Should I be pissed?

vtf · Sep 7, 2010

Sounds more like this place can take or leave your credit. Sounds like they are offering you a service that really many retailers would tell you "Sorry No Refunds, No Exchanges, No store credit". This service is there for your convenince to unload unwanted or unused stuff quickly (similiar to a pawn shop). Dont hold it against them when many would tell you. "No Way Jose".

crimbfighter · Sep 7, 2010

Bitter Jeweler said:
crimbfighter said:

I think your point that they will be making money off both the new purchase and the used items is a valid one.

Click to expand...

:lmao:

:waiting:

How is that possibly constructive? :er:

I also forgot to mention, for me, the required margin for savings gets smaller as the price goes up.

table1349 · Sep 7, 2010

Taylor510ce makes some good points. It is obvious that the OP does not own a business, at least not a successful one. rallysman lets look at this a little more in depth.

Your not trading in your old gear out of the goodness of your heart because you want to be good and kind to the brick and mortar store. Your want to trade it in because you want to move up and it is easy. No work for you. No time to clean it up, list it, advertise it, show it and deal with making a sale and any problems that may pop up later. Who's doing all the work here? THE STORE.

As Taylor510ce mentioned, you don't have the overhead, the employees, the bills to pay to move the merchandise on hand. The store takes in your used stuff they have to get it ready for sale, put it out, show it. Every minute it sits on the shelf, just like the rest of the merchandise, it is costing the business money, because they have money invested in it. They only get a return when they sell it. They are putting the work into it. They are the ones that need to make a profit. They don't make a profit from giving you a couple dollars less than what it might sell for. No merchant that deals in used stuff is going to give you any more than 50% of what it is worth. Remember you have had it and used it. You have gotten your monies worth and now you are wanting to get rid of it.

So if you want more than what any reasonable merchant wants to give then get off your butt, clean up the lens, advertise it, take the calls, e-mails or the PM's, get the thing sold and deal with any complaints that might come in and quit bitching about a business doing what they do, which is to stay in business another day and pay their employees to deal with ignorant consumers.

rallysman · Sep 7, 2010

Well, like I said... live and learn.
I don't own a business, and I don't plan on owning one. I understand that they're doing what they need to do in order to stay open. I'll just look out for myself from now on

Thanks folks.

Bitter Jeweler · Sep 7, 2010

crimbfighter said:
Bitter Jeweler said:

crimbfighter said:

I think your point that they will be making money off both the new purchase and the used items is a valid one.

Click to expand...

:lmao:

Click to expand...

:waiting:

How is that possibly constructive? :er:

Ooops. Forum Police.
:er:

magkelly · Sep 7, 2010

Well, I do kind of get where you're coming from here.

It used to be I'd take all my dead tree books (and there were a lot of them over the years because I read a lot and I keep my books very nice) to my favorite bookstore here and they'd give me a nice credit or check and I'd be happy to continue to spend my $$$. For the record I've been spending my money there for many years, almost as long as they've been open so when I walked through the door it was smiles and "Hey you!" and they really knew me. I was probably one of their best customers and I'd steered many a reader their way over the years besides.

About 2 years ago I decided to get rid of about a 1/3 of my paper books. I needed the $$$ and lots of it was serious collector's stuff, and/or from the areas they really tend to like to buy books in. I'd sold books there in the past and was treated fairly, made some good money back and I honestly expected the same.

I walk in there and they literally offer me practically nothing for books that I know they tend to want to re-sell, that they tend mark up to as much as 2/3 of their original retail value. I was truly stunned. For the record this one guy owns the shop and he mostly runs it. There are few employees and his overhead is pretty low because he owns the building. He can afford to pay a decent price for books and still make his overhead, his profit and then some and I know that for a fact because he's pretty much told me so.

Usually you go in there and you're getting at least 25% of the book's retail if it's not a used book to begin with. If you trade it's more like 30%. But he offered me less than 5% so I was pretty stunned. I asked him quite nicely "What was up, and why so low?" and he just shrugged, acted like it was no big deal and then told me that if I didn't like the offer then I didn't have to take it.

To be blunt he wasn't at all nice about it. He was almost outright rude about it and that was his attitude to me, to someone who had been supporting his store for most of my life. Fact, I seldom sold a lot of books. I was far more often the buyer and not the seller so I doubt that was the issue, and he clearly wanted the books. I could tell that. He just didn't want to pay anything like a decent price for them. If he couldn't get them for nothing, then he simply wasn't that motivated to buy them, that was it.

