Is this legal?
 

I own a store where I charge people different prices for the same thing. If they're rich, I charge them more. If they're poor, I charge them less. I won't get in trouble for discrimination, will I?

Isnt that what the gov does?

How do you know if they are rich or not?

ahaha

:1orglaugh :1orglaugh

I ask them.

what's wrong with me profitting more off of the rich if they have it?

Are you racist ??

i've been wondering about the same thing and have slightly different version of the question.

what if the price is set according to some other factors that do not relate directly to the customer. lets say, every third customer gets a higher price, or u randomly pick a price for each customer, or u change the price every hour, etc..

Isnt that the basis of every yardsale and fleamarket in exsistance?

I've been to like 2 or 3 different grocery stores recently, by the same name, all within about 20 minutes from me in different directions.

The more ghetto-ish area has cheaper prices. For example a 2 liter of coke is like 89 cents at one store and 1.29 at another.

Thats a pretty big difference broken down into percentages.

Grocery stores are the worst.

Ask Amazon, or any of the large, online retailers that question.

They downplay it, but they do just that.

what you really need to do is GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!

I wish I could tell if my customers are rich or not, I would charge them more but i can't see them I sell over the internet


RACEMAN :thumbsup

Nice nitch, but you will end off pissing more people off than your profit is worth.

In that case, might as well have fish tank filled with XYS (M&Ms, ticket tubs,whatever) and mark a few. Let the customer take a chance for free. Up to you take make the ratio. This way you don't have to look at the shoes to see if they have money or not.:2 cents:

There are consumer laws covering that.

common practise in japan when eating sushi at a good restaurant
:glugglug

don't think it's illigal afterall it's your shop.

I'm doing nothing illegal I tell you!
I'm only charging those who have more, more.

While there may be some law that covers pricing based upon discrimination it would be very hard to prove in certain cases.

Salesmen working on commission do this all the time.


also regarding cherrylula's comment about store prices being cheaper in ghetto areas this is something I highly doubt is happening across the board.

You might have some stores charging cheaper for some items, but it has been my experience that if it's based upon convenience items will be more expensive.

Now that does not take into account maybe the higher cost of rent/property in the nicer part of town which would definitely account for higher prices there.

But I would wager that if you were to do a complete study and compare prices for a number of stores in each area you'll find that po' folk get charged more.

What I've also experienced is that even though the cost of living is lower in smaller towns grocery store prices are more expensive.

For example I managed a Taco Bell in Kaufman, Texas.
I rented a 3 bedroom house there fully furnished for $500 a month. But the cost of groceries was 5 to 10 cents more per item than the store that was in the next nearest town 15 miles away.

Even though this is a small town it's only about 30 minutes outside of Dallas, and Terrel which had the cheaper prices wasn't that much closer.

Are you in the

Used Car Sales Business

:1orglaugh

Eros: its true.

Ralphs charges differently depending on what part of town its in.

There is one near Studio City that is higher priced compared to the one nearer van Nuys and you are talking a couple miles.

VONS here is the same way. Again, the difference is only a few miles. And the prices are significantly different.

There is no sales tax on food here in Calif not sure if this has anything to do with it, but it seems the more ghetto the area the cheaper things are here.

"No Shirts, No Shoes, No Service..."


"We Reserve the Right to Refuse Service to Anyone."



those signs sound familiar Spicolli?

;-)



:thumbsup :thumbsup



discrimination is such a grey word....
...that can fuck you whenever and wherever depending on the tenacity of the asshole and their lawyer...

trying to do an anology with the government there?

well actually... business are doing that quite often...

They have a well known computer store for exemple... big, very nice looking.. but very expensive...

And they have another store, in a part of the city where people are not as rich.. different store name... nothing glamorous and sell the same computers at very competitive prices!

Amazon did something similar but used location and some other factors to do it. They got hammered in the press and had to quit doing it. Not sure if it was "illegal" though.

Fletch I don't doubt it's true, but I doubt that this carries over to all ghetto areas.

As I said before, I would wager that if you were to compare prices of a number of stores in the valley to those in South Central, you'd find on average higher prices in South Central mainly due to the convenience factor ( or lack thereof), the higher insurance premiums due to it being a "high crime area," extra security etc.


When I lived there more than 10 years ago no one wanted to open up new businesses in certain areas of South Central which equaled less competition, and once again a big inconvenience to have to drive miles just to get to the nearest grocery store.

But then things could have changed since then.

Cool, were it your store? i'm poor so should almost get stuff for free :-)

The YMCA has done this for years.

However, they are non-profit. It IS for memberships .

It's not illegal. It's called "price discrimination"

Ah, I get it now. I agree.

I wonder if it differs between the black areas, the asian areas, and the mexican areas. There must be a difference. I would place myself in the mexican area, where South Central would most likely be more black.

I bet if differs that way.

I'll take your experience over my guessing ;)

Actually, most grocery stores in low income neighborhoods charge more for food than other areas. Thus, people in debt end up spending more on food and other necessities than the average joe. Sad, but true.

Maybe it's just Ralphs grocery!

The VONS shut down not long ago I think

hahah

Last time I was at the airport.. I payed $6.50 for a pack of cigs!

that kind of shit should be illegal.

\hell no! the government would never discriminate!

No I think you are correct that stores in nicer areas do charge more when compared to stores in areas that are more middle class oriented.

For example here in Vegas the wal-mart near Nellis AFB charges less than the wal-mart in Green Valley which is a nicer area.

