Shopping locally is a great way to help your community and stimulate the local economy. But sometimes, there are things that just make more sense to get online.
As Redditor ismorrisasuburb discovered, it’s hard to argue with something that’s nearly half off when ordered online versus at his local store. But when their local comic book store owner tried to convince them to buy, the original poster (OP) responded with their plans.
The store owner got upset and walked off in a huff and OP is wondering if they were wrong to say what they said. To figure things out, they asked the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit to judge them.
OP thinks they’re just being logical.
“AITA for telling my local comic book store than Amazon is way cheaper?”
But does he owe something to his comic book store?
“I’m a huge fan of the “Sandman” series by Neil Gaiman. Lately I’ve been looking around for the Absolute Editions, which are essentially the nicest, most expensive versions of certain graphic novels or comics.”
“My local comic shop had all five volumes in stock priced at $125 apiece, so, had I bought all of them, it would have been $600 plus tax.”
“While I was browsing I looked up the price on Amazon, and they’re going for $72 apiece, so, $360 plus tax for the entire lot.”
“Meanwhile the owner of the shop came over to me and asked if I needed help with anything. I said no but went on to explain my interest in the Sandman Absolute Editions.”
“Then he got kind of pushy and kept dropping hints that he wanted me to buy them (likely since they’re so expensive and so marked up). I’ve bought more expensive comics from this store on numerous occasions and so the pushiness kind of got under my skin.”
“I told him that I love the books but that I can’t justify buying them from here, like a lot of other products of theirs, since they were nearly twice as expensive as Amazon.”
“He seemed pretty offended and went onto tell me, condescendingly, that ‘you know I’m running a local business right? What did you expect? We can’t sell things at the same price as Amazon.’ and walked off in a huff.”
“It wasn’t that big of a deal but he clearly wasn’t happy that I brought up the price difference. I’m feeling weird about it because I’ve been a regular at this place for years.”
OP updated asking people to stay focused on what they thought was the core issue of the story.
“Edit: can already tell that this is going to get bombarded by people who simply hate Amazon. Try to respond to the merits, thanks.”
OP’s local comic book store has other considerations, and are trying to make a sale, but OP just can’t justify wasting hundreds of dollars extra for the same item.
Were they wrong to bring up the online price?
On Reddit, the users of the board judged OP for telling the comic store they planned to buy online by including one of the following in their response:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everybody Sucks Here
The board quickly turned against OP. On top of the tacky discussion of price compared to a massive billion dollar corporation, the commenters couldn’t believe OP didn’t understand why that book is priced so low online.
There are so many more considerations for a brick and mortar store than for something like Amazon.
The board voted that OP was absolutely wrong for what they did.
“YTA massively. You do realise Amazon undercut book stores so they can slowly put them out of business. They also do other shady things.”
“You clearly like the store, so will you be happy if it closed down? Amazon won’t sell things at a low price once their competition disappears.” – paulStuart1
“This. Good bookstores, in my experience, will sell things at MSRP or their actual value.”
“That means that while you might pay less at Amazon now, it’s only so Amazon can charge you a lot more when they have no competition. Try it with books that are more rare and hard to find.”
“My signed Fantastic Four copies were $25 a piece at a physical comic shop (it’s in Austin, Texas IFYKYK), I can’t even find them on Amazon. It’s exclusively Omnibuses.”
“As a comic book collector, you’re destroying your future ability to enjoy comics to save a few bucks now.” – Catzy94
“Is there some reason why you didn’t just say, ‘No, thanks, I don’t need any help,’ and leave it at that instead of picking a fight? You are allowed to have unexpressed thoughts.” – AmazingPreference955
“YTA.”
“$125 is the list price, not a ridiculous markup. Amazon deliberately undercuts brick-and-mortar.”
“There is no way he doesn’t know this. You can say you can’t afford the $600 (whether that’s true or just a polite fiction) without mentioning Amazon.” – judgy_mcjudgypants
“YTA. Why would you go into a small, local business and tell them that you’re going to order the same products that are in their store from a huge multi-trillion dollar corporation that’s killing businesses like his? You could have simply left that part out.” – prairiemountainzen
“YTA. He’s a salesperson; salespeople come off as pushy because they want to make the sale. All you had to do was say, ‘No, thank you.’ Then leave.”
“You didn’t have to remind him that his business, along with so many others, will struggle when Amazon is undercutting them all.” – hillbot27
“YTA”
“It’s not that he pockets the difference. Local stores need to pay for space and employees. Also they can’t make massive orders from suppliers. That leads to higher prices.”
“It is a choice you will have to make whether you want to support (many) small store owners or prefer buying online (from a couple of millionaires).”
“When you interact with a small store owner though it’s indeed rude to say that you value only the price and not the experience they offer you. You essentially called his store pointless.” – lellyla
Other commenters got deep in the discussion of Amazon’s business practices. It’s because of shady and unethical business practices that Amazon can provide a cheaper alternative.
But cheaper comes at a cost somewhere else, even if it’s a human cost.
“YTA but I doubt you’ll accept your verdict based on your replies and edit. I don’t hate Amazon. I order from them regularly and worked for them for a time.”
“I also run a small business. Your bookshop and Amazon are not competitors. As many people have mentioned the overhead costs of running the shop are far different than Amazon’s not just on scale but also model.”
“For instance, you receive assistance from a real live person who is trying to make a living for themselves. If you know what you want and you want to just order it in the mail fine, but if you like the experience of entering a shop, browsing titles, feeling the pages in your hands: respect the person who works hard to make that happen for you.”
“If you can afford the difference in price please do so and if not just say it’s not in your budget at that time.” – ericauh
“How was it working for amazon? What did you do?” – laservole
“I worked on the docks taking carts of packages to the semis and loading them on the right ones. It wasn’t complicated work but it was very physical and boring.”
“There was enough sexism in the workplace that it shocked me and I’ve worked in male dominated fields my entire life. It wasn’t a great work environment and I don’t think I’d recommend it to people but I didn’t experience anything as shocking as what’s seen in the news.”
“I’m sure those stories are true but I only worked there for two months and it wasn’t so bad for me.” – ericauh
However, not everyone agreed that OP was so wrong. The owner came off as pushy, and OP just stated a fact about the price.
While their opinions were outnumbered, there were commenters that agreed with OP.
“NAH.”
“All you did was explain why you didn’t want to buy them in the store. You had no idea how he would react.”
“Some stores may even offer to price match or he could have tried dropping the price etc. He was a bit peeved, made a remark and walked off.”
“No real harm done.wouldn’t call anyone an AH.” – Ok_Reach7331
“NTA , him having to charge more is understandable and so is you not being able to justify the purchase . If he hadn’t pressured you to buy it you wouldn’t have said that to him.” – Rough_Theme_5289
“NAH”
“He isn’t wrong, running a brick and mortar shop has expenses. You aren’t wrong wanting to save over $50 per book.”
“I would continue to go and support him if I were you, just not with items that are so aggressively priced.” – Jintess
It honestly sounds like OP had already made up their mind before posting, based on their defensive edit. Commenters mostly agreed that they were the one in the wrong, but some people did point out that the price difference is difficult to swallow.
If you can afford it, support your local businesses.