Local is important if you want to keep stores and business local. We always try to support local business.

I wanted to rebuttal a couple of points.

Alris's use of the word capitalism to characterize a store with low overhead and low prices versus high overhead with high prices seems disconnected. Even in Socialism the actual cost of being in business must be covered by the income of that business, plus profit. If that does not occur the business ceases to exist. The situation of less cost creating a lower price isn't based on a type of economics/politics/etc. It is the natural result of having competition.

Pharoah says (in part):

"If anything, capitalism promotes buying from the cheapest source and selling at the highest price someone is willing to pay. So, it is out of social good (some call it socialism) that we promote local, regional, and national businesses. Buying locally is opposite of capitalism. "

There are two statements here that are phrased as if they are connected even though they are not. First the statement that capitalism promotes buying the cheapest thing possible and selling it for the highest price. That certainly is classed as capitalism. However so would buying quality goods at a low price. Beyond that, aside from the seller in a transaction there is also a buyer. And unless your goal is to buy the cheapest thing out there for the highest price possible then it's unlikely the people providing those materials are going to dominate the market if the people do not support it.

Then the statement that about local buying. Cheapness of goods, or high cost of resale has nothing to do with locality. The two statements are unrelated.

Socialism has nothing whatsoever to say about local selling or purchaseing. The concept of "from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs" has never been upgraded to include the phrase "as long it's locally produced".

More importantly I have a hard time believing that a reasoning capitalist does not see the direct correlation between taking part in the local economy and their own financial health.

Alris, What you can do or should do IS a really difficult decision. I have made primarily local purchases for my remodel and I try to encourange them in others. But I also ordered both cooktops and ovens from germany then funneled them through canada to get them to me. I couldn't get those items locally.

My rule of thumb is to buy everything I can from the small independant locals and if I cannot purchase it that when then I feel okay about getting it some other way.

Good luck with your decision!

so now capitalism is a problem here? be thankful for choices.

Capitalism is not the problem, one's conscience is ;)

Capitalism allows us to have choices, places to see them and online stores to buy them cheaply. Remove conscience from the equation, online wins.

"... am so exasperated with ..." learning and making decisions. "What to do?" is the question.

People like all mammals get tense when forced into learning a lot of new things. This tension comes out in various ways. I saw a documentary about dogs, and in one scene a young sheepdog was exposed to sheep for the first time. In the first few hours he got "exasperated" because the mental model he had previously acquired wasn't helping him play with his new friends. Later, s/he got the hang of it (her/his new role in life, around sheep).

The model that seems to be emerging here is that physical stores are good to have around, and that your buying from them is a good thing to do. Other subjects have been dealt with too: it's asymmetrical when oligopolies exist.

"so now capitalism is a problem here?"

well, many schools are now teaching that.

I don't buy into it tho.

I buy mostly local. not opposed to buying on internet tho. I usually decide that if I can find it and buy it locally for close to the same price it's better all around. for local businesses and for me - especially if I need to return the item for any reason.

I can't get out to a lot of places so I choose carefully what to buy locally and what to buy online. Somethings matter to see them in person, others don't so much (like books, CDs etc).

I think it evens out nicely.

Marcolo has an interesting point here:

As you point out, the manufacturer loses something, too, by not having anyplace where their products can be shown or serviced properly. Eventually their bricks and mortar folks all go out of business, and gee, then what happens to their sales to the market segment that needs to touch things? So you are right--really, they should be bearing some of the cost of a real-world presence.

I bought a good deal of my stuff from a tiny local store in the Sunset district in SF. My contractor is a partner in this store.

He told me that some of the manufacturers charge for display items! Even the faucets that are 1/2 there mounted on a pretty board which could never be made functional. He wanted to carry Waterstone, which he had seen and fallen in love with and thought he could sell some of. They wanted nearly $2000 for the display. So not only do they have to pay employees, benefits, and space costs, they have to pay for displays too.

One of his greatest problems is training and keeping educated folks to work the store. Ever try picking out all the pieces you need to purchase a tub? I'd sure hate to try that trick online.

But I think pharoah nailed it. It's a matter of conscience.

well, many schools are now teaching that.

Name some.

marcydc, most of the way this economy works, er, doesn't work, isn't by silly Econ 101 fairy tales. It's by extortion, one way or another. There are a host of fees that stores charge manufacturers to put their products on the shelves, or manufacturers charge to do business with them, fees that are off-loaded onto other people, and so on. These aren't determined by "demand" or "consumer preferences" or any such thing. They're determined by negotiating power, which, if I have to say it again, is not itself a product of market success. We've gone from an economy that makes and sells things to an economy that just wants to wet its beak a little, if you get my reference.

That makes it very hard to make buying decisions.

One thing not mentioned but a factor in pricing for B&M stores but not e-tail is shoplifting. And we pay for it. Years ago when I worked at a local department store, I got to see all kinds of interesting shoplifting schemes because my department was right next to the security offices.

