Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
When you buy a new car, you go to a dealer and test drive. Then you haggle on price.
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This has a practical application for me because we buy cars new, then keeping them for many years until virtually worthless, and pay cash. And -- I dislike haggling.
One alternative is to buy a no-haggle brand like Scion, which (unless there has been recent policy change) allows dealer discounting, but requires every purchaser, during a calendar month, to be given the same price.
Another alternative is to buy from a no-haggle dealer.
In both cases, a dealer offering an attractive no-haggle discounted price is rare, and thus likely to be a considerable distance from us. So we don't want to go there twice. And my wife Barbara wants a test drive. So it is tempting to test locally and go to a different dealer when ready to buy.
In a Scion forum, I once suggested that the test ride is a required service dealers provide to buyers under terms of their franchise agreement with the manufacturer -- so it is perfectly fine for us to get a test drive from a dealer we know we won't buy from. One of the posting dealers politely disagreed, and I have to say he made a good case.
Unlike a car dealer, a bookseller isn't a franchisee of the publisher. The local bookseller deals with a wholesaler, not the publisher. And online sellers do not use the same (or, more likely, any) wholesaler. So if there is no chance of buying from the bookseller, browsing there is, I'm afraid, not the highest moral choice.
Quote:
Originally Posted by joblack
Congratulations to Mr. Nicholls. He has been added to my 'red list' of authors and books to avoid.
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Hopefully this is because you read to get new perspectives, and since Nicholls thinks like you do, it's pointless to read him. Have I got that right