Obviously I picked my books back up and went out to find a better deal. About a week later, after much thought I sent him back my store credit card with what was left on it and I let him know that he could give it to another customer if he liked as I probably wouldn't be using it. I haven't been back since and I really have no intentions of buying books from him ever again. I don't feel particularly welcome or valued in his store anymore and I just don't see why I should go out of my way to patronize his store anymore if he doesn't appreciate my making the effort to do so.

Oh, and btw, his major competitor bought my books for far more than he wanted to. I hated to go there, because they're not that friendly and they really do compete for what used book business there is here but I will say this, they treated me well, paid me fairly, and clearly appreciated my business. Which was nice while it lasted. Last time I went in there? New owners, and things had changed quite a bit. Prices had too. The place had gone almost all new books, and the long term employees had been replaced with minimum wage making teen cashiers and the much valued good customer service? Well it seems it left with the used items and the employees who really cared. I left completely bummed as that was the last good used bookstore in town.

I go where people appreciate my business. If they do they will take care of the people who take care of them. It's that simple. I've unfortunately learned that just because someone has taken care of me in the past is no guarantee that they will in future.There's always a bottom line, bills to be paid, and a profit margin made, but you know there is such a thing still as good customer service also, and lately I have to say that a lot of the places that I used to go to a lot because they had good customer service just seem to be completely dropping the ball.

I absolutely do notice when that happens. When businesses I patronize start acting like I'm just a number I do tend to stop going there. I'm a pretty loyal customer usually and I go out of my way to patronize small businesses and particularly local ones. But I'm not about to be treated like that. Fastest way to lose a good customer in my book is to forget that they ARE. In this economy you'd think that businesses would be fully cognizant of that fact, but you'd never know it by the way some businesses treat people lately. To me it often seems that customer loyalty isn't appreciated at all and that customer service is nearly dead.

Honestly I don't really need to take my books to a bookstore anymore to get them sold. If I put the lot on CL or take them out to the flea market generally they'll go just fine and usually for more than a bookstore will give me. Yeah it's a pain in the tush taking pics and making a list, but I'd much rather do it myself than be totally ripped off.

It always amuses me though when the local bookstores complain that they are being hurt by Barnes and Borders and the like. Fact is 99% of them went out of business not because the 2 big chain bookstores came to town but because they priced themselves right out of the used book market.

For years, I was perfectly happy going to the used bookstore once a month and shelling out $20 for a decent pile of used books. But between the fact that almost none of the bookstores left in town wants to pay a decent rate for books now and the fact that they're selling them all for 2/3 the price of books new the bookstores here are actually giving me far less incentive to shop from them.

A new paperback novel is $8 on average. The whole point in buying used was to save quite a bit and to recycle. When I walk into a bookstore and the paperbacks there are maybe $1 off the retail price then why would I want to buy used? To save a buck? Please, it takes me that much in gas just to make the trip! I might as well stay at home, order that same book for $2.99 with free shipping on Amazon and save myself the effort and the gas. It's far easier and besides which I don't have to deal with snotty underpaid clerks et all.

I'm beginning to think the internet has forever changed the face of customer service for good. People who actually shop in stores they're just not getting the treatment they used to. I don't know. Maybe it's because it's getting so much easier and common for stores to deal with customers online too.

Think about it. So long as they're online most stores will have a never ending supply new customers no matter what they do with you, the physical customer. They can more easily afford to be snotty these days. Physical customers can be replaced, with digital ones, and who needs to pay real cashiers when one guy with a computer can probably do the work of 10 people that way? The less real people businesses have? The less overhead they'll have ultimately.

That's the way I figure it anyway...

Newnan3 · Sep 7, 2010

I owned and operated a moderately successful retail store for a few years. Typically unless youre manufacturing whatever it is youre selling profit margins are razor thin.

I saw a lot of other business owners come and go. If the retailer could not buy whatever it was they were selling from wholesalers and sell it for at least 5x what they paid for it the business would go under within a few months.

Im surprised any retail store can survive these days.......

Heck · Sep 7, 2010

rallysman said:
Well, like I said... live and learn.
I don't own a business, and I don't plan on owning one. I understand that they're doing what they need to do in order to stay open. I'll just look out for myself from now on
Thanks folks.