A friend of mine just moved to Hawaii after spending more than 2 decades in Tokyo. Suddenly he's dealing with blister packs, a type of packaging that is unheard of in Japan where shoplifting is uncommon. Even in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, no one looted. It's a cultural thing.

I buy local as often as possible. As others have pointed out, it's a matter of conscience. And personal beliefs. I'm voting with my wallet. Besides, I like the personal connection I get from my local stores. I'm just a number to on-line e-tailers. And IME, local businesses are often great local community supporters, which directly or indirectly benefits me. It's just not a tangible item at time of purchase.

Hat tip to Marcolo for: "Virtually all US industries are dominated by monopolies or oligopolies...Market leaders maintain their dominance by anti-market methods...We don't have capitalism in this country any more than the Soviets had Communism. Both are fictions." Made my day to read some straight thinking. As to the decision, it does come down to values and where we want our $$ to go. Taxes vs. shipping cost for internet is easy for me. Sales tax supports local infrastructure and although it does not support schools here in California, it does provide $$ for local law enforcement and mental health services. It is commendable to consider these choices and the implications of our purchasing habits on the eco-system.

Its a matter of conscience. Not only did you receive a "service" at the local place, but you also can go back there if something happens with the product or you end up dissatisfied. Their voice to the manufacturer would hopefully, in that case, be stronger than your voice to the internet company you bought from.

This is a really frustrating scenario and I come across it all the time. If the local guy made an effort to price match- I say the business should go to him. After all, hes your neighbor.

I am frugal and selfish. I look out for my bottom line, but my bottom line is affected by a great deal more than the sales price, shipping and tax.

Cook County, Illinois, has the highest sales tax in the country. I bought $11,000 in appliances at Abt Electronics, down the road apiece from where I live. Abt and I are in Cook Co. I could have bought them from a New York retailer, skipped the tax, no shipping, and would have purchased service agreements. Coulda saved a ton of cold hard cash. Price matched, of course.

But, being frugal and selfish, I considered the phenomenally superb local service, since 1937, of Abt. They do what others promise. I have been shopping there for years and have been satisfied. They have their own huge, well trained service department. The out of town company would have had trained service people in Chicago, too, but in my mind, no one is better than Abt. So I paid for it. The difference, while considerable, was not a deal breaker for me, but if it had been, my purse would win.

I did use the internet to select my appliances and called the Abt salesman and gave him my list. Sight unseen and untouched. Fine with me. Lucky salesman. GW members know much more anyway. I read the user manuals on line.

I did buy the sink, faucet, soap dispenser online. But I wanted my local Abt service for my peace of mind.

We shop online a great deal due to convenience and price. Also, I have a bum knee which makes b&m shopping tough often, but I manage, lol.

I purchased everything I could for my new kitchen locally. Sure, I researched products on the internet but I didn't order but for a couple of things that I couldn't get any other way.
I used a local cabinet maker for my cabinets, I never even looked at any from a big box store. The semi custom cabinets that I considered didn't compare to the custom and they were higher in price for less.
All my appliances came from the local Sears franchise store that was great to work with. My flooring and counter also came from local businesses.

So what did I buy online? I bought my sink and faucet and my pendant lights. The lights were hand made in a studio.

The only thing I bought from a big box store was the LED bulbs that I used in my recessed cans. I had no choice with those.

Could I have saved by buying more online? Yes, but I would never do that. My local stores have a real value to both me and the community I live in.

Nancy

"This dilemma about brick-mortar vs internet purchasing is just so hard. Capitalism is weird and cruel. "

It has its eccentricities, but look at the alternative.

Yes, yes that's right. The one and only alternative to buying from an Internet cut-rate dealer is to live in North Korea. Nope, no other choices.

Aliris' use of the word capitalism to characterize a store with low overhead and low prices versus high overhead with high prices seems disconnected

Morgne, I wasn't really trying to characterize the situation with low vs high prices as dictated by "capitalism" so much as refer to the headaches explicated a little more clearly by marcolo, the 'drive to the bottom' as another put it, the intertwined lose-lose-lose situation that so many have refered to here and there in parts: if you don't buy into a society you want through taxes and enough money (through markups) to support a middle class of families and schools and a physical showroom, then you won't have one. The problem is with the impetus being setup by bottom-line cost-to-me alone -- that's the dilemma that capitalism imposes; when it's all just dictated, at the end of the day, by the capital-question -- that is by how much I have to spend. The other, collateral damage is delayed and less immediately linked to the purchase. I'm not articulating this well but quite obviously many, many if not all of us completely get it. I apologize for using very un-explained shorthand for argument "#27" (or whatever) - which boils down to 'when my bottom-line cost is all that drives the system the system will wind up looking like something I may not like, but there is no personal incentive for me to act in a way that won't wind up with a degraded system'.

Hence, my exasperation. It is with capitalism, even if we don't have it; it is at the least with capitalism, though more realistically speaking, it is with the reality of a nominally capitalistic society. I think.

