Price gouging by companies

You would think it’s 100% his fault if you read half of my Facebook feed. 🤦🏼‍♀️

It’s not just the big firms.

Lapidary is one of my hobbies, and there is a certain cutter of a certain type of stone whose work I am always amazed by. He mines Maine tourmaline and is a wizard cutting it.

Yesterday, I drove nearly two hours to immerse myself in “Christmas” in Kennebec, Maine and meet a friend for dinner. It was the last day of their annual Prelude. Kennebec has a lot of small, local, beautiful shops, and it’s a place I always love to “shop small.” Especially at Christmas time. It was rainy and toward the end of the day, and it was the last day of Prelude, whose main event for the day had been canceled. So there were few people around.

Anyway, I went into a jewelry store, and saw a beautiful ring, made with a perfect (to me) stone, that I really really would have loved to have had. I tried it on, and it was perfect. I could see the tag on it, and it was in budget. I asked how much it was (because jewelry is always on sale.) I was working with the owner of the store. She took the ring back and read the price on the tag. I wasn’t in the mood to play around, so I asked her if the setting could be changed to yellow gold. She said yes, but it would cost more, because the price of gold had gone up since the ring was made. Reasonable, so I asked her what she thought it would be. $700 more! At that point, the ring wasn’t looking so special any more, so I said thank you, I’d have to think about it, and made to leave. Thinking she’d come up with a better price. Nope.

I went across the street to meet my friend (a local who is active in town setting up Prelude) for dinner, and she said for Prelude there should have been a 20% discount, she knows the owner and we could go back across the street. By then, I had no interest in the ring. The lady at the jewelry store probably didn’t want to mark such an expensive ring down that far, but she also lost out on an over $10,000 sale by dithering about $700.

I’ll just have the cutter sell me a stone and have it set elsewhere. Shop really small I suppose lol

To the more direct point of the article, I’m amazed at the price of bottled drinks still. A case of Spindrift went from 3.99 to 5.99 or 6.99 and has stayed there. Even random drinks in convenience stores are silly expensive. Gone are the 2/2 or 2/3 on sodas and waters.

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

I rarely order anything but water when I eat out, but I really wanted an iced tea with dinner the other night and ordered one without looking at the price on the menu. I was a little taken aback when I got my bill--$4.49!!!! That is ridiculous for a glass of tea. Of course I paid it without complaint because the price was clearly marked on the menu (I checked the stack at the entrance when we were leaving). 

How many of us really look at drink prices before ordering? I mean, they seat you, hand over the menus and immediately ask for your drink order. I am used to seeing $2.50 or even 2.99, but $4.49? I could have ordered the daily cocktail special for only $6 LOL.

From now on, I will not be placing a drink order until I look at the prices.

I am also sticking to my lists.  Companies are going to charge as much as they can as long as people will pay the price.  

I notice it mostly at the grocery store with items I consistently buy. If the price hasn't gone up, then the amount of product has decreased in the package.

companies bank on the consumer will not noticing the incremental decrease in product size or weight while staying at the same price.  same box but 1 oz less product.  same dress but cheaper fabric. same printer but more plastic parts that are sturdy. 

i saw a video of someone who swears the McDonald's Filet o Fish is much smaller now that it used to be.  i believe it.  restaurants are decreasing portions slowly so change is not immediately detectable but over time, it is obvious.  
 

Let’s remember too that people can’t avoid buying food and necessities no matter how much they’d like to stick it to the producers. Those living below the poverty line are feeling the worst effects of corporate greed because they typically only buy necessities. A big increase in their grocery bill then means they can’t pay rent or utilities.

Yes on the drinks. I don’t buy many but wanted a peppermint mocha frap. I used to be able to buy a four pack of them and considered it a splurge this time of year. They used to be 4.99 I found single bottles that were a big bigger but they were almost $4 each. Nope. We don’t buy soda but drink seltzer and it’s almost doubled in price. Chips and ice cream have doubled in price. Granted these are not necessities but still.

and let's not forget, as wages inch up, that additional cost for labor will mean an increase in the price of good and services. the prices of today may stabilize or slow down in growth but they will never go back down to what they were 3-10-15 years ago. those days are gone. and if people think that a new administration will miraculously roll back the cost of goods and services, they had better think again. prices go up regardless of who is in office. it's just a matter of who will suffer or benefit from tax reform, corporate incentives, and social benefits. believe it or not, 5-10 years from now, you will long for the prices of 2023 just as i wish it was 2013 prices again.

I hate this. Hate it. Wages are inching up, in tiny increments but they are not cutting into profit margins. Profits are what you have left after you subtract expenses and salaries are an expense. You know what does cut into profit margins? The bonuses paid out to ceos and upper management when there is a profit. But no one ever complains about that. Most of these corporations can easily absorb the cost of inching up salaries and we know they can because they managed to absorb the cost of exorbitant ceo pay all these years.

Sad to say, most corporations are not in the business of ethics, right, or good. Money is their motivating factor. Money for stockholders, money for management, money for the owners. They want you to believe good and right is their mission but it's really about the money. 

companies will never go beyond what the market will bear. That would leave them with no consumers. Doesn't make business sense to price everyone out. They know exactly how high or low they can go to still be profitable or competitive. 

But you're not really paying for the pasta and sauce. Like you said, it's a cheap staple. That plate of food is probably pennies for the actual food ingredients. Most of the price is for rent, utilities, employee wages, health care, food and supplies, etc.  

Just like sodas shouldn't cost $4.00 for ingredients that costs barely pennies per glass. Nope. It's all the other stuff. 

You do seem to defend the corporations. I disagree. I’m aware they aren’t ethical and I believe that’s wrong and should be changed. I also believe the greed is out of control and that companies are out of touch. They don’t know exactly how high they can go. They are already pricing people out of the market. Once they make it so the general public has spent all it has, they will take their money and declare bankruptcy and close their businessses. Something bad is happening and it will get worse before it gets better. The only way we save it is legislatively and collectively. But as long as people excuse it with “businesses are in business to make money,” it continues.