Does Price Matter?
Well, of course it does! If you don't have enough of the medium of exchange you don't get to purchase whatever it is. If you have several necessities but only so much to spend (and it doesn't cover all of the total price) then you have hard choices to make. But when that level of 'enough' has been reached then we have softer choices; perhaps, with resources, we can choose to buy Here or There. Once over the hill of subsistence we can think about which of several items is 'best:' cheapest, most convenient, most healthy (or least unhealthy), prettiest, most sophisticated or most luxurious. Choice becomes about 'good enough' and we may be whimsical or emotional rather than practical.
When items are virtually identical does price matter? Is price, within reason, the only final consideration? For many of us I'm sure it is: we take pride in having found a 'bargain.' Hopefully not too many of us get a thrill from paying someone less than something is 'worth.' I know that feeling when someone tries to take advantage: they say 'you can't blame me for trying!' This latter was said to me at a craft show when I pointed out that I hadn't gotten the correct change. There is a fine balance among the concepts of 'worth', 'value', 'bargain' and 'price' that makes an intricate dance around my purse and time. Now, there's another inter-related commodity: time. Convenience factors into 'worth': if something is cheap but takes too long or too much effort to obtain then it may not fulfill its 'worth' to us.
Yes, price matters, but do we ever quite get a handle around all the costs? Do we ever get to the point of 'all other factors being equal' where we can make a completely objective decision? I really don't think so. The closest we can get is to ignore certain unobvious costs, such as those we do not directly pay. As an example: sure, two identical items may be available at two stores with two widely divergent prices. The smart person would buy the least costly-priced item. But why were the two prices different? Was one shop owner deliberately trying to make a larger profit? Or were there other costs involved between the two merchandisers: employee pay differentials, store site cost differences, different supply routes or wholesalers, customer service. Oh, yes, service costs money to the store - it takes the time of paid people - or we could all do just as well with large-scale self-service vending.
I think that much more often our choice is between two items that aren't quite alike and we do know a little more about the stores we are buying from. Whether we factor that knowledge into our purchasing decisions is yet another choice. We can choose to look at the costs behind the ultimate price to us or we can simply look for the cheapest possible deal, perhaps even manipulating the balance along the way. There are ethics to how we spend our time and money.
When items are virtually identical does price matter? Is price, within reason, the only final consideration? For many of us I'm sure it is: we take pride in having found a 'bargain.' Hopefully not too many of us get a thrill from paying someone less than something is 'worth.' I know that feeling when someone tries to take advantage: they say 'you can't blame me for trying!' This latter was said to me at a craft show when I pointed out that I hadn't gotten the correct change. There is a fine balance among the concepts of 'worth', 'value', 'bargain' and 'price' that makes an intricate dance around my purse and time. Now, there's another inter-related commodity: time. Convenience factors into 'worth': if something is cheap but takes too long or too much effort to obtain then it may not fulfill its 'worth' to us.
Yes, price matters, but do we ever quite get a handle around all the costs? Do we ever get to the point of 'all other factors being equal' where we can make a completely objective decision? I really don't think so. The closest we can get is to ignore certain unobvious costs, such as those we do not directly pay. As an example: sure, two identical items may be available at two stores with two widely divergent prices. The smart person would buy the least costly-priced item. But why were the two prices different? Was one shop owner deliberately trying to make a larger profit? Or were there other costs involved between the two merchandisers: employee pay differentials, store site cost differences, different supply routes or wholesalers, customer service. Oh, yes, service costs money to the store - it takes the time of paid people - or we could all do just as well with large-scale self-service vending.
I think that much more often our choice is between two items that aren't quite alike and we do know a little more about the stores we are buying from. Whether we factor that knowledge into our purchasing decisions is yet another choice. We can choose to look at the costs behind the ultimate price to us or we can simply look for the cheapest possible deal, perhaps even manipulating the balance along the way. There are ethics to how we spend our time and money.