BTW, this stupid little rant here wound up being very helpful in terms of forcing me to look at the actual cost - when excluding taxes and it turns out to be just 15%, well, that's a cost that this store's personal assistance does seem warranted in requesting for that service. The tax-thing is another matter; I'm as pained as the next guy by paying more rather than fewer taxes, but at the end of the day, I think public "free" education is about the acme of human society. There's a cost to it of course and every now and then we all of us do have to chip in some taxes. That's another issue and taking it out of the brick-mortar question helped. It is not separate from the 'capitalism' and/or politics part of it all, but still.

So thank you, all, for actually engaging in this discussion to some extent, rather than flaming it. I actually think, personally, that this is a deeply critical and relevant question to this forum devoted to, essentially, mega-purchasing. It does help me to think out loud, and to hear others' takes. I wish it were all easier to resolve.

Pharaoh: ah yes, conscience is the kernel of the problem, is it not? .... sigh.

Marcolo: I'm going to embarrass myself by confessing to not getting the reference to a wet beak. It's probably lewd or something ... sorry.

lisa_a: thanks for the reminder. I suddenly flashed on how this local store supports local kids too. We know this stuff; it's hard to hold it all in memory. I'm feeling a little better for 'upcharging' myself today. It's been a big spending day....

re: the local-store CS issue -- to tell you the truth, I've had internet CS reps really go to bat for me with manufacturers and working hard to remedy problems; conversely I've had local guys just be jerks about stuff that was their fault. So I'm not sure the he'll-give-you-better-service-locally arguments actually hold muster, IME at least. But the he's-your-neighbor argument does.

I dunno, at the end of the day it is really summed up by 'conscience'. I went to this guy and asked him to help me; I'm glad I did the right thing in the end and paid him for his service. I hadn't intended to stiff him ever, but he'd said he would work with me to match internet prices. In the end he just couldn't as their prices were less than his cost. That's where the manufacturer comes in too, but we're all of us intertwined in a system that's hard to navigate. Capitalism. It's driving the policitians who wind up inadvertently or not supporting the megalopolies and all the rest.... it's a big intricate, complicated, intertwined mess.

And I can't wait to get my new hardware ... locally, from local manufacturers (unless they aren't at the end of the day ... 'nother kettle of fish, that).

westsider: you may be cheered? bemused? to know that I bought an appliance via internet through your local brick-mortar, Abt. As others have pointed out elsewhere, this whole distinction can be pretty blurry too as many of these great local places have an online presence as well. Really, it's the government and all of us by extension inasmuch as we *are* our government, that lose when we opt to buy without chipping in sales tax (which as we all know is even technically illegal).

oy. so complicated. But returning once again to the conscience-thing: as someone once impressed upon me (a female): in the end it's just me who has to shave myself in the morning. Geesh -- I'm so tired I can't even tell why that once seemed so profound (and funny) to me?! Something about not accidentally slitting your throat...., and of course I don't shave myself in the morning, etc....

I bought all of my appliances from a local, independent appliance store--one who has been in business for over 40 years, has its own repair department, etc. The KD wanted me to go to Standards of Excellence, or possibly Pacific Sales, and I did look at both of those stores, but really preferred to do business with the local independent. We were able to get good prices there and the selection was good. I can't imagine buying appliances on-line. What if something goes wrong? Do you just ship it back? And carry it down to UPS on your back?

I have bought some things for my kitchen remodel online, but only things that weren't really available locally--such as Rev-a-shelf drawer inserts, etc. Sure I could have ordered those with the cabinets from the KD, but I don't feel guilty about that as I think they made plenty of money on my kitchen. And ordering the inserts online, I could compare different ones and compare prices. I am not one who buys online in order to avoid sales tax, as I am quite aware of the problems our cities and towns face because of the lack of sales tax revenue. Amazon has caused the death of many businesses.

I no longer have a local camera store, bookstore, music store, clothing store, or anything else because of cheaper internet retailers. I would gladly pay 15% or even 30% more for something for the opportunity to see it in my hands and talk with a knowledgeable salesperson before purchase.

Be glad you still have the choice.

if you don't buy into a society you want through taxes and enough money (through markups) to support a middle class of families and schools and a physical showroom, then you won't have one.

Externalities. Costs that are not reflected in a price. Every business likes to manufacture externalities; it's like pressing your bills into the hands of random strangers and asking them to pay them. "What? I'm dumping carcinogens in your drinking water/poison in your air/garbage in your yard? Thanks for helping out! Sure wouldn't want to have to pay for disposing of this junk!"

there is no personal incentive for me to act in a way that won't wind up with a degraded system'

Micro-motives. The individual motivations of the actors in a system, each looking out for their own good, that may or may not line up with positive outcomes for the whole system. More or less.

I'm just throwing these definitions out there because you keep apologizing for saying things poorly, but in fact you are correctly and insightfully identifying some pretty sophisticated problems.

not getting the reference to a wet beak.