I don't understand how you feel entitled to a top price on your used gear. The store it taking the chance of giving money for the lens and has to watch that lens collect dust on the shelf for god knows how long. What they offer is a quick way to dump the lens without you having to post it on sites deal with meeting people in parking lots exchanging cash and goods in the street. or even getting scammed on the net. If you don't like there offer then sell it on your own but why hate the people at the store.

I wish there were more small camera shops close to me even if I'm only a hour away from B&H. It's a pain in the ass to get there by car and cost a arm and a leg to park. Or risk being towed trying park on the street with all the crazy rules. It is not worth the money or effort to just stop by and pick up a few things. So I have to order and pay shipping, I would rather pay a bit more to have something local.

crimbfighter · Sep 7, 2010

Bitter Jeweler said:
crimbfighter said:

Bitter Jeweler said:

:lmao:

Click to expand...

:waiting:

How is that possibly constructive? :er:

Click to expand...

Ooops. Forum Police.
:er:

Touche, Bitter, touche...

Bitter Jeweler · Sep 7, 2010

Oooops. I did it again.

JG_Coleman · Sep 8, 2010

To the OP:

Had you walked into my pawn shop, I would've offered you about $150 on the 28-105 Tamron. I might've gone as high as $175... but not a penny more. If they offered you more than $175, then they were actually giving you a decent deal given the ways of the "used goods market".

I have the feeling that you would've walked out of my pawn shop cursing my existence, infuriated that I insulted you with such a price, and tell everyone you meet never to go back to JG's pawn shop (names may have been changed to protect the innocent).

In considering other's comments on the issue:

Look, it is what it is. When I give somebody a price at the pawn shop, I really, truly don't care if they don't like that price. And if they actually get mad at me for quoting them a price, then I pretty much shut them down and let them take their stuff elsewhere. The sad fact for the customer is this: As much as they want to believe that I need their stuff, I really truly do not. There will always be more stuff coming in... stuff from people that are plenty satisfied to take what I offer. I don't want to, need to, or in any way care to cater to individuals that think they deserve more special treatment than the next guy.

And hey, I play the role of the customer all the time... so it's not like I'm not putting myself in your shoes. But I came to realize a long time ago that the ordinary customer tends to think," I'm doing this business a favor by coming here." Kinda... but not really. It's a symbiotic relationship... you give the store money, they give you goods. Nobody is really owed anything... not even for continued patronage. There was a time in American history when tiny stores in tiny towns had a vested interest in keeping their customers happier than the other guy. "Al's Grocery" on the corner wanted you to feel like they hooked you up, and that you wouldn't get that special treatment if you went down the street to "Tony's Grocery". Cuz if they lost you, they might've been losing 1/50th of their business.

Nowadays, well... there's something like 350,000,000 people in the US. In some places, like Connecticut, we are packed together like sardines. There is a virtually endless supply of customers... and somehow new faces seem to appear every single day. The customer will be best off facing the fact that their business, while certainly appreciated, accounts for a miniscule, if not negligible, portion of a healthy store's business. If you become a hassle, the store really would rather just not deal with you. New customers will step up to replace you soon enough. Competition is fierce, but when there are 350,000,000 deer in the forest, I really doesn't matter if you miss one or two during a hunt. Just sayin... accept that that's simply the way of the world these days.

Now, much of what I say seems to completely crap all over established thought on how a good business should treat its customers... I'm well aware. But at the end of the day, it's the honest truth in most scenarios. I'm not even saying that it's a good thing that it's this way... but coming to accept and understand the reality of our changing world has to count for something.

mostly sunny · Sep 8, 2010

Did you ever tell us how much credit they gave you?

I know all of you want to know!!

AgentDrex · Sep 8, 2010

This is how things have ALWAYS been, but factor in a completely fu**ed economy and what do you expect?

Can you imagine why our economy is so screwed? We don't support the local guy anymore. We go "online". Does that money wind back up in our towns? Nope, goes right overseas most of the time (for us U.S. Americans).

So yeah, I spent more on the Rebel by getting it from a local shop. I do get to have a face-to-face critique of my photography from a guy who runs the shop. He used to teach Mass Communications at the college here in town and has been at photography for over 40 years. I don't think you can get that at B&H or Amazon. Also I didn't pay S&H and if anything goes wrong, the shop is three blocks from where I work. The money I spent partially stays in town.

But if we keep going to the internet to purchase everything, don't be surprised when the local economy goes kerplunk down into the toilet...