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Gail Wynand posted:There's still plenty of corporate and luxury travel agents out there. That's the thing. Price transparency kills the low end of the market, where there is usually time but not money. But brokers tend to remain on the high end because the money saved is comparatively negligible to the people involved. This probably won't be killed off until we have AI that's as capable a broker as a human. Not anytime soon, in other words.
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# ? Aug 3, 2016 18:56 |
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# ? May 17, 2024 05:06 |
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Baby Babbeh posted:That's the thing. Price transparency kills the low end of the market, where there is usually time but not money. But brokers tend to remain on the high end because the money saved is comparatively negligible to the people involved. This probably won't be killed off until we have AI that's as capable a broker as a human. Not anytime soon, in other words. Also, removing negotiation and "big boxing" large purchases seems like a good deal initially, but over time it's more about letting the larger retailers set the terms and reduce consumer surplus while increasing producer surplus. The major appliance market has pretty much completely moved over to this, where you used to be able to go in and haggle and sometimes get a deal on your washer or dryer, now pretty much everyone goes to Best Buy or Sears or whatever and pays the sticker price. Culturally the US has really given over to flat pricing when it can often result in higher prices for the majority of consumers.
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# ? Aug 3, 2016 19:56 |
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e_angst posted:Also, removing negotiation and "big boxing" large purchases seems like a good deal initially, but over time it's more about letting the larger retailers set the terms and reduce consumer surplus while increasing producer surplus. The major appliance market has pretty much completely moved over to this, where you used to be able to go in and haggle and sometimes get a deal on your washer or dryer, now pretty much everyone goes to Best Buy or Sears or whatever and pays the sticker price. Culturally the US has really given over to flat pricing when it can often result in higher prices for the majority of consumers.
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# ? Aug 3, 2016 20:16 |
Yeah, haggling, if it's a rare thing for consumers, means a strong advantage for salespeople who have significant practice.
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# ? Aug 3, 2016 20:45 |
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e_angst posted:where you used to be able to go in and haggle and sometimes get a deal on your washer or dryer, now pretty much everyone goes to Best Buy or Sears or whatever and pays the sticker price. You can absolutely still do this, I've done it at both Best Buy and Sears for a washer and dryer. Might only be few bucks off but delivery/installation/hoses/etc are all on the table.
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# ? Aug 3, 2016 20:54 |
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Gail Wynand posted:There's still plenty of corporate and luxury travel agents out there. My parents just booked a trip to some kind of resort in Montenegro through an agent, and it wasn't a particularly luxury trip. Also my aunt works for one, and apparently business has been pretty lovely, but then she's in Russia that that would explain most of it. Still I'll try asking her about it the next time we speak (which might not be very soon). I think people still use them even for non-luxury mainly for convenience and feeling that you would be taken care of - no trying to catch a local bus from the airport or getting ripped off by taxi drivers, that sort of thing. There are some opportunities to extract economies of scale with larger groups so I think there's still some potential on the low end. As for corporate, well we're doing our best to demolish that by integrating all travel booking and expense handling in one, mostly automated web service. Although there still is some space in cases like organizing large events like all-hands meetings that currently require a bit of manual effort.
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# ? Aug 3, 2016 20:59 |
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Travel agents are especially handy if you're trying to do a group trip.
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# ? Aug 3, 2016 21:17 |
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go3 posted:Travel agents are especially handy if you're trying to do a group trip. Depending on where you are, travel agents insure you against your airline going tits up after paying.
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# ? Aug 3, 2016 22:33 |
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The other major thing the internet did was review sites. If you're the kind of place that actively dicks people over every way you can well...let's just say that 2/5 star rating is losing you business. Seeing as that sort of thing is a cell phone away now...yeah.