A reference to the Godfather movies. It was the core of the family business--never add any value, never create anything, just skim off the top and take a little something from the people who do add value. AKA, the modern American economic system.

Personally, I wouldn't say that I have anything against Internet sellers. Not at all. I buy plenty online, much of it not easily found locally. But however you come down on a particular decision, it's always important to really think about the consequences of your choices, including your purchases. As many, many now-destitute former Walmart shoppers in former factory towns now know.

As to the decision, it does come down to values and where we want our $$ to go. Taxes vs. shipping cost for internet is easy for me. Sales tax supports local infrastructure and although it does not support schools here in California, it does provide $$ for local law enforcement and mental health services.

That's brilliant. You're absolutely right. Would you rather use your $$ to fund local schools, or to pay UPS??? No contest.

"I no longer have a local camera store, bookstore, music store, clothing store, or anything else because of cheaper internet retailers. "

Yea, but I'll bet you've got blazing internet speed! :^)

And then you have the US Ikea factory workers complaining about low wages and bad hours saying they are being treated like Mexicans by the Swedes while their houses are loaded with Walmart goods made in China.

As pharoah suggested, more people here will get poorer as global competition spreads the wealth. Except the very rich. They'll continue to do well by the beak thing :)

Well, we've had a couple of waves of globalization before, remember. The first ended at the Place de la Revolution, the second at Ekaterinberg. I expect this one will turn out much the same, eventually.

The arguments for buying locally are compelling, however, the entrepreneur who starts a website may be your neighbor as well. So may be the guy who designs the website or maintains it, handles the books, customer service, packaging, etc...
Our post office may have gone completely under since the invention of email, if not for shipping ebay and other web based sales which have given it new life. I bet some of your neighbors work for the post office, airports, drivers, etc...
Helping a neighbor is nice, but so is helping a guy in the next state or one across the country. Buying something off of ebay that did not fit in someone's house keeps an item out of the landfills and also helps some homeowner who had bought too soon in the process. As one who has done that, every penny I get back from my "oops" purchases (the not returnable ones because it was years later that the errors were discovered in our case) helps me recover from the reno and all the overages.
Many people have no problem researching online and buying locally, which uses the efforts of the e-tailer to help the local sale.
I don't think one method of shopping or the other is evil. One thing I do know is that have an alternative such as the internet or B&M stores, keeps the other in line. I have bought online after seeing things locally, but only when the price difference was outrageous. My wedding dress was $1,600 at the local bridal shop. I bought it online for $275. That kind of mark up is not solely due to overhead unless they expected me personally to cover their entire overhead for a week by myself (slight exaggeration, but you get my point).
I do buy locally when feasible, but I do not feel bad for buying online when I choose otherwise. BTW - I pay over $7k in the school portion of my real estate tax bill alone. I paid for years before our kids went to school, and will pay for decades after they are done (God willing).

Creative Lighting in St. Paul cut its prices to reflect what they believe is Internet pricing. If you bring in an ad with a better price, they will consider offering same item for same price.

Yes, there's still Minn State Tax to be paid, but we do so gladly in order to support a local business that is working with us.

"there is no personal incentive for me to act in a way that won't wind up with a degraded system'"

Really? There's no incentive to avoid living in a degraded system? It makes no difference to you if you are working with a degraded system or not? Don't we all want to avoid that for ourselves?

regina, there was another clause to this thought: 'when my bottom-line cost is all that drives the system the system will wind up looking like something I may not like, but there is no personal incentive for me to act in a way that won't wind up with a degraded system'. ... there's no personal incentive when considering only the bottom-line cost. That's what's so exasperating. And that's the point; there are tons of other hidden costs and benefits and entanglements every which way to Sunday. and back. And causality is awfully hard to infer - e.g., while there may no longer be a camera store or a bookstore or a whatever-else-is-now-missing store (as there is no longer in the town where I grew up too), it's not all the fault of the internet; moreover the world is annealed to the internet anyway: it is different now. Sometimes that dog really *is* being wagged by the tail.

Yes, I perceive many ancillary benefits beside the weight of my wallet, today. OTOH, my own personal contribution is not, at the end of the day, going to make one whit of difference any more than, say, my solitary vote ever really does. One's contribution is theoretical on an individual basis and so ... maybe I should just pocket that $40. It would sure make a heck of a big difference to my family's budget, on an individual basis. This time I didn't; other times I have. Maybe droll-david's right and it's all only really about being exhausted by all the thinking, all the decisions (but I don't think so -- I think we are being driven by a bottom-line system that's not a good framework for decision-making and further, everything's kinda messed up because it's internally inconsistent, as marcolo keeps pointing out -- there's no real capitalism at work hardly anywhere higher up except at our little puny individual level -- we individuals are the only ones really at the mercy of this capitalism - the bigger the business, the more protection. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding or oversimplifying).

I must be a horrible person.

