Fravega Versus Garbarino

[scotttswan]

Huge community here of people discussing how to get shit reduced/free cables thrown in and whatever else the retailer has at crazy markups.

Argentina the best bet is just wait for offers to come along. Make sure the Fravega price includes all the taxes etc. When i was looking a few years ago Staples had a great price on an LCD but when i got to the store that was the price without taxes.

Fravega and Garbarino also have outlet stores in the city, The Garbarino one was selling LCD's with dead pixel lines in them at 100-200 pesos cheaper than a working set. :lol:

 

[scotttswan]

The other day I went to Disco and was buying groceries for the week. My family likes powdered juices (they're cheap!). They had a sign up for boxes of the powdered Tang packets for 36 pesos a box. The individual packets were 2.46. 18 items in the box. I thought I saw a miracle happening, where there was a HUGE discount for buying in bulk so I grabbed three boxes of different flavors.

Vital.com.ar sells boxes in bulk, might be worth having a look.

 

[nlaruccia]

I know, I know, and bartering is such a respectably proletarian, "peasants and workers" type of thing, it makes no sense.

So proletarian that it's even common en Nordstroms and Best Buy?

http://www.today.com/video/today/53902686#53902686

 

[scotttswan]

So proletarian that it's even common en Nordstroms and Best Buy?

http://www.today.com...902686#53902686

Best Buy price match stuff, picked up a tablet that was on offer $30 cheaper a few years ago.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/help-topics/best-buy-low-price-guarantee/pcmcat297300050000.c?id=pcmcat297300050000

 

[steveinbsas]

Huge community here of people discussing how to get shit reduced/free cables thrown in and whatever else the retailer has at crazy markups.

Argentina the best bet is just wait for offers to come along. Make sure the Fravega price includes all the taxes etc. When i was looking a few years ago Staples had a great price on an LCD but when i got to the store that was the price without taxes.

Fravega and Garbarino also have outlet stores in the city, The Garbarino one was selling LCD's with dead pixel lines in them at 100-200 pesos cheaper than a working set. :lol:

The prices in Argentina include the 21% IVA. Sales tax is added to the retail price in the USA (except buying on line...at least for now in most states..unless you live in the same state as the seller).

I am finished with Garbarino.

 

[Ries]

I have both a Fravega and a Gabarino within a block of my place, and find that their prices are sometimes exactly the same, sometimes one is cheaper, sometimes the other.
I have not found any continuing price difference over time for one or the other- its strictly product by product, in my experience.

 

[ElQueso]

Totally. I ran into the same unwillingness to barter for a nearly expired palette of Fresca in a Kroger in Aurburn Hills Michigan, and found a similar unwillingness to haggle in Stop and Shop and Safeway. I can only assume this is due to the massive government subsidies for corn syrup and the Fed's constant manipulation of the commodities market.

And yet, if you bought a single can vs the entire palette there...it would cost you more, less or the same (regardless of expiry date, let's make things equal)?

Maybe I'm wrong but you seemed to making fun of my comments related to why they won't bargain here.

My point was that the government put price controls in place (that don't work!)...and the people applaud, without realizing the controls won't work and they won't fix anything because the prices aren't the basic problem but a symptom. But it's "unfair" that the prices rise. The whole idea of non-competition is a reason (not the only one) why price controls have acceptance here. No one wants competition here and are happy to accept things like a lack of discount pricing for quantity/bulk purchases (which are, indeed, different from price controls, but another area where they manifest the anti-competition idea). I didn't say it was the government putting price controls in that caused people to not to want to bargain (which it seemed we were counting bulk pricing as a kind of bargaining lever), but rather their desire to keep competition out of their lives that has to do with the lack of desire for bargaining.

Your example seems to presuppose that I'm saying anyone is willing to bargain anything in the US and that's kind of going to excess. Also, the last thing I applaud is subsidies and manipulation of markets. Anywhere.

And of course...you are MUCH more likely to find someone in the US to bargain over something that is about to expire so he doesn't have to throw it away than you are here. Hell, half the time you can't even get someone to sell you a floor model of something at a discount here (or, when it's the last item, to even sell it period!!), where it's fairly common practice in the US.

