When is a discount not a discount? (The customer of the day)

[jmowreader]

A prospective customer came to the store wanting to buy a decent amount of lumber. I made him a quote.

"Now, what kind of discount will you give me?" None, says I; all of our customers pay the same price.

"I don't shop at stores that won't give me a discount." And he charged off.

Well...on Friday the same guy came back in looking for something else. I asked him if he ever got his discount. Of course he did; one of our smaller competitors gave him a discount on his purchase.

'How much did you pay for 8-foot 2x4s?' He paid $2.68 for each one and bought about 300.

We were standing next to a display of 8-foot 2x4s for $2.29 each.

[Book Lover]

1. I hope you are collecting these stories for a book someday

Geez! Did you happen to point out the stack next to him by any chance?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. My dear jmowreader!

LOL!

That is just perfect!

Oh, I hope he did see the display you were standing next to!

Of course, he would never say anything to you even if he had.......

Just too damn embarrassing!

:rofl:

[Dangerously Amused]

3. Well yeah, that's kinda dumb.

Then again maybe the poor guy has dyslexia or something to the point where he can't do math, and he figures that seeing "a discount" on his receipt is the best he can hope for in terms of not being taken advantage of.


But if not and he was just being a jerk, then yeah, he deserved it.

[jmowreader]

4. There are LOTS of people who are just "special"

Scientific Applications International Corporation is a defense contractor. You know them as SAIC.

We get bids from them all the time. At the bottom of these bids is a notice "you will quote us the price extended to your best customers."

That's no problem, man, our best customers pay the same as our second-worst customers. (Our worst customers just steal the shit, but we're starting to catch more and more of them.) It's the principle of the thing, though: why would someone demand "greatest customer" pricing if they spend $500 per month in a store? I have customers who spend $500 per day and they don't get discounts either.

Now...I'll take back a little of it. We've got a Pro Account Bid Room in Atlanta for accounts that do over $40,000 per year. There are customers who do get discounts--guys building several houses per year--but these accounts are few and far between.

OTOH, we're not like the outfits that do negotiate discounts with volume buyers. There are several yards in Fayetteville who do, and they all play in exactly the same fashion: they'll stick a $3.50 price on a 2x4 then dicker it down to $2.85 when I've got the same shit sitting on the rack with a no-haggle $2.60 price tag. Negotiation is fun, I guess, but what's the point?

[skygazer]

5. I get customers like that

I sell wine. At my store, if you buy 6 bottles or more, you get 10% taken off the total price. Which is a decent deal. Nevertheless, I have at least one customer per week who thinks they should get a bigger discount because they've bought one or two cases of wine. Hell, I don't give a bigger discount to people who buy 40 cases of wine in one purchase and I have those regularly too - usually for weddings or other events.

You would think this guy of yours would have looked at the price you were asking before going off to comparison shop and would have realized that you were the best deal he was going to get. :silly:

[China_cat]

8. But that would have meant having to admit he was wrong.

[Broken_Hero]

6. brilliant!...:) nt

[NMMNG]

7. He's probably one of those fools

who will waste $3 on gas to save $1 on toilet paper. Getting a "deal" is the only thing these people understand, not actually paying less.