Reply #9: Is it within your power to do a deal?

[lapfog_1]

Given the state of the economy, belligerent attitude not withstanding, it might have been a wise decision to honor the pricing.

Not that the guy has a "right to expect that" nor should he get special consideration because he was an asshole to the clerk and to you. But, otoh, he had money to spend. And, apparently, your store isn't going to lose money on the price he was willing to pay.

I ran my own retail place for a brief period... and on some extremely slow days I would make deals at the end of the day just to have a little bit of profit to show for the effort, figuring that if I sold something for $5 over what I knew my cost was (these were $30 and $40 asking price items, costing me $12 or $15 from a wholesale outlet) at least I was getting $5 x number of items for my time. Having $100 for the day sure beats having $10... not to mention that someone walking by, seeing a customer buy an item, causes them to want whatever is being sold. Whenever I could, I would try to encourage the appearance of a "rush" because I knew on those days I would clear $500 to $1000, even if I was taking a "loss" on the first few buyers (I would make sure to drag out the sale of the loss leader items, pretending to have to get a "new one" from the back and so forth, just to generate the look of being really busy).

Given the state of things right now, I would think that retailers would want to move inventory more than make margin.