| rev:text
| - My wife and I visited Vertical Runner in Hudson today to buy a new pair of athletic shoes for my wife to wear to exercise classes.
First, let me begin with some well deserved compliments. This store has a great selection and is well organized. The sales associate who helped us was absolutely wonderful to work with. She was very helpful and seemed genuinely very interested in helping my wife to make the best possible choice.
In fact, the service provided by VR's sales associate is the kind of service I typically do not mind paying a bit more to receive - and I always prefer to buy locally when I can.
The problem surfaced at checkout, my first indication the shoes my wife had picked out are $110, $117.15 with tax. While my wife was trying on the shoes, (Nike Lunar Glide+), I was curious about the price range and scanned the bar code on the box with my iPhone. The results showed one chain of stores at $70 and most other stores at $80. Again, I do not mind paying more to buy locally, particularly when the service is as good as we received at Vertical Runner. But not 36% more.
We canceled the sale at Vertical Runner and, when we got to our car, ordered the shoes from one of the retailers listed on the price comparison. After an additional $10 discount offered because the shoes were not available in a nearby local store the competing chain owns, we placed the order for a total of $72.92 with four day shipping; a $44.23 total difference.
I really would like to buy from Vertical Runner in the future. But VR should understand their pricing needs to be competitive with other options customers can easily explore from their smart phones in seconds. That is the nature of competition for retailers today. VR does not need to be the lowest every time to win my business. But they do need to be competitive.
|