Price differences
This is the part I put on the truck, from the autozone near my office:
This is the same part at the AutoZone near my house.
Now: can any fool tell me why it would be different? Now I suspect every damned thing they sell me.
16 comments Og | Uncategorized
Because they do pricing store-to-store and mark up for either slow-moving merchandise, additional delivery cost (are you near BFE?), or lack of local competition (i.e. what the “market” will bear)? If you didn’t often go near the other AZ for work, then the cost of gas might put the other store on the negative side of the cost-benefit, even though their price was lower.
Or, it’s an evil AZ conspiracy designed to separate Og from his hard-earned $$ and make him nervous about his business dealings.
I regularly check the prices at AZ’s website for my “room” in NoVA, near work 40 miles away, and near my house in Dayton, OH. Rarely are the prices constant in that survey.
Well, I’m damned sure gonna be watching the pricing, I’ll tell you.
I purchased a set of brake shoes for my truck in one town and returned them in another and the counter man tried to give me less money than I paid, he said that’s the price here. I took them back to the original store later and got the complete refund. The shoes were shit. Caused me a lot of grief, and extra money. Went back to the Motorcraft shoes and my troubles went away.
The manager of the AZ near you obviously knocked up a crack whore and has to buy her silence.
Couldn’t begin to tell you why there’s a price difference, unless the actual real estate is somehow involved.
the real estate is tons higher- at LEAST an order of magnitude- at the store that was cheaper.
Dear Og, since I have no email addy for you, I am forced to hijack your comments and righteous wrath in order to direct your attention to a mere slip of a girl who has, if it were possible, so thoroughly attempted to best the best of gross-bloggers that I am pleased to pass the link along for your attention.
I am sorry for it.
:o)
I can tell you why. LOCATION. The same kind of price variation exists in Gasoline, and even cellphones. It boils down to people in wealthier neighborhoods can pay more, and are therefore charged more.
BTW, you really, REALLY don’t want to know what the markup is on autoparts(Retail vs. Jobber price)
If you can wait, I recommend rockauto.com or discountautoparts.com (not the chain, this is a two- or three-guy operation up in NJ).
BTW, what’d you use to pull vacuum on the system? I need to reinstall a complete system on one of my ancient Mopars, but don’t have anything to pull a vacuum on the system.
HTRN, the store where it’s cheap is one of the top three most expensive cities in the USA. The store where it’s expensive is plain old rural Indiana.
Ham, I used a hand pump. Takes a few minues, and you have to have hand strength, but it works.
Og, it’s not just auto parts. Wal-Mart is the same way. My sister gave me three sweaters for Christmas a couple of years ago, but they were the wrong size. I took them to my local Wal-Mart for exchange, and they gave me back almost twice what she paid for them. Another time, we purchased a couple of comforters from the local Wal-Mart, then later at a different Wal-Mart found the same thing at twice the price.
I currently work in the business and I can tell you it is all about competition. Areas where there is less or no competition the cost is usually higher than stores in an area where the competition for your business is higher the price is lower. Simple economics
Thanks, Scott, that actually makes the most sense of anything I have heard so far.
“HTRN, the store where it’s cheap is one of the top three most expensive cities in the USA.”
New York, San Fransisco, or Boston? :)
HTRN
Naperville. Named so on tuesday last.