1st- having shopped at West Marine and other chandleries in
different parts of the country, in my experience the level
of help & knowledge at the stores ranges from none (or even
negative) to very very good.

2nd- Dave is right (although not very tactful), West Marine
is only in one business and therefor not a conglomerate even
if they have bought out other retailers.


Bill Kearney wrote:
You want local chandleries but expect them to compete against online
pricing?


Well sure. If complaining about it could make that happen,
why not?



My gripe against West Marine is their generally higher prices, say
compared to
what I can find online.

Take the time to print it out and they'll often price match.


Correct... often they will add the cost of shipping to their
price match, which is only reasonable IMHO.



The big conglomerates like West Marine seems to
have forced out all the competition.

Is it the conglomerates or unrealistic shopper expectations?



I think expecting a brick-and-mortar store to match on line
prices every day is pretty much a textbook definition of
"unrealistic expectation." It's also a good recipe for
making sure that you won't have a local retailer, if enough
people share your expectation.

Consumer taste for the cheapest possible goods is also the
reason why the U.S. manufacturing sector (having finally got
the message about quality control) is in the dumper.


sherwindu wrote:
No, it's the lack of competition allowing them to charge whatever they want.
Why should I have to bargain with them by showing ads for items at lower
prices.

Why indeed. Just don't buy it. That's far easier and cheaper
and you don't have to drive anywhere.


I prefer buying in a store where I can see the merchandise.

I do too.

.... My expectations
are that there should be a reasonable mark up on merchandise.

Well, that's their expectation too
You just disagree on the definition of "reasonable."

Another problem is the bargaining thing. Why do you exepct
to not have to bargain? In many places in the world, *all*
markets are barter-only. Haggling over prices is probably
the most universal human pastime; here in the U.S. we have
gotten away from it because of the tremendous amount of
money spent on advertising to convince us that we shouldn't.

And guess what, the price of the products we buy covers the
expensive advertising and we think we're getting a good
deal... anybody else see the humor in this?

DSK