Have You Driven a Hard Bargain Lately?
It's getting harder and harder to determine the price of anything these days. It used to be simple - all prices ended in 99 so you just added 1 to whatever price they're trying to make you think about. Then houses started costing "in the low 200's" which meant the high two hundreds or middle three hundreds, so the math was all wrong. If you need cable TV or internet you have to wade through a lot of tripe to find out what it will actually cost after the initial 6 month period, and even then the price will go up every month so there is no way of telling in advance what the cost will be. Phones are almost the worst - if you search for phones sorted by price ascending all of the truly expensive phones sort to the top at zero dollars because they don't advertise the actual price (some horrible amount every month locked in for three years). The phone you can afford sorts to the bottom because it actually has a price on it. So sort on price descending and you'll get a more accurate idea of the cost.
A well-known evil corporation used to run clever ads in which some minor official in an Evilmart uniform ran around the store whacking signs which then fell apart revealing lower prices. This raises several questions: Does this guy work for Evilmart? Likely not because he disappeared off TV a while back. What did they do to him when they caught him? If he was legit, then what can account for Evilmart's incompetence with pricing? Maybe if they paid more than minimum wage they could hire someone with a degree in cost accounting. Or maybe I should sell all my Evilmart stock. The actual reason for the signs falling apart to reveal lower prices is likely pretty benign. I think there's another guy who runs around the store slapping higher prices on everything. But since they get shoddy overseas signs they literally fall apart when you touch them. Probably the real price rings up at the cash register though.
But the award for the most misleading pricing surely has to go to car dealers. I hate shopping for a vehicle and the website tells you the price is a certain amount and you think "I can afford that" but the more you look into it the worse it gets. Let's take a look at the Random motor corporation's website. I'm looking at a Random pickup truck, the R150. A fine truck. The website says it costs $30,099. So far so good. You immediately add 1 to the price giving you $30,100. I can afford that. But wait - there's a very small "1" beside the price. I wonder what that means. There is no reference to what a very small "1" may mean on this page. So it mustn't be important. There's also a very small "2" next to the mileage but that's a story for another day. Anyhow, you click on the link to build and price your truck and right away you find that your truck can actually cost as much as $80,279 right out of the box which is even worse when you add 1 to it and get $80,280. I can't afford that. So let's stick to the radio flyer version for $30,100.
Apparently I can get employee pricing. I guess they don't value their employees any more than they do random people on their website. That probably shows up in sick days and quality control. But I digress. I can get up to $3,250 in manufacturer's rebates and $750 in "Bonus" for buying this vehicle. That's great! Now the price is actually $29,100. I can definitely afford that. In the past I have seen discounts for being in the military and even for having a membership at a particular big box store. All good. The price keeps coming down. But if you spend the time and track down that little "1" beside the MSRP you'll find that it has assumed all available discounts and incentives, and what that means is that all of these incentives and special offers are in fact hidden costs . The actual cost is now higher than what you were thinking by a factor of two times the discounts and special offers. Unless you happen to work for the militant arm of Boxco.
Next time you buy a car and they pull out the big contract for you to sign, whip out your own for them to sign. It can be quite simple, just saying that you agree to pay them $30,100 for their vehicle. But with a little "1" beside that figure. Later on your contract says the dealership may be eligible for up to $30,100 in buyer bux and incentives, depending on whether the dealer can fly using only his mind or whether the dealership building is in another dimension. You just might score yourself a free car.