Buy Local

I tried.

I needed a replacement mirror for the passenger side
of my pickup truck. While backing up with a trailer
in the forest on my farm, I got the mirror up against
a tree and made a bunch of little mirrors out of the
large one. I got a price of about $225 for a
replacement mirror from Kevin's Auto Body.

So I went to the Auto Value parts store on US2 in
Iron River. They ordered a replacement mirror for
me, but when it arrived a couple of days later it
was the wrong one. So the clerk called in to his
supplier and came up with a price in the high $68
range but I also saw him write down his cost of
$ 31.89.

I haggled. In my opinion, the ordinary markups
(typically doubling the cost to the customer)
are not realistic for an item that a retailer
has not had to inventory. Here's how it works
for special order items.

The retailer orders the item that arrives a
couple of days later. The day the supplier ships
the item, the supplier puts the cost on the
retailer's account that the retailer receives,
on average, 15 days later, and then has about
20 more days to pay. So the wholesaler carries
the cost of the special order item on the books
for, on average, about 35 days. The retailer
generally has his money from the sale on the
second day. This means that any special ordered
item will, on average, result in the sale amount
of money in the retailer's account for 32 to 33
days, at interest. Given no outlay till well
after the retailer gets payment, a 100% plus
markup is, in my opinion, severely unreasonable.
The retailer experiences no risk whatever,
and that's one of the elements that goes into
retail markup!

Inventory costs (the cost of money and warehousing)
are built into the wholesale price for the item.

Anyway, I walked away from the Auto Value store
without ordering this item. As I told them I would,
I came home and got on the internet and found I
could buy the replacement mirror for $18 and
change with something under $13 for shipping
and handling, so the total price for ordering
off the internet came out to be a few cents
over $31.

The cost difference to the consumer, between
$31, and $68 is plenty big, but even larger yet
is the difference to the highest price of $225.

Is it any wonder so many people have abandoned
"main street" merchants in rural area like Iron
County? I don't mind paying a small premium, with
a limit of perhaps $45 tops for this mirror. That
would mean a 45% premium over what the internet
cost is, and a 15% markup based on what I know
the local merchant was going to pay for it. By
increasing his sales while charging reasonable
rates for special orders, any merchant could
make a nice living out of that.

The $68 cost to me would be a 119% premium over
what the internet wants to charge me and $225
would represent a 625% premium.

I'd like to help the local merchants, but they
won't let me, not when they do their customers
like this. I've had Kevin's do some work for me
in the past. They really do very nice work, and
as things happen, I'll continue to use them for
body work and painting. But as a parts supplier,
sorry!

Bill Vajk