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 00:56 |
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In 2003 my mother wanted to see what kind of options she had for getting rid of her 94 Ford Taurus with, like, 46k miles on it. She worked at Universal Studios Hollywood and walked by a big franchise lot located right down the street from it, at around 11am. She gets 10 feet past the lot boundary before a salesman says hi how can I help you. She tells them she's comparison shopping, guy says he can give her 1200 for the car she drove in on if she makes a purchase that day. She passes and says she'll just look and write down prices. 20 minutes later we're driving to car storage lot so she can see "the new ones they haven't moved into the lot yet". This is a better deal because you don't have people touching everything or test driving them like the ones on the lot. She likes the Nissan X with the Y trim and Z cupholder attachments. Oh great, they have one just like that at the lot! They're just going to wash it in case she wants to drive off with a NEW CAR, k. Hey but wait guy I thought you said the ones here are better than-- oh you want to run the credit ok lets go back to the lot I guess. 40 minutes after that they're running her credit to see what offers they can give her. So sorry miss the computer that does this looks like it's broken so we're calling the bank we work with. Oh look, as an employee of [Universal Studios] you can get an extra special rate! While that Super Special Rate was cooking, they give us the 4-square to show what her payment would be. It's something crazy ridiculous, with a completely hosed loan rate (which makes no sense because her credit was hovering around the 800 range), with 0 down because they're just going to count the trade-in for that k. She gets up to leave and makes it to the edge of the lot when The Owner's Son's Cousin comes to let her know they have her Super Special [Employed at place] discount. Another 4 square, another 40 minutes. They basically knocked $300 off the car cost while upping the loan rate another .5% or something. She says it's still too expensive and that she would still have to talk to her husband about the purchase. She starts getting up and the salesman says something to the effect of "Oh, I thought you were an adult. Do you have to check everything you buy with your husband first". So we get out of dodge and have lunch at In-N-Out. Because it's like 2:00pm by then and we've wasted a hell of a lot of time at this place. The best part is that the dealer kept calling our house phone for a week, letting my mother know her shiny new Nissan X with the Y trim and Z cupholder attachment was ready to pick up but she should hurry because there's a young couple/guy with a BMW/cute girl/family that called that morning and said they wanted to look at it. My aunt had to answer and cuss the gently caress out of them to get them to stop. When my wife started looking for a new car in 2013, I emailed 5 lots, telling them I saw their Chevy X with the Y trim and wondered what their best price was. 3 lots said the best was what was listed online. The other two were amenable to an offer. One lot said they could hit my offer price and offer her another $50 off or a better loan term. She went in, test drove, liked the car and was done in 2 hours (paperwork and all that took forever). I still feel like we overpaid, but the mind games poo poo was at a minimum. Honestly, car buying is stressful as gently caress, ESPECIALLY when you know all the bullshit is used to pad some guy's bonus at the end of the day. I just need you to say The Car costs $xx,xxx, and taxes, title and registration an extra $xxx.xx so here's the total price to you. None of this bullshit about $14,999 with $1,000 SALE CREDIT (subject to $2,500 down payment only valid for 20 minutes act now), taxes and title are this much but we have a handling surcharge $75.00 and a destination cost $100.00 and a detailing and cleaning surcharge $200. oh and you qualify for a 1% loan APR reduction but the term has to be 72 months instead of 60 months. FilthyImp fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Aug 4, 2016 |
# ? Aug 4, 2016 01:35 |
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I don't think anyone gave a poo poo about what slave overseers did after slavery was outlawed and I don't think we should give a poo poo about what will happen to car salesmen because the vast majority of them are the worst kind of coked out predators who feel zero qualms about loving someone's life up for a couple hundred extra bucks
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 01:56 |
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http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/513/129-cars This is a good listen on the subject of car dealers.
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 02:06 |
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There's also a great exposé on Edmunds.com called Confessions of a Car Salesman that walks you through what they do.
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 03:19 |
rscott posted:I don't think anyone gave a poo poo about what slave overseers did after slavery was outlawed and I don't think we should give a poo poo about what will happen to car salesmen because the vast majority of them are the worst kind of coked out predators who feel zero qualms about loving someone's life up for a couple hundred extra bucks Ex car salespeople become mattress store clerks and real estate agents. I'm being completely serious.