When we did our kitchen/family room I purchased locally and online. I never once considered the "tax" issue. Mostly because we purchase everything in a tax free state. I never considered buying my appliances online, only wanted local for that. In fact I bought my dish drawers in PA and paid sales tax because I had faith in this local retailer, but I was able to get a 10 year extended warranty and a discounted installed price since I was going to pay sales tax.

My cork flooring was $10sq/ft at the local store, it was $4/sq ft from an online retailer. I couldn't afford the $10/sq ft, should I have settled for a cheaper floor in order to buy locally? I tried to get the price down. I wanted to buy locally. I even faxed my online price to all the local flooring stores, sort of a reverse bid. Nobody could come close. Needless to say, I bought it online.

If I spent a lot of time with the local knob dealer, and he really helped me out with my decisions, etc I would probably buy from him as well. Partly because I would feel really bad if I didn't buy from him and later needed to have him help me again. But, knobs are knobs--I would hope that the knobs don't need repair down the road, this would be one item I would (and did) buy online. But then again, I didn't shop in a showroom for them first.

bravo dianalo, I was thinking the same thing. The internet company is a business too, and so is UPS! Your UPS driver is paying wage taxes in your community, probably living there and hopefully owning a home and paying his mortgage and school taxes, etc.

So, I think that each consumer really needs to make a decision on each individual purchase, you have to do what is right for YOU.

(I buy local food, and have my dairy product delivered to my house from a local farm--see? I do support local businesses)

Who do you suppose works in your local big box stores and where do the services offered by the store come from? Where in turn do you think the employees of said store pay taxes and buy their goods and services - maybe in the community? I like my local hardware store and shop their frequently but lets not kid ourselves that they are employing anywhere near as many of my "neighbours" as Home Depot. Folks(myself included) can get mighty small minded and a little self righteous in their approach to this dilemma. You do the best you can given your personal resources and local availability.

there's no real capitalism at work hardly anywhere higher up except at our little puny individual level -- we individuals are the only ones really at the mercy of this capitalism - the bigger the business, the more protection.

Bingo.

Caryscott - good point.

Like I said before, no one way to shop is virtuous nor evil. This is not a black and white issue. Some sound bites make it seem so, but there are small business owners online and locally, just as there are large businesses and small. How do I know that the small business owner is a nicer guy than the people who work for the big company? Answer: I don't.

BTW - I ordered my backsplash feature from what I gather is a small tile making business online, based out of state. They would not have had my business if I restricted myself to only buying local. They are someone on GW's neighbor because we have members from all over. I also bought other architecturally salvaged tiles from another smaller business in another state. Maybe my purchase helped them make payroll. Someone right now is buying from one of my neighbors over the web as this is a global economy.
I have had both great service and poor service online and locally. I don't see a clear advantage there and if you say there is, the advantage would be to the consumer. I sometimes choose to trust the local guy and sometimes the online guy. My choice. Freedom is great that way ;)

Hang on. Let's not kid ourselves about Home Depot. First, it employs more than a single hardware store--but not more than the sum total of all hardware stores it drove out of business. Nor does it treat those employees particularly well. Nor are its profits retained in the local community. Nor does it supply anything like the level of service old-time hardware stores did. Nor is it responsive to customer needs--rather, you have to respond to what Home Depot decides. You can no longer buy brackets for window boxes to put on your deck railings, because HD has decided that your window for doing so is over, as I just learned yesterday. The Internet is full of complaints about HD from both employees and customers, many reporting shocking stories. Its former CEO was notorious for paying himself like a king while market share shrank.

It's great that people can buy things cheaply when they need to, but sweeping the exhaustively documented, and far-reaching negative effects of megabusinesses is just a rationalization.

Where should I fall in this debate, given that I bought appliances from my local independent store, for all the reasons listed above, but paid for them with the salary my husband earns at a company that runs web stores?

I don't see this so much as a choice between selfishness and altruism. Supporting my local stores is not just about the warm fuzzy feeling of giving the guy down the block a job, but also about the direct benefits to me (financial and otherwise) when that guy down the block has a job. It's more like a choice between short-sighted selfishness and far-sighted selfishness.

mnerg: LOL. For that matter, just to give more anecdotal evidence of hopelessly muddy waters, my own salary comes from a state I have never visited; my colleagues are typed names only. My check is direct-deposited. What a world.... (course that's mostly chimeric as well as I rarely seem to find the time to *do* my work ... I wonder why?)

I think this discussion is doing a really good job coralling some of the far-flung directions of support, 'locally' and 'nationally'; neighbor and otherwise. Like globalization, nationalization is a real phenomenon; "brick-and-mortar" as a concept is valid and not valid all at the same time. I did know the boundaries were fuzzy, but I hadn't quite comprehended how basically chimeric they are by now.

Bee and everyone, I'm pretty sure what this has brought to the fore is that there isn't, legitimately and fundamentally, any good one answer. But it is reasonable to look at one's purchases one by one and come to different conclusions among them. I don't think I'll give quite as much credence to the knee-jerk 'local is better' any more though. That's nuanced as well.

