Re: [MDOsprey] support your local...

stamps@sea-east.com
Mon, 22 Nov 1999 20:00:58 -0500


It's amazing (Well, I've been around long en ought not to be amazed at such
thing.)
how poorly a person reads what they are responding to. The response below
has nothing
to do with the original posting. The issue at hand is whether, or not, it
is o.k. to
go into a bookstore and look at a couple of books to evaluate them for
purchase
elsewhere. The person in question never bothered any of the staff, or in
anyway
added to the cost of the store at hand. While the original person to post
the email
can be commended for her loyalty to her local store, I don't fault the
other person.
If the person had taken staff time the issue is more debatable.

I should point out that my wife and I sell stamps for collectors at shows.
It is not
uncommon for someone to take half an hour or more asking us for prices of
items,
which we have to look up individually. S/he will write down the prices and
then go
to another dealer for comparison pricing. It's upsetting, but it goes with the
territory. Of course, if we see what's coming we refuse the time; which is
what
any store owner should do. But to suggest that a person has no right to
enter a store
to simply look at something that they have no intention of buying at that
store is
utter nonsense.

What does this have to do with MD birds, anyway?

Our bird club trip to Somerset Co. this past Saturday had a Lincoln's Sparrow.
O.K. Norm?


At 05:50 PM 11/22/99 -0500, you wrote:
>stamps@sea-east.com wrote:
>
>> What he did is no different from comparison shopping for a refrigerator,
>> furniture, etc. between department stores. If you can't look at something
>> and compare and then go somewhere else, then you are at the mercy of the
>> first place you go to. Right?
>
>Wrong!   In the hypothetical case you posit, there is some chance that the
>individual will return to the first merchant and make a purchase.  When you
>go
>into a place with no intent to buy, and in fact an intent not to buy, but
>only to
>make use of a merchant's stock, salesperson's knowledge, and such in order
>to do comparisons with the intent to go cheap elsewhere, you are contributing
>
>to the demise of the retail system as it is now known.....and you deserve the
>
>inevitability of no info at all.
>
>To get a glimpse of that future, read the article at
>http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/22/152l-112299-idx.html
>
>Don't tell me it's not against the law and I won't tell you it's borderline
>morality.
>
>David Strother
>Bethesda, Maryland
>dstrother@pop.dn.net
>