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Old 05-31-2018, 03:44 PM   #11
Tom.B
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City: Cary, NC
Vessel Name: Skinny Dippin'
Vessel Model: Navigator 4200 Classic
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 5,841
Quote:
Originally Posted by Benthic2 View Post
But how would they know what a competitive price is ?? They set their price to meet their overhead and required profit. If a customer finds a better price...they'll use that. It would take an army of people to stay on top of what every seller charges for every product....and that would add a tremendous expense. Plus....if they sold every item at an internet price, they would go out of business, due to the higher overhead of a brick and mortar operation.

Everyone seems to agree that its great to have a WM when you need something today...but no one wants to pay for that service and convenience.

I don't at all believe they price items to cover their overhead. Not even a little. They price at MSRP and sometimes more. As a retailer, the wholesale cost to competitors is pretty much known. Yes, there some discounts to some retailers based on quantity ordered or terms to retailers, but generally speaking, West Marine probably pays the same wholesale price as Defender or Fisheries Supply from distributors. From there, it is a simple computation to figure out what percentage you need to survive.

We can all agree that WM is probably more expensive of a business to run than, say, Defender, but I contend that most people would be willing to pay SLIGHTLY higher prices to WM knowing that and for local convenience. What I don't like is that they put everything out a full price and don't even TRY to be competitive. Then, push the responsibility onto us to force them into a discount.

My hope is that, based on the article, West Marine may be moving away from that model.
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