Buyer Beware: Big Al's Calgary

[intarsiabox]

Originally Posted by TheMikey

Like you said, the problem is that online stores don't have to worry about paying employees, shipping, lease on property, etc. so they can do it cheaper than a brick and mortar store. With this in mind, I would never honour a price brought in from the internet if I were working in retail (and I did, for nine years). It's like printing off a price from eBay and trying to get Futureshop to match it.

Of coarse they have all these expenses to worry about. On-line stores have huge warehouses that they have to pay to have the goods shipped in, orders over $35 ship free from Big Al's so guess who's paying for the shipping, the warehouse doesn't come for free (lease, taxes, utilities), lots of warehouse people to pay salaries to, plus customer service reps and people doing the accounting/billing. They have all the expenses of a retail store but since it's on a much larger scale and don't have customer wandering around the warehouse it can be done more efficiently and they also don't have the live animals to deal with reducing costs further.