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 04:40 |
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Shifty Pony posted:Ex car salespeople become mattress store clerks and real estate agents. I always suspected there was a secret driver behind the real estate bubbles beyond government de-regulation, low central-rates, tax subsidies for ownership and income inequality.
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 06:27 |
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twodot posted:Is there evidence this is true? If retailers are setting prices with the expectation it will be haggled down, I'd expect them to set them higher than they would otherwise, and I'd expect retailers to be better at haggling than your average consumer who just wants to get their appliance and leave. I don't see a reason haggling would necessarily benefit the consumer. The fact is that retailers have way more ability to understand the price of appliance, since it's literally their full time job to sell the appliance, I don't see any way obscuring information benefits the average consumer, even if individuals are able to find good deals. This is common in sale environments too - you jack up the price 50%, then advertise 20% discounts (20% off of 1.5 is 1.2).
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 06:51 |
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e_angst posted:Also, removing negotiation and "big boxing" large purchases seems like a good deal initially, but over time it's more about letting the larger retailers set the terms and reduce consumer surplus while increasing producer surplus. The major appliance market has pretty much completely moved over to this, where you used to be able to go in and haggle and sometimes get a deal on your washer or dryer, now pretty much everyone goes to Best Buy or Sears or whatever and pays the sticker price. Culturally the US has really given over to flat pricing when it can often result in higher prices for the majority of consumers. I'm willing to pay more to not have to haggle. Why would I possibly want to waste time on that.
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 07:50 |
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I feel like the days/idea of haggling was better served in small townships or cities where there was a strong nucleus of community. Mason's Carparts and Auto Shack might drop the price because shucks its your first car and you'll be back for service. Jon's Appliance Warehouse can waive the $50 transport and setup because they want to get rid of the model and you'll have to buy wheeliegigs for it once and a while. Best Buy says gently caress you I have a nation's worth of suckers if you don't want it we'll find someone who does. No skin off of our multinational multimillion dollar nuts. Hence, the perfect environment for a Haggling app. We get the most stringent ethnic minorities to haggle on your behalf!
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 08:28 |
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rscott posted:I don't think anyone gave a poo poo about what slave overseers did after slavery was outlawed and I don't think we should give a poo poo about what will happen to car salesmen because the vast majority of them are the worst kind of coked out predators who feel zero qualms about loving someone's life up for a couple hundred extra bucks The former became pirates, the latter will run for president
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 09:01 |
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go3 posted:Travel agents are especially handy if you're trying to do a group trip. Or for travel outside the US where sometimes you can't plan your whole trip off of google searches.
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 10:42 |
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Travel agents are useful for planning trips to countries where there is a nonzero chance of being kidnapped and/or murdered. So most of the world.
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 12:57 |
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blowfish posted:I'm willing to pay more to not have to haggle. Why would I possibly want to waste time on that. I like to haggle, you pay sticker, an I'll put in a little time and pay less. For what it's worth you don't have to haggle at any car dealerships, they will sell you whatever car you want for the price on the window.
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 14:16 |
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Remember that haggling also includes calling up Comcast and faking that you're going to cancel so you get free HBO for a year or whatever.
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# ? Aug 4, 2016 14:39 |
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FilthyImp posted:Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it were some stealth anti-jewish poo poo there. It's more of a "let your owners have at least one day off a week" law, so it's sort of what you'd call a bourgeois law.
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# ? Aug 5, 2016 12:54 |
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FilthyImp posted:Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it were some stealth anti-jewish poo poo there. you are one dumb motherfucker huh
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# ? Aug 5, 2016 13:28 |
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blowfish posted:I'm willing to pay more to not have to haggle. Why would I possibly want to waste time on that. Yeah, it's pretty sweet when your employer has an in with a major manufacturer and you get to just buy cars for invoice without any haggling. Even high demand models.
