
to special order items. If they hope to hope to stay in business,
they must charge you for the cost of the item, plus the time it takes
to locate it, plus the shipping, plus their normal markup.

I also disagree with your title - there is nothing unethical in a
shopkeeper trying to make a profit. If she doesn't, she won't be in
business very long.

That said, there is no excuse for taking two weeks to call you with
the price.

PlainBill

On Thu, 17 Jul 2003 14:12:18 -0500, "Wilson"
wrote:

I recently bought a 5.5' x 15' liner from justliners.com to build my
waterfall and was pleased to say the least with the price($23.95 +
shipping
$8.00 UPS), it was delivered in approx. 4 days and the quality is more
than
I expected.

A week or two before I visited my local (I wouldn't call them a pond
supply
store), more of a rock/paver/statuary/but we also order pond supplies
from
Aquascape kind of place....went in and asked her to get me prices on a
liner,pump and rocks.....2 weeks later! she calls me back after I already
had finished my waterfall and gives me prices on a liner: 4'x8'
45mil-$96.00!! I told her basically that she had rocks in her head and
that
I now understood why nobody even knew of this place even though it had
been
open since last October....and that she would never get a dime from me.
What
I imagine she was doing is charging me for a roll of liner and cutting my
piece from it.

What I've learned so far about buying supplies for ponds is you must look
around, most places prices are way out of wack on most thing...example:
I
visited a pond supplier in a nearby town that carried barley(my mom
wanted
me to pick her up some for her pond) $45.00 for what amounted to a 1/2
pillow size bag of barley! Unreal.

I've only checked a few places and websites so far but I'd have to say
that
justliners.com is probably the best and cheapest place to go.

My .02 Just felt like venting....sorry, we now return you to your
regular
programming.

~Wilson~

she probably checked her supplyers to find one that would sell the cut
to size peice
paid them their price pluss S&H and added her markup


John Rutz
Z5 New Mexico

never miss a good oportunity to shut up

see my pond at:

http://www.fuerjefe.com

Kelly, sigh...one more time, I asked her to give me a price for a specific
liner...she agreed that she'd get a price for a specific size liner, she
then priced me a roll of liner and tried to pass it off as a 4'x8' price.
Your bread analogy doesn't work well...I go into the store WANTING a whole
loaf (LOL) I didn't walk into her store wanting a whole roll of liner. But
the point is she lied about it, she called me back and said the price of a
4'x8' liner was $96.00. Period...end of discussion.

~Wilson~



there is now way a whole roll of epdm sells for only 96.00
wholesale it is about 15 c a sq ft and comes in a 20x100 ft roll
--





John Rutz
Z5 New Mexico

never miss a good oportunity to shut up

see my pond at:

http://www.fuerjefe.com