Jez, our cat who has not been outside in over a year, has fleas for the first time. Since I've never had a cat with fleas before, I had no idea what it was. So we probably caught it rather late - after she shed quite a few flea eggs onto our bed and they had time to hatch near the foot.... and well, it's just not pleasant.
A trip to PETCO was in order. Off we went with a vague idea of what we were looking for. I had looked up Frontline on the computer and the PETCO website said it was $41.99 for 3 months. A bit hefty but oh well.
We get to the store only to discover that it costs $64.99 there, and they will not match the price on their website. Absurd. I hadn't seen the notice at the very bottom of the webpage that said "Regular and sale prices, offers and selection on PETCO.com may vary from those of PETCO stores and the PETCO Store Circular." And really, charging 55% more in the store - what is the justification for that? A premium not to wait for it to ship? Pathetic.
So I asked the cashier if she could give us any discount at all. After discussing it with a manager, we were able to get it for $55. Still a markup but 31% instead of 55%. Later, we learned that we can get it for $35 at a local animal rescue league. We will definitely be looking into that.
The point is that you can get discounts at a chain store. It helped that my boyfriend re-looked up the price on his Blackberry and was able to prove to them that it was a lot cheaper online.
And hopefully after Frontline, furniture spray, and a fogger , we will soon be flea-free.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Fleas
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3 comments:
ugh- fleas. but good money saving tip!! shouldn't let them get away with such markups- good for you!
As far as I can figure retail (or retail-ish) stores with ecommerce websites generally charge more in the store than through a website for a few reasons. One is the additional cost of staffing cashiers, knowledgeable staff, a shelving crew, costs of maintaining inventory, and overhead from the building itself. You may also have franchising factors that might cause the person/group of people who own your local PETCO to increase the prices. I still believe to some extent there is at least some price retail stores will charge simply because someone wants the product right now.
Shopping on the web is probably the best place to shop for most things if you're looking to watch your money.
Excellent point, Roger! I hadn't really thought about it like that. It does make sense, although I do think many of those costs exist for ecommerce as well - paying employees to package and ship things, maintaining the inventory, paying for the building it is stored in, etc.
It's also good to know this is common practice, so I can avoid mistakenly thinking something will cost the same in the store as it did online in the future.
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