10 Percent Surcharge has been cancelled

[fishface]

Originally Posted by atcguy

You cant trust others to come to your place and have envelopes of money available to them.

just because there's money in an envelope doesn't mean it's available to them...just like his tv, computer, stereo etc are not available to his customers either. someone stole from him and thats wrong, being in business, that's his perogative if he needs to recoup money lost, no matter how it was lost. customers still have the option of shopping somewhere else if they feel they're not paying a fair price.

sorry you had to go through that Neal and good luck getting your money back.

[SJSobczyk]

Originally Posted by Chad

I have to disagree with those who think the charge is unfounded, its a standard practice and every business does it, if they don't good for them. However, generaly speaking, we pay a "theft" tax on every item we buy, its just not advertised, its worked into the markup.

I highly disagree with this statement. As a business owner we do not markup our products to include a "theft" tax. We markup our products to cover our bottom line, and make a couple bucks as well. If something is stolen, then it is our responsibility to secure our items more, and not pass that loss on to other customers by charging more.

I have no problem what Howdy is doing as he has the right to do it. He has great product and puts alot of time and passion into it. I will fully support him in the future.

Steve

[X-Treme]

To all those who think he should not be trying to recoup his money and think that it is HIS fault that someone stole from him, I say..............


WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?


Maybe he should just shut everything down to us honest people who are willing to buy from him. That way things won't be "there for the taking" EH????

GEEZ....the things some people say REALLY PI$$ me off!!

As for NEAL.......10% on YOUR prices is NUTHIN. I would GLADLY pay an extra 10%

As for the person or personS who did this...........THIS is what should happen to YOU....

END RANT!!!

Sorry if I offended anyone else here.

[Chad]

Originally Posted by SJSobczyk

I highly disagree with this statement. As a business owner we do not markup our products to include a "theft" tax. We markup our products to cover our bottom line, and make a couple bucks as well. If something is stolen, then it is our responsibility to secure our items more, and not pass that loss on to other customers by charging more.
Steve

It find it hard to believe that as a business owner you fail to see how stolen goods affect your bottom line. Like you say, you have the responsibilty to secure your items. Ok, so lets look at that. You install cameras, maybe hire a few more people so your retail space is covered. Now you have incured higher costs, and now you must raise your prices in order to compensate for the additional costs.

Call it whatever you want, either way your adding a cost to your product so that you can be successful.

I conceed that as a small business owner, they may want to absorb the costs because their products have such a small margin for profit as it is. And by adding an additional cost will alienate some customers, but I certainly challenge you to find a large or medium retail outlet such as Walmart, and tell me they do not take into consideration theft and damages for that matter, and add that to their markup prices.

Sucks to be a small business in this sense.

[atcguy]

you would have been better off to just up your prices and not tell anyone its because of a theft tax. It truly sucks that you got taken for, but as others have said you cant just make people pay for others crimes. Maybe you have great prices but its not the point. its great you have support from people saying they will pay your 10 percent, you obviously have loyal customers and friends. If your prices are soo great then just tack on another 10 percent. If I knew what I paid before and now found out I am paying another 10 % theft tax I wouldnt be a customer anymore. Sorry Just my 2 cents. Oops your car broke down.... tack on another 20 !! MY PRICES STILL CANT BE BEAT!!!! Eat it Man your a business owner. SHIT happens !!!

[Fish]

I think it's funny that anyone who doesn't agree with the additional charge, mostly has a problem with it because they are being told what it's for.
Your right, a business owner has the right/responsibility to increase prices when their bottom line is threatened... it happens all the time, prices are always creeping up, never down.
I think it is a little bit refreshing that this vender is actually telling his customers the reason for the increase... maybe ignorance is bliss, but I think it's easier to take the increase in a case where "jeesh guys, I wouldn't normally do this but X happened and now I have to..."
He has also stated that the increase was a temporary measure until he has recouped the loss... also a really decent gesture.
I've never seen his operation, but I am assuming that he has to sell a lot of coral to make $1000 profit. In this hobby we have seen too many LFS go out of business because it wasn't profitable for them... if this is what it takes to make it worth his time to stay in the business, then I say go for it! Unless, you like ordering your livestock online, we need good local venders.

- Chad

[howdy20012002]

It is funny how this has sparked a controversy.
It is getting to be counter-productive, so I am going to try to put this to rest.
What I have learnt out of this is that obviously I am too honest and trustworthy of people.
Number one mistake is that, yes, I was trusting of people when I had put my money away into a envelop into a money box on my counter. Obviously that was a big mistake and trust me, I paid dearly for it. Maybe I should start hiding my stereo system, the big screen TV, or my laptop when people come in so that they aren't tempted by that either.
Second, I was honest with people and told them that, because of this loss, I was going to temporary increase the prices to compensate for the loss. I would have obviously been better off to just increase the prices with no clear indication as to why.
If you think that places like big Al's don't have to compensate for theft with their pricing, you are living in a dream world. They just call it overheard verses what it is really for - theft of merchandise.
It is always about the bottom line, and let me tell ya, it wil probably take about 3 months for me to even break even again with this fish business because of this lodd.
I have 2 businesses and I work fulltime in the army. I spend the most amount of time on this fish stuff and yet I receive the least amount of compensation back for it.
I do this because I love this hobby.
Because of this love of this hobby, I am going to cancel the 10 Percent Surcharge. Thankfully I make more than enough money elsewhere that this isn't going to make me lose my house because the 1000.00 bucks was my mortgage payment.
Ultimately, this isn't about the money to me. (a thousand bucks ain't going to make or break me, which is why I am cancelling the surcharge.) It is about the fact that I have learnt that I can't trust people. It is about the fact that there is now a air of suspicion around people that shouldn't have it on them. That is what gets me.
thanks again for those that showed support and for those that showed me the opposite side of things as well. everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
BTW, as an aside.
1. Yes, I do have house insurance for a small business.
2. I did contact the police and was basically told that it wasn't worth the time to fill out the paperwork. They aren't going to fingerprint for a 1000.00 bucks and even that probably wouldn't show anything.
3. Anyone that did pay the 10 percent, I will compensate you that money back, just contact me and we will sort it out.
Anyhoos.
thanks for reading
Neal

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by howdy20012002

It is funny how this has sparked a controversy.
It is getting to be counter-productive, so I am going to try to put this to rest.

One of life's most important lessons, if you give the yammer-heads something to yammer about it'll never end. I actually thought it was pretty cool that you were being so up front about the whole thing but wasn't especially surprised that it ended up how it did.

People need to realize that they pay a little bit more for everything they buy because of this kind of thing. Every retailer does it, they have no other recourse.

[Psyire]

Maybe setup a 'donation jar' or something similar at your counter or whatever. Have a note saying that it's an attempt to recover your $1000 dollar loss. You'd be surprised how many people would donate a few bucks. This would probably work out a lot better than a mandatory surcharge.

[Psyire]

...if everyone donates something... keep a close eye on the guy who dosen't. lol