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# ? Aug 5, 2016 15:07 |
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cowofwar posted:Travel agents are useful for planning trips to countries where there is a nonzero chance of being kidnapped and/or murdered. So most of the world. Where's the place where there's a zero chance of being kidnapped and/or murdered?
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# ? Aug 5, 2016 16:51 |
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Gort posted:Where's the place where there's a zero chance of being kidnapped and/or murdered? Antarctic http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/countries-with-lowest-murder-rates.html Apparently Monaco and Palau. cowofwar fucked around with this message at 17:02 on Aug 5, 2016 |
# ? Aug 5, 2016 16:59 |
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Gort posted:Where's the place where there's a zero chance of being kidnapped and/or murdered? Amundsen Base Efb
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# ? Aug 5, 2016 17:00 |
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Shifty Pony posted:Furries always manage to shock me with the amount of money some of them are willing to throw at anything and everything furry. Isn't that the point of most porn, though? Watching the sex you wish you could be having?
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# ? Aug 6, 2016 03:56 |
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Shifty Pony posted:Furries always manage to shock me with the amount of money some of them are willing to throw at anything and everything furry. the oculus rift will make all things possible
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# ? Aug 6, 2016 04:17 |
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Shifty Pony posted:And then I think about how unhappy someone must be with their own body/self/situation that they are willing to spend thousands on random porn art commissions which include their avatar fulfilling the fetishes that they themselves can never actually fulfill and it makes me a bit sad. This is what I think about people that act like the "retro Thinkpad" is a real thing that's gonna happen.
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# ? Aug 6, 2016 04:30 |
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Liquid Communism posted:Isn't that the point of most porn, though? Watching the sex you wish you could be having? David Duchovny of all people has sought treatment for watching too much porn. Have you ever heard of that beetle that will have sex with discarded brown bottles until it dies, because attractive=large&shiny&brown and female beetles can't compete?
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# ? Aug 7, 2016 01:20 |
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Arglebargle III posted:David Duchovny of all people has sought treatment for watching too much porn. Have you ever heard of that beetle that will have sex with discarded brown bottles until it dies, because attractive=large&shiny&brown and female beetles can't compete? I've never heard of it before, but seems to me like you've found MGTOW a mascot!
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# ? Aug 7, 2016 01:30 |
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I've never heard of it before, but seems to me like you've found MGTOW a mascot! Waiting until this becomes reality
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# ? Aug 7, 2016 01:56 |
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cowofwar posted:Antarctic What the hell, Indonesia has a rate of 1 per 100,000? No way. Its low, but there has to be poo poo tons of under-reporting
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# ? Aug 7, 2016 05:47 |
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Mister Gopher posted:What the hell, Indonesia has a rate of 1 per 100,000? No way. Its low, but there has to be poo poo tons of under-reporting That was the year Utoya happened in Norway, and they still made the top 10
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# ? Aug 7, 2016 08:20 |
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sarehu posted:This is what I think about people that act like the "retro Thinkpad" is a real thing that's gonna happen. Any day now, Lenovo promised! Look at those dual ThinknLights! The 7-row keyboard and dedicated audio buttons!
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# ? Aug 7, 2016 08:46 |
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The T4*0S series aren't far off, though? (And I'll take the mac-style keyboard lights on my T450S over Thinknlights any day). But yeah, I would not object to having the PgUp/PgDn keys in a sensible place, or a return to 4:3 aspect ratio. Um, this is a terrible derail, isn't it? Can we talk about the dumpster fire of non-FDA approved private blood testing instead?
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# ? Aug 7, 2016 10:08 |
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# ? May 17, 2024 05:06 |
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hehequote:Hampton Creek Ran Undercover Project to Buy Up Its Own Vegan Mayo http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-04/food-startup-ran-undercover-project-to-buy-up-its-own-products
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# ? Aug 7, 2016 13:55 |