It’s one Los Angeles boutique owner’s answer to the pay-what-you-wish pricing scheme: only open your store to customers you want to let in — and set prices on the spot by sizing customers up. The strategy, she says, has helped her store stay open when other shops around hers are struggling. (HT: Marginal Revolution) [%comments]
Pay When They Let You
TAGS: pay as you wish
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Sizing your customers up before letting them in the door of your shop seems like a great way to trigger all kinds of discrimination lawsuits.
From the article:
Mata’s husband of 18 years, musician Dave Gibney, and their 15-year-old daughter, Molly, do not share her love of recycling, she said. They live in an apartment above another shop that is next to the Never Open Store.
“When I find something on the street, they cross to the other side and pretend they don’t know me,” she said with a laugh.
Classic nightclub mentality. Reminds me of a club where I was served in glassware because my party “bought” a table. The few non-table-buying people lucky enough to be chosen from the long line outside were given plastic cups once inside. Silly me, I thought class discrimination was uncouth.
I like a business that bullies. They are successful for a while but it isn’t scalable and rarely long-lasting. As Hugh MacCleod wrote, “Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.”
@ James: You may be right: selectively letting people in the door may set up the owner to discrimination lawsuits. But I find the practice of varying prices based on how much the sucker of the moment is willing to pay more pernicious. It reminds me of the recent discussion here about Chinese restaurants (in China) that charge the tourists more than the locals.
Well E-Bay and the likes dont mind being “distracted by paying customers”. This is a buisness model that needs to fail. With this attitude maybe the owner would be better suited to a government job. Wait, didn’t she serve me at the DMV last time.
So, she took her business plan from the episode of South Park where Cartman buys an Amusement park?
It would be fascinating to know how she really makes it work. The article talks about her finding junk on the side of the road, and selling it for $1500. So, are the sporadic hours acting as the ultimate in high pressure sales?
“You may never see the inside of this store again, buy this overpriced ju…I mean art, or you will kick yourself for it.”
Or is it possible that her husband makes enough money as a musician so that she doesn’t care if the store makes money?
I also wonder if she sizes people up differently when the rent is due…
discrimination lawsuits? Serioulsy?
Who is the government actor?
There is nothing in the article to suggest that this strategy makes the store more successful than it would be if it were operated in a more conventional fashion. In fact, it sounds like the owner is doing this just as a hobby and to see how much she can jerk people around and still get some suckers to pay for things found in a dumpster or glued together in 10 minutes. The article says she can do this thanks to the financial security provided by having another job, so that suggests that the store is not financially viable on its own. Therefore, it is unlikely that her quirky way of running the store is a good idea for someone who wants to run a successful business.