Part of the time, I live in a house at the edge of civilization. This means, among other things, that I have a septic tank. For those of you who (like me) grew up in big cities, a septic tank is what you have instead of a sewer. All the waste in the house goes out a sewage pipe to a big container buried in the ground and the big container has pipes draining the fluid out into the surrounding ground. Every couple of years, the tank fills up with the solid waste and someone has to pump out the tank and take the crud away. Don't worry, there's no smell, the tank is typically six feet or so below ground.
In any event, today was the day to have the tank pumped. I've always liked my septic company. They're friendly and can usually come out within a day or two. But today, they offered something new -- to treat the tank with CCLS, a special chemical that I could buy for just $69 a gallon and I would only need two gallons. Let me say, for the record, that I am tired of up-selling. Despite all marketing theories to the contrary, I will not buy more stuff than I intended if you just keep battering me with offers. If your destiny is a higher commission, you're unlikely to meet that destiny through me. So, when they wanted to sell me something new, my radar immediately went off.
I went in the house and looked up the chemical on the web. It is sold by a company in Cape Cod that sells to distributors and neither the company nor most of its distributors list a price. I'm pretty handy with a Boolean search and I ultimately found a description on eBay saying that the stuff usually sells for $30 a bottle and comes in boxes of four. I found a second site by a distributor offering the chemical for $125 for the four-bottle box plus $16 for shipping. So, I was reasonably confident that $30-$35 per bottle (delivered) is a fair price.
When the young man running the pump came back to my door to ask if I wanted the CCLS at $69 a bottle, I told him that I had found it for about half on the internet. "Not in this state," he smirked with a wide grin, implying that they were the only distributor. (I like them too much to think he was admitting to price-fixing.) But, he'd missed the point. There wasn't any sort of emergency or time sensitivity to the purchase. If he hadn't been so smug, or he'd offered any sort of plausible explanation for his 100% mark-up above retail, he might have made the sale.
In any event, today was the day to have the tank pumped. I've always liked my septic company. They're friendly and can usually come out within a day or two. But today, they offered something new -- to treat the tank with CCLS, a special chemical that I could buy for just $69 a gallon and I would only need two gallons. Let me say, for the record, that I am tired of up-selling. Despite all marketing theories to the contrary, I will not buy more stuff than I intended if you just keep battering me with offers. If your destiny is a higher commission, you're unlikely to meet that destiny through me. So, when they wanted to sell me something new, my radar immediately went off.
I went in the house and looked up the chemical on the web. It is sold by a company in Cape Cod that sells to distributors and neither the company nor most of its distributors list a price. I'm pretty handy with a Boolean search and I ultimately found a description on eBay saying that the stuff usually sells for $30 a bottle and comes in boxes of four. I found a second site by a distributor offering the chemical for $125 for the four-bottle box plus $16 for shipping. So, I was reasonably confident that $30-$35 per bottle (delivered) is a fair price.
When the young man running the pump came back to my door to ask if I wanted the CCLS at $69 a bottle, I told him that I had found it for about half on the internet. "Not in this state," he smirked with a wide grin, implying that they were the only distributor. (I like them too much to think he was admitting to price-fixing.) But, he'd missed the point. There wasn't any sort of emergency or time sensitivity to the purchase. If he hadn't been so smug, or he'd offered any sort of plausible explanation for his 100% mark-up above retail, he might have made the sale.