peterkim blog

A few weeks ago, I noticed the shoelaces on my brown dress shoes were starting to fray. I knew they could snap at any time but I didn’t make too much of an effort to find replacement laces. I was hoping there would be a shoe store somewhere on my route from the 49th St. N/R/W station to my office building at 45th and 6th, but there weren’t any. I haven’t had time to actively look for a shoe store, so I was glad to have stumbled across a small, independent shoe store on 43rd St. today. I asked for shoe laces and then asked him how much they were. “$1.50.” What? I asked, “That’s it?” I didn’t tell him this but I would have paid $5.00 for those laces. I would think that’s a fair price based on the utility of those laces to me.

A couple of months ago, one of my coworkers brought in an old Xbox for the office. Another one of my coworkers wanted to install a mod chip on it but he needed a screw. We went to Home Depot to pick up a screw. I think it only cost 10 cents or so. This is another case where we probably would have been willing to pay at least $3.00 for this one screw, a much higher price than what we actually bought it for.

As a consumer, I won’t complain when I take advantage of what I believe are bargains. At the same time, it bothers me that these retailers don’t realize that they’re leaving money on the table by underpricing their goods.