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If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

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Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#71

Post by lionhearted »

cubicle67 wrote: post #54
axiom wrote: post #14

This is the difference between business-to-business versus buying consumer goods. You can't waste time negotiating with every client who buys a $50 pair of shoes from you - it's just not cost effective. So you have a fixed price for everyone. However you can (and should) negotiate with people buying $20k worth of services from you. Historically, the consumer experience is actually the exception, not b2b. Up until fai…

I bargain for almost everything (much to my wife's embarrassment :). One thing I've found, is that if you can't get them to reduce the price, you can often get extras thrown in. I recently bought a fairly expensive coffee machine (a real one, not one of those electronic ones); supplier wouldn't budge on price, but I did manage to get $400 credited to my account, 2x barrista training vouchers worth $150 each, and a fe…

Great comment.

> * Some stock is in constant demand, and you'll almost never get a discount. Black mens trousers, for example.

The flipside is, if you're a guy and you're willing to wear light blue, pink, purple, and yellow, you can get some seriously great buys. You can get very high quality clothes in those colors for dirt cheap sometimes, which is why around half of my wardrobe is bright.

It takes a little aesthetic knowledge so you don't look ridiculous, but everyone should probably learn a little basic aesthetics anyways - it's one of those areas that a tiny bit of knowledge pays huge dividends.

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#72

Post by unwind »

cubicle67 wrote: post #54
axiom wrote: post #14

This is the difference between business-to-business versus buying consumer goods. You can't waste time negotiating with every client who buys a $50 pair of shoes from you - it's just not cost effective. So you have a fixed price for everyone. However you can (and should) negotiate with people buying $20k worth of services from you. Historically, the consumer experience is actually the exception, not b2b. Up until fai…

I bargain for almost everything (much to my wife's embarrassment :). One thing I've found, is that if you can't get them to reduce the price, you can often get extras thrown in. I recently bought a fairly expensive coffee machine (a real one, not one of those electronic ones); supplier wouldn't budge on price, but I did manage to get $400 credited to my account, 2x barrista training vouchers worth $150 each, and a fe…

How is losing $450 a win for the seller? You mean it was a requirement to get your business, to throw in $450 of extras? I hope it was a very real coffee machine. Plumbed variety? :)

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#73

Post by vacri »

michael_dorfman wrote: post #70
vacri wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I mean if the doctor overruns putting your new liver in, it is by a few hours at most." Speaking as someone who went to get a new filling in June, went through getting a root canal on another tooth, and finally will end up going under a GA to get some more serious work done in a month or two, I can assure you that doctors (well, dentists) do not charge on a fixed-symptom basis. Even if you need to return to a doctor…

* I can assure you that doctors (well, dentists) do not charge on a fixed-symptom basis.* Interestingly, under the Medicare reimbursement system, that's pretty much exactly how they are paid (if the patient is a Medicare patient).

Are you honestly saying that if you go to your local bulk-billing doctor with a stubborn symptom that won't go away, necessitating multiple visits, that the doctor will only ever be paid for the first consultation? That the rest are all (metaphorically) 'bug-fixes that are included in the original fixed-price spec'?

Ain't so. Doctors get paid for their time, Medicare just has the government pay for it instead of the patient.

Also, dentists in particular are poorly covered by medicare here. I remember as a student going to a dentist that was affiliated with my uni and having the receptionist laugh when I pulled out my medicare card...

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#75

Post by vacri »

staunch wrote: post #62
vacri wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now I have an image of Lygon St spruikers madly typing in vi... A near lifelong citizen of Fitzroy and Brunswick, I've noticed that locals have shifted heavily away from Lygon St - for me, I refuse to eat there simply because even after you've had a satisfying dinner, you can't walk down the street without being accosted by every spruiker you come across. Having to walk a couple of hundred meters continually chanting…

For the rest of us. spruiker: (Australian) One who promotes his own cause; one who toots their own horn. (figurative) A person standing outside a place of business trying to persuade patrons to enter, or vigourously trying to persuade customers to purchase a their wares (ie. a fruiterer calling out the price of bananas)

It can sometimes be quite surprising to learn which words are a part of your local vernacular.:)

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#76

Post by merijnv »

Timothee wrote: post #65
jberryman wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah better stop with the haggling for stale donuts ;) What are "white/brown goods"?

White goods are washing machines, dish washers, fridges…, while brown goods are the audio/video stuff (TVs, stereo). Kind of old fashion but based on the typical color of these items (mostly from a couple of decades or more ago: washing machines and fridges are in many colors and A/V stuff is almost always black and/or silver) According to Wikipedia, it seems to be mostly a UK idiom.

This idiom appears exactly the same in Dutch (and thus possibly other languages too?)

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#77

Post by maxer »

detst wrote: post #35
mantas wrote: post #10

Been there, had most of those (and many other similar) situations.. The worst customer experience... Once a guy called me and asked for a quote. I told I prefer hourly rate * hours worked and explained why it's better for him. He called me crazy and insisted on fixed quote, although he wasn't even sure what he exactly wants. I did fast calculation in my mind and gave him a rough quote. I was bargaining at that time a…

So is it time to go 5-6x?

the cheaper your hourly rate is, the less that people respect you, simple.

if your not told your expensive on a monthly basis your too cheap

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#78

Post by InclinedPlane »

billswift wrote: post #66
InclinedPlane wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOL? Is that some sort of mass-market related startup?

Not a startup, more a winding-down. By the way, is AOL still doing that? I used to get a couple every year, but I haven't received one in several years now.

The joke is that AOL is so out of the game and so irrelevant to the modern internet that people might not have even heard of them at this point, mistaking them for some sort of startup that focused on mass-mailings. Though, as far as I can tell, they don't do that anymore.

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#79

Post by [deleted] »

unwind wrote: post #72
cubicle67 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bargain for almost everything (much to my wife's embarrassment :). One thing I've found, is that if you can't get them to reduce the price, you can often get extras thrown in. I recently bought a fairly expensive coffee machine (a real one, not one of those electronic ones); supplier wouldn't budge on price, but I did manage to get $400 credited to my account, 2x barrista training vouchers worth $150 each, and a fe…

How is losing $450 a win for the seller? You mean it was a requirement to get your business, to throw in $450 of extras? I hope it was a very real coffee machine. Plumbed variety? :)

[deleted]

Re: If people tried to pay for other services like they try to pay for programming

#80

Post by erikb »

The difference, as I see it, is just that these people in the video really fight for their right. The cook will let his fists talk, if they don't pay. That dvd guy will never buy this dvd and so on. In the IT world there is the problem that there are actually really many people that let themself beeing enslaved and accept those situations. If 60% of the dvd shops would react positively to bargaining, every client would try it. That is "just" the situation w face in our business.

If you didn't see it, I can connect you to some companies. Work for them for some months and you see that 90% of the coders there (contractors or employers) effectively put themself in slavery.

Although not all software developers are like this, we all have to suffer from the consequences of these acts of low selfevaluation.

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