Ah, I feel lighter. I think I felt rotten because there was some answer that was eluding me, but now I think not.

Ans: depends.

This is a fascinating discussion and there are some difficult choices. Every business is local somewhere-another town, county, state, or country.

I work in a local business and I am also a consumer. I shop on the internet. I have budgets just like anyone else and look for the best price. But what I think is wrong is going to your local store, looking at the displays and touching and feeling the product, writing down the model number and ordering it off the internet. Hey, the internet guy is in business, too, and he's paying taxes somewhere and keeping the Post Office running and he's selling it for less so what's the harm?

Stores have to buy those displays and samples. The vendors do not give them away. We keep them clean and repaired and updated. As employees we constantly educate ourselves to give you great service. I think it's basically stealing from the local shop when you use their building, their samples and employees to make your choices but intend to buy elsewhere. You say the local shop could match the internet price but why should they? They have provided you with service and samples of the product that they paid for, and you should pay for it also if you use it.

We have many choices here in our capitalist country and you can buy local or you can go to Wal-Mart or Home Depot or shop off the internet. Just don't use the little guy's store to make your selections and buy somewhere else.

If your conscience has doubt, that means don’t.

I agree, kitchenwitch -- and plllog made the point that one can derive, and owe for, internet value as well. For example in the use of their posted spec sheets and pdfs. Not to mention that in some instances there are phone banks of CS reps utilized who are often willing to give mounds of "free" advice with the understanding that they need paying for somehow by someone as well (a discussion elsewhere on the ever-confusing under-cabinet lighting issue comes to mind. Evidently some CS reps have gotten testy when confronted that information being elicited was for product that was not their own. Tricky all around...)

So I think the point is very well-taken to somehow basically keep track of your own personal accrual of 'information-debt' and somehow, as dictated by your conscience, manage to pay for that somehow. [and let's not forget the government and that "free" appliance pickup service they run, etc].

Does this mean I need to donate $$$ to CBS or whoever runs this site? ;)

Here's an ironic twist...and a very happy ending: the internet was my HERO in helping me buy local!

I was getting so frustrated cabinet shopping last year. Every time I responded to a local KD ad or promotion in my area that seemed within my budget, my first question was: "where are your cabs made" and sure enough, 9 out of 10 times, they imported straight from China.

These KDs took great pains to convince me how top-quality cabs were, better-made than U.S., for lower price, yadda, yadda, yadda. Didn't want to hear it...

I wanted U.S. made cabs ONLY - all ply. Nothing against any GW member who has Chinese-made. I simply wasn't comfortable with it for myself. Many people in my area were devastated by Chinese drywall disasters that destroyed their health and homes; one of my beloved pets ended up sick because of tainted pet food a few years back; and no local shop selling these "quality" cabs was giving a guarantee past 1-2 years. At this point, I do not trust the Chinese to deliver a safe product...period.

So I used the internet to do detailed searches for respected u.s. cabinet makers that had distributors in my local area. Finally found one in AL. The local guy's prices were reasonable and I bought cabs thru him. Would have never found the cabinet maker - nor the local distributor - without the internet! And the cabs are great...solid, well-built. That purchase felt so good to me on many levels!

two different means of distribution are the core dilemma in the OP.

(which isn't "capitalism" as the two distinct distribution channels could be owned by any ownership structure.)

to cut to the chase, here is what the future holds:
pico-payments (that add up)
for all interaction with the real world, where we pay, combined with the same,
for all interactions where we are deemed to provide value, where we receive.

It will take decades to implement.

Then, the
physical showroom gets picopayments,
customer telephone people get picopayments (10 times less),
internet service gets picopayments (1000 times less),
and so on.
Reading here, we pay pico amounts.
And posting here, we get pico credits.

--

"capital"-ism is another subject.
the thinking behind it all.
the basis from which a system was built.
it goes like this.
what is capital.
stored money.
what is money.
a unit of transaction.
what is a transaction.
a flow between two holders, that causes a change of type of thing they end up with.
what is a unit.
a means to regularize measuring, to enable a count.

Once something can be counted, stored, and transacted, it can be accumulated.

Communism failed because it did not create any valid system, numerical, number-oriented, number-allocating. Something. Call it Ac-counting, or call it another term. It would show people what went where, what goes where, and what is to go where. Today we would say there was no transparency, or that their decisionmaking support process relied on a few strong people's feelings or desires not on facts. Also, it did not mobilize hearts and minds, rallying hopes and troops. But our system does: people get together and do more... And, that same something which we call accounting, works half-a$sed-ly n the capitalist system.

should we designate new terms.
contract-ism.
equity-ism.
share-ism.
who-gets-paid-how-ism.

a set of concepts wrapping around any pact to split the proceeds when things turn out later, no matter whether it's worse than, better than, or as well as expected.
or
a set of concepts wrapping around the stored-units-of-transaction manner of proceeding.

