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False economy on Cold Rick

I run a retail store in Queensland Australia. A customer comes in the other day and wants two unusual bolts in plastic. The retail price was just under $2.50 each and they have to come from the USA.

Rather than put an order into the USA for just 2 bolts I told him that if he orders 4, we would add another 6 to the order for our own stock to make it a little more worthwhile for our supplier in the USA.

He says he doesn't want to spend $9.80 and will go for a drive around to find somewhere where he can just get two.

So rather than spend a measly $9.80, this guy has just decided to waste more time driving around town and waste petrol which probably cost him a lot more than $10.00 looking for something that is not going to be easy to find. If he even found what he was looking for he probably thought he saved money by going for the drive.

This isn't an isolated case. We have had plenty of other customers who seem to forget that time and petrol cost money too. Take for example the guy who wanted one single hex key, so rather than buying the pack of 10 we had for $2.00 he decided to waste our time and his, arguing that we should be prepared to break a pack for him and sell him one for 20 cents "because he only needed one and would have no use for the other nine". He then proceeded to take a drive (petrol = money, time = money) to see if he could find somewhere that would sell him just one. He may have found one for $1.00 somewhere and he probably went away thinking he had saved a heap.

Thanks for providing this site so I can release some of my frustration with these customers.

Regards
Justin