I think it has more to do with higher property values etc.

Now I haven't gone to check out the grocery stores in the area of town I call alphabet city.

alphabet city = any part of town that has streets named for just one letter of the alphabet. A st. J ave etc.

For some reason these streets in almost every major city I've lived in are high crime areas, infested with drugs etc...and for some reason this again holds true in Vegas...LOL.

But anyway, I don't think it would really matter much here due to the fact that this city while crowded isn't really all that large.

I find grocery stores on just about every corner so the competition here is pretty strong, but prices compared to Texas still higher.

Shops in more wealthy areas have a perfectly valid reason for charging more. Their rent, etc. will all be higher. To keep the same profit margin, obviously prices need to go up.

In the car business this practice is not allowed prices must be the same wether they are cash or credit. But they is always the ability to haggle on almost anything you in theory could walk into a grocery store and ask the owner to change the price of chef boyardee, the owner has the right to charge whatever they want as long as you agree to pay it.

The laws are strict when it comes to lines of credit

Our Dutch friends have a unique perspective on this I here that shoplifting is common practice when a store makes too much money?

I remember a few months ago Amazon got under a lot of heat for doing the same thing and they dropped that idea. Is it price discrimination, in a way yes. But you could always claim that the actual price is much higher and you're offering different discounts to different people depending on various factors. Is it illegal I don't know, you might want to seek legal counsel on this.

WG

In Scotland if you go to Asda (walmart) and buy a bottle of coke and then go to another store 20 minutes away its the same price. No matter how rough or shitty or nice the area is...

I think thats a law in our country or something. No stores can alter their prices from what their other stores are selling products for!

i sold air brush tshirts on our blvd for a year one summer and the goal was to get as much as you possibly could outta em

you would look them over, get an idea of what you thought they would pay for a t-shirt or what ever and start from there

no idea how legal it was, but it was great fun and i learned alot about sales

Thats like blaming the crack dealer for his high prices :)

hmm ya know, I have seen this too.

When I lived in New Orleans, it was very different.

I thought it was odd that Pork was outrageously expensive. But they don't have any problems getting rid of it. Why? Because there is this thing called the Louisiana Purchase Card.

Its a really high tech welfare debit card all the po' people have. They're not worried about the price of pork because they don't pay for it.

You should see how sad it is when they can't even figure out how to pin in the numbers when paying with their card, to cover their 150 bucks worth of pork chops. Like they've never had plastic before.

But regardless, it is really fucked up the way stores do charge differently. And I don't know about the rest of the world, but here in So Cal it happens a LOT.

Trust me, I'm a chick and I have been in grocery stores no less than three times a week for the past ten years now.

A store by the same name up the road in a different city will have a completely different produce section of different quality, different prices, and different sale items that week.

And I don't think its illegal. When welfare is in the mix, the stores charge whatever they want because the welfare consumer will always buy certain items.

If grocery prices are higher in a ghetto market, you can be sure its items that can be purchased with food stamps.

car dealers do it

:Graucho

Why should you? The IRS doesn't.
Have you decided to become the IRS? :Graucho

This happens every day... it's called multimarket price descrimination.
It's illigal to set different prices for different groups, but on items such as cars - what do you think the dealer is realy saying when he says:

"So what do you do for a living?"

"What car are you currently driving?"

or even the more direct question:

"What are you looking to spend?"

A car dealer will pick a price depending on how you answer these questions.
It's not illigal, it's just charging ppl the maximum of what they're willing to pay for an item. (Kind of like an auction)

the westin thought we were all rich last month, look what they did:)

I buy a new car every 2-3 years and have been for 20+ years and I've NEVER been asked any of those questions! :eek7 Of course, I also don't wait until I'm at the dealer to settle on the price of a car, lol!

Clicks - you'll love this - it's an actual letter to the editor in Atlanta's paper yesterday:

"Raise the Georgia state income tax by 1 percent for those of us with decent incomes and dedicate this money to PeachCare, Medicaid and state public schools. It is immoral for those of us who are comfortably off to sit by idly while our vulnerable young people suffer budget cuts that can only increase suffering among them."

Unfreakingbelievable. :(

Eliminate the federal tax system all together, as it is blatantly discriminatory, replacing it with a national sales tax.

While you're at it also eliminate all govenrment employees fat pension/retirement funds, and force them onto the Social Security plan, which will guarantee it's overhauled and fixed within a month.

As people have said in posts above, this is price discrimination and it's not illegal.

The easiest way to get away with something like this is to do it the way the airlines do it, offer some "better" food to the business clientelle and regular food to your economy clientelle. They don't need to know that you're charging them $100 extra for an extra $5 spent on your end. :winkwink:

Or to put this in simpler words, add some (cheap to you) premium features to your product/service and charge them double prices. Just make sure that the extra they get also adds to the status that comes along with buying your premium service/product.

It's true across the board. Hell, it's true around the world. Even here in Australia. The biggest grocery stores here are Bi-Lo, Coles and Woolworths. If you go from suburb to suburb (i'm talking a 5 minute drive here, tops), the price can vary by as much as 10% on your entire bill. And i'm not talking about sales prices. The "richer" areas jack their prices and the poorer areas are more affordable.

i think it is called the Engel curve..but i could be worng


in lower class neighborhoods..Kraft Dinner..will sell for like 50 cents abox

now go to a more expensive neighborhood and that staple which was needed...has become a luxury..and is now $1.29