--

So, now we have the internet and we can see a lot of new things, a lot of discontinuity, a lot of change. Examples: newspapers falling, and people figuring out more and more that their internet reputation is something they can build up over time. But, there is no score keeping yet. The benefits of the internet (its potentiality) will be fully implemented in a few decades from now. Building a rating system is a step in the right direction. Building a picopayment game is a step in the right direction. Games later become useful in real life. We need something way more advanced than 'Monopoly".

--
By the way, we all know that Roman numerals failed.
But do we all know Why?
They were hard to use for advanced operations.
Calculate mortgage interest rates with Roman numerals.
Even try dividing.

Modern finance depended on another system to annotate value.
It enabled thought processes about interest rates and this became a part of the modern world.
We all began to see "time/money" as an entity that has a cost and has utility.
Thanks to the Arabs we got another numerical system.
Over a few centuries it began to be used by many.
Using Arabic numerals, we all gradually changed, in levels of society.
We all adopted the same thinking about a productive collective system.
We saw the basis of money as "obtainable; if desire to borrow and pledge repayment terms".
Terms relatively standard. Ah hah.
Sharing a common set of thought processes about "money/reality" topics.

To enable any productive collective system, core concerns have to be addressed: who gets how much, when, by what counting means.

--

" towards a capital-allocation system based on human capital "

--

This thread is starting to look like some of the lively debates that happen in our kitchen. (We have a few economics majors in the family.) When I made my kitchen purchases I shopped for the best value for the money including internet stores, local stores and other instate stores within an hours drive. Hey, gas prices were lower last fall! I always pay the use tax to the state on internet purchases so that wasn't a factor in where I purchased. Not moralizing. Do what you want. If you get caught and fined it's your dime. Given cash strapped states, rules and enforcement will change and that will eventually be a non-issue for everyone.

Almost all of my kitchen purchases ended up being in state through independent retailers (i.e. not big box).) I didn�t always pay the lowest price. However, after factoring in shipping, customer service and overall sense of "risk", the greater value ended up with brick and mortar stores for me. Appliances were local. It was a lot of money and the couple of hundred dollar difference from the internet was well worth it to buy from a store that I have a lot of experience with. I looked at faucets, lighting and flooring at the most local stores and ended up buying at other stores 45 minutes away that either met or came closer to internet prices while providing personal service. My cabinet hardware was purchased locally from a store that now mostly sells through the internet. What was best for me personally for this kitchen remodel, benefitted the brick and mortars.

I have purchased from Best Buy, but also have gone into the store to look at merchandise then bought through Newegg, Amazon or Costco. When it comes to books, Amazon provides better services (reviews & personal searches) and prices than anything local could for me. Technology, social & economic climate and laws change and we change with them.

Wow; I wouldn't even know *how* to pay use tax on internet purchases. How do you? Just send a check to the state revenue board?

We are in flux right now in a changing paradigm. There are lots of things that don't really require being seen and touched, and as we all know small book stores and record stores have virtually disappeared, with Borders and B&N struggling more and more.

Appliances -- the manufacturer benefits by having gear out there that you can touch and the consumer benefits by being able to see and touch but the brick and mortar store pays for this and isn't getting fairly compensated.

The model will have to shift. The manufacturer and the consumer will need to bear the cost of having gear available to see because they are the beneficiaries. Perhaps there will be showrooms that you have to pay to go to and see the gear live, demonstrated, working, cooking, etc. Or maybe the manufacturers will pick up the tab. Blue Star already does a lot of this because they don't have as wide coverage in stores. So they do all kinds of special events in key cities to build brand awareness and confidence. If the consumer feels he can make a decision without seeing and touching he can by pass the pay-per-demo and go straight to the online outlet.

I don't know how it will shake out but we have seen retail models for other things change and the appliance model will probably shift too.

In our state (CT) you can report and pay the use tax with your annual tax return. (There's an area on the form for it. In CT you itemize individual purchases over $300 then just put a total of purchases under $300.) Per Wikipedia, it sounds like about half of the states have a reporting option on the tax return. For other's you'd have to check with the state to see what the rules are if any.

Although if you live in a state that makes it difficult to report and pay the tax and never enforces it, then there's very little incentive to pay. At some point, they might figure that out.

Way back in the dim, distant past, I worked in catalog sales for Sears. The prices of their catalog items were less than the prices of the same item if bought in the store ... because they did not make the catalog division support the retail stores.

aliris wrote:
Does this mean I need to donate $$$ to CBS or whoever runs this site? ;)

Nah, they subject you to countless ads to make $

Oh wait, should I feel guilty about AdBlocker? :)

ironicaly, if you knew where the store was that has the website most of the time they have a brick and motar store to qualify to have the right to market a product made by a company that does not want to deal with the local marketing needed to succede.

In the kitchen and bath industry very few suppliers or makers of the product will sell to companies who retail or market the products if they do not have a location to make local sales face to face with customers.