 

[EdRooney]

Cheese,

With all respect, yes I was poking fun at your response that "lack of bargaining comes from fixed or agreed-upon prices" because your contention does not hold water when transposed to a similar situation in the US. They don't haggle in Disco? Well they don't haggle at Ralph's either.

Do I think the whole fixed price thing is silly? Heck yeah, I've said so here several times. But frankly I don't find your making it the cause of an unwillingness to haggle to be too convincing.

My tongue-in-cheek verdulero dialogue notwithstanding, you can in fact haggle for prices here on things like mercado libre, used cars, housing, etc., and just as in the US, the more established a seller is within a corporate hierarchy, the less likely she is to bargain. My personal experience as to why people won't bargain here is because the person selling is not empowered to. The closer you get to the person actually making the profit and handling the numbers, the better chance you have of making a deal.

Furthermore, your point was based on the assumption that the Argentine economy is somehow less capitalistic than the US, which, as I pointed out with the US's huge agricultural subsidies and currency manipulations, is not always the case. Both economies are heavily manipulated by the state sector, and even though there's not a "precios cuidados" label on the Doritos you buy at the Piggly Wiggly, you can sure bet that US govt policy has played a large role in determining its price.

With these 3 factors in mind, it's hard to argue that the failure of some Argentines to haggle is due to some intangible cultural deficiency caused by a government imposed limit on competition.

 

[steveinbsas]

And of course...you are MUCH more likely to find someone in the US to bargain over something that is about to expire so he doesn't have to throw it away than you are here. Hell, half the time you can't even get someone to sell you a floor model of something at a discount here (or, when it's the last item, to even sell it period!!), where it's fairly common practice in the US.

Walmart here is very good at this.

They usually have some (discontinued) flat screen TVs at a 25% discount from a previously "competitive" price.

They have clearance prices on electric fans as winter approaches and the same on electric heaters as Spring draws near.

The last 3 dozen cans of refried beans I bought there had been marked down to $9 pesos per can.

 

[ElQueso]

...With these 3 factors in mind, it's hard to argue that the failure of some Argentines to haggle is due to some intangible cultural deficiency caused by a government imposed limit on competition.

Maybe I'm having a hard time getting my point across This is often the problem (at least with me) with short comments, which is why I usually tend to longer comments. But it seems even the last one I made didn't get across. Of course, I'm not very well concentrated today - I have two teenage girls getting ready to go see Romeo Santos tonight and they're bugging the crap out of me this afternoon. Hehe.

Standing in front of someone and trying to haggle the price down is not what I was talking about. I was commenting originally after your tongue-in-cheek remark about the pricing being the same on one item as in a bulk of those items and was counting that as a form of haggling.

Haggling isn't the correct word, because I'm talking about quantity discounts more than anything. In those terms, it is sort of a pre-defined haggle, where the discount one seeks is set with the amount one buys. I thought someone else made a comment along those lines as well, but that's what I was thinking when I made my original comment about haggling.

But I stand by my observations that people here, for the most part, do not think in terms of bulk discounts and do not like competition and think going against the grain to do so is unfair. I know people who have stores here who get pissed off when other stores selling the same thing try to lower their prices. I'm talking specifically about two different clothing stores and a beauty salon, where I know the owners with varying degrees of closeness. I don't know the people in the other stores here who they compete with, therefore I don't know their motivations, but I assume (and so do those who I know who own the stores) that they are trying to attract more business. The people I know bitch and moan that the other people are trying to cut them out of business, trying to create competition and make them work harder. They don't say exactly those words, but it comes out to mean that.

It's "unfair."

I never said the government putting the price controls in was what made people think this way (at least, that wasn't my intention if it was read that way), but rather sort of the other way around - that the government putting in price controls makes perfect sense to many people here because they already have this sort of feeling about prices and "fairness" to begin with.

But one thing is certain, you can buy in bulk at discount in the US as a general rule, and here you can't even buy a six pack or case of Coke at a discount.

Otherwise, I pretty much agree with your summation of the argument I wasn't making (although I can see why you thought I was ).