Skip to main content

FIELD NOTES: Don't sell yourself short

At lunchtime the other day, I went through the drive-through line at McDonald’s, pulled up to the speaker, placed my order, and paused a beat waiting for the inevitable follow-up question: 

“Would you like to short-sell that?” 

“No. I just … wait … what? 

“Would you like to short-sell your number 2? You borrow a Big Mac, fries, and Coke from us today in the hope that the price goes down, then you can buy them from another store at the lower price and give them back to us tomorrow, pocketing the difference.”

“Yeah, I know what short selling is; I just wasn’t aware that the Golden Arches was involved.” 

While that may sound far-fetched, is it really? A year ago, my decade-old SUV gave up the ghost, and I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to get to replace her. I located precisely the vehicle I wanted – a used midsize truck – at a nearby dealership, took a test drive, and was prepared to write them a check for the purchase price. They literally would not take my money.

Over the next excruciating hour, it became abundantly clear that large suburban dealership was not in the business of selling cars and trucks. They had ZERO interest in moving the vehicle off their lot. What they really wanted to do was involve me in a complex financial-services deal that may or may not have involved an actual truck. And I’ll be danged if they didn’t succeed. I am now the proud owner of some sort of reverse annuity-derivative-stock option scheme, which, as an afterthought, came with a new vehicle.  

Exacerbating the situation, I get a near-monthly email from the dealer asking if I want to give them back the truck in exchange for a newer one and an even more convoluted financial deal. I think that one involves mortgage-backed securities, Dogecoin, and a free Blockchain keychain.

And it’s not just car dealers. Try to buy a phone, computer, refrigerator, mattress, or even a  lawnmower – basically anything with a sticker price over $100 – and you’ll get the same kind of runaround. There’s even a company called Klarna that will let you buy products costing as little as $10 on an installment plan. 

Sure, “buy-now, pay-later” has always been a sales tool. I remember my mother putting winter coats and Christmas gifts on “layaway” at JCPenney way back when I was just a wee lad, but that was different. Those stores were trying to move merchandise by offering creative payment options. Retailers today are trying to make a profit, maybe the majority of their profit, off of financial services. I have no problem with a business making a dollar, but I do believe a business’ priority ought to be selling the product they sell. It seems lots of companies these days have forgotten that fundamental principle.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

FRIDAY MATINEE: Midnight Mass (🍺🍺🍺🍺)

I held off writing this review until I had seen all seven episodes of the new Netflix limited series “Midnight Mass.” I’ve been burned in the past by shows that start out well and then devolve into silliness as they progress. While “Mass" doesn’t completely stick the landing, I think even the East German judge would give it a solid 9. Taken as a whole, I think it is as effective a piece of horror as the combined “It” movies from a few years ago, and right on par with “Hereditary” and “Midsommar.”  The story revolves around a man returning to his childhood island home after a prison stay for a drunk driving accident that killed a teen girl. Coincidentally, it is the same day the island’s beloved elderly priest, Monsignor Pruitt is supposed to return from a trip to the Holy Land. Unfortunately, the priest has taken ill and is being treated on the mainland. A temporary priest arrives to take his place.  The story takes a little while to get going, and anyone who’s familiar with t...
3 comments
Read more

You Label Me, I'll Label You

Sometime around 1970, my parents acquired a "high tech" device known as a Label-It. Manufactured by the DYMO Corporation, the Label-It was an embossing tape printing system that produced a sticky-backed plastic strip onto which the user could custom-print words or short phrases; or for that matter I suppose all the great works of literature, given enough patience and an unlimited supply of tape. The Label-It was gun-shaped with a horizontal alpha-numeric wheel on top. You loaded a spool of plastic tape into the back and fed it through the embossing head. By arranging the wheel so that the desired number or letter was over the tape and pulling the "trigger," the head forced the tape against the raised character and, due the physical properties of the plastic, a white image of the character was transferred to the tape. When the entire word was finished, you hit the "cut" button and removed the label. It was fairly primitive by modern standards, but it was ...
Post a Comment
Read more

FIELD NOTES: Trust in authority, but verify

At some point in our lives, most of us have been either the victim or the perpetrator of a prank phone call. Most of these calls are harmless. Many are legitimately funny; some are mean-spirited, and a select few are dangerous. In college, some of my buddies and I would call a random number pretending to be from a fictitious sports radio station. We would ask a nonsensical question to (supposedly) win a prize. One question I specifically recall was, “Name  the three teams in this year’s Super Bowl.” The “contestant,” likely a teen girl by the sound of her voice, got the first two teams right but, not surprisingly, struggled with the third one.  Ultimately, she guessed Pittsburgh, which was “wrong,” but actually a pretty savvy answer given that the Steelers were a perpetual Super Bowl contender in those days.  Although those calls don’t represent my finest hour, I think even the “victims,” if they ever even realized they’d been pranked, would admit it was pretty innocuous....
Post a Comment
Read more