With such a small difference I would purchase from the store. There were so many posts I forgot if it was a small business or not but if so you are not only helping it out but also having more control over your purchase which in this case may prove helpful to you. I know firsthand how many local companies have been affected by this economy and I feel good when I can give them my business and I also like to know that I won't have an issue if there is a problem with my purchase even if it just means a delay.

I think you're more "conflicted" than exasperated. Conflicted between traditional bricks-and-mortar retail, where there's hands-on contact with the product and a real person and a immediate gratification if the goods are in stock, vs. e-commerce, where you make selections based on pictures and prices on your monitor. The one thing you save with online buying is time. Maybe shoeleather, too. With a multiple component project, it's valuable to be able to bring up all of the spec sheets to get exact sizes and gauge relationships. _IF the spec sheet is correct_! (not always). I never did find an accurate mounting-bolt layout for a $1000+ bathroom sink. Had to re-do the mounts twice!
With plumbing especially, I'd say that a knowledgeable counterman is going to be your most valuable ally.
Casey

"Let's not kid ourselves about Home Depot. First, it employs more than a single hardware store--but not more than the sum total of all hardware stores it drove out of business."

I am not in denial about the impact of the big box phenomenon but if the idea is to shop local as a resident of the core of a mid size city the landscape of local hardware here hasn't been that changed by big boxes in the burbs.

"Nor does it treat those employees particularly well."

I know a few people who have worked at local HD Canada stores who indicated they did not find them to be a horrible employer. I haven't surveyed the employees of the local hardware stores but I have seen enough recurring faces to think they must be decent employers. However I am not naive enough to assume that being local makes you a good employer either.

"Nor are its profits retained in the local community."

I live in Canada and I am under no illusion that HD Canada profits are staying in Canada. However I would note that HD Canada does offer some significant Canadian made products (cabinetry and mill work for instance) that I can't get at my local hardware store.

Same cabinet company HD Canada uses has made some inroads in the US as a result of their HD Canada success. There are not enough stories like this but there are some.

Services are subbed out to local businesses here. By a counter and a local business does the install, same for floors and cabinet re-facing. Yes it would be better to buy from small retailers but we can't pretend there is no local revenue generated for those companies HD subs to.

"Nor does it supply anything like the level of service old-time hardware stores did. Nor is it responsive to customer needs--rather, you have to respond to what Home Depot decides."

I have visited an HD or two and I find the quality of assistance varies. It has also steadily declined as profits have shrunk and there are fewer full-time employees. I rarely go to HD for actual hardware - poor selection that has to be bought in bulk and products are not selected or stocked based on quality.

"It's great that people can buy things cheaply when they need to, but sweeping the exhaustively documented, and far-reaching negative effects of megabusinesses is just a rationalization."

Who was doing this? Reality is consumers must choose from the choices made available to them using the resources they have available. If someone can afford to patronize only small local establishments I think that is fantastic. In my area that could often mean shopping at fairly expensive retailers that are beyond my means. I am not prepared to cede any moral ground to folks who spend thousands buying exclusive, often foreign made, goods in local boutiques that employ a handful of underpaid staff and profit only the owner while I'm shopping for more affordable goods at HD where 100's of locals work, where they sell some products that are made in North America and they work with local businesses.

As consumers we have to do our best with the reality we are faced with, climbing up on ones high horse seems counter productive and rather disingenuous(it's hard to shop at retailers that have already closed and I am doubtful they pay all that well).

Interesting philosophical discussion, although for me it's not about capitalism. Instead, for me, it's about supporting the local economy or not and about my carbon footprint (how much pollution was caused/fossil fuel burned to get that xxxxx to me?).

I wrestle with these questions all the time. Locally owned vs. big box vs. Internet. Books, camera, food, just about everything. I want to support local producers, retailers, and craftspeople and I want to have as small a negative impact on the environment as possible. So buying something trucked/shipped from 1000's of miles away is also part of my moral dilemma for purchases. I take it - and wrestle with it - on a case by case basis. A few decisions I've made:
1) Food - I buy local whenever I can. I have a freezer full of local, organic, range fed beef, pork, and lamb. I love farmers markets, don't buy veggies at big box stores or Trader Joes unless the source is identified as local. I buy local organic dairy products, olive oil, coffee (roasted locally). I grow as many of my own veggies as I can, mostly eat my own soup that I freeze, and have chickens for eggs. Lots of my food is more expensive than it has to be, but food quality, freshness, taste, lack of poison, etc are top priorities for us! Being able to buy local and organic is key, and one of the reasons we live where we do (Sonoma County, CA).
2) Camera - I was shopping for a specific digital SLR camera. Local camera shop was helpful, very nice - but said they couldn't come close to the Internet price I found. It was a difference of well over $100 on a $700 purchase. They understood when I said I couldn't afford to buy local.
3) Kitchen cabinets - the 3 local shops I talked to all were cheaper than the national brands of roughly comparable quality... and the local guys are all 100% custom to the 1/16 of an inch! YAY!!!! I feel really good about this!!

aliris, I am glad you think about this - I wish more people did.