Beer Pricing - A Moral Responsibility?

It's really just not your responsibility to correct the beer's pricing. I would only do it if I knew the owners personally.

 

More anonymous moralizing...

 

I don't know that anyone is saying it's your responsibility. Some people are just saying it's the right thing to do.

It's not anonymous. My ID is literally my last name. I also don't think it's moralizing, but whatever.

 

I admit that I would treat it differently depending on the type of store. Small place I'd tell them hoping to get a 4 pack at the too low price; BevMo buy a couple 4 packs and see ya!

 

I might be splitting hairs here, but some people are saying it's the right thing to do and some people are implying that others are bad people for not falling all over themselves to tell the business. It's not totally fair to compare this to the muling threads, but I don't think it's totally different either. There's just so much holier than thou sentiment on BA. I don't know why I'm bothering to comment on it. Probably because on my regional board there's a Jester King thread weekly where 50 people who got a beer complain about how other people got more of that beer and how those people are scumbags. Note: I rarely even have one of "that beer".

Again, splitting hairs, but my ID is also basically my name, but good luck finding me. I get personal documents sent to my email constantly for other erushings. Karma Note: I do respond that they have the wrong email if it's anything remotely important and delete the email/documents.

 

This is a great website, but I'm not a beer advocate just like I'm not an amazon. That position has nothing to do with the issues in this thread because the issues in this thread have nothing to do with beer... well, almost nothing. If the bodega had sixers of Torpedo for $3, there wouldn't be a thread. Scarce beer is the potent if stupid stimulus, even if we don't want to admit it. Fen Branklin once said, "Scarce beer is proof that God hates us and wants us to be miserable." Some people don't believe that he said that, but he did... that bastard lives down the street from me. If I was the bodega owner and saw this thread, my reaction would be: "Thanks for looking out for me, but everyone needs to relax a little."

 

"Are you sure you know what this is worth?"

"Yeah- I just want to get it out of here"

That scene will probably play out most times, but it still doesn't hurt to ask, especially if it's an extreme example.(Fwiw- I would definitely tell the $20 Tiffany lampshade person what they had, just for their own good).

Bringing it back to beer- I recently saw some Vintage Rodenbach 2012 for the same price as the Grand Cru ($8.99). I don't know what it normally sells for, but do know I have passed it by due to the price in the past. So I asked the manager, who said that they knew it was Vintage, knew about the price, and for me to enjoy. A few weeks later, it was all gone and the Grand Cru was back in the same slot. Obviously, the distributor was looking to unload old stock, the store picked it up but priced it reasonably, and sold a few cases in a few weeks. Everybody happy. I still think it was too suspicious to not ask, though- from the onset it definitely looked like the wrong beer was placed in the Grand Cru slot on the shelf.

Anyway- here's where we part ways- you say that you came to an agreement, but that's just based on a price that could have been due to an error or oversight. Sometimes they just want to move things, sometimes it's a genuine mistake. In those cases when it's that obvious I'd rather make sure we are all on the same page.

 

If I was buying a 6 pack of Torpedo and it rang up as $3, I would ask if it was correct.
According to some people here, that makes me an idiot. In my book it is just being honest.

 

What is morality worth when it's selective? I'm pretty sure most people, myself included, would have no qualms about receiving $300+ worth of beer for one bottle of BAVDL that was only $50. IMO, the concept of morality has no place in a business transaction between two willing parties even if one does have imperfect information.

 

I don't even know what BAVDL is, but yeah, I'd have qualms. What you've described is exactly what I find so troubling about how some people think about beer these days.

 

Letting ethics and morality be defined by economics is how things like exorbitant product markups, price gouging, profiteering, unsafe labor conditions, unfair wages and any number of deplorable practices come to pass.

It's funny, I would love to see a Venn Diagram showing the overlap between people who have no qualms about getting that obviously underpriced 6-pack of KBS and the people who pitch a fit when they see a retailer charging a premium for a beer like KBS. I suspect that there would be a ton of overlap, which is funny since the guy who takes the $10/4-pack of KBS and the guy who charges $13 for a bottle of KBS are different sides of the same coin.

The market is amoral because there is no inherent morality in an economic transaction. It's basically a specialized version of saying science is amoral. Or math is amoral. They have no inherent moral value. They just are.

Which is why it's up to humans to conduct economic transactions with consideration of what is or isn't moral. Because putting the onus to be moral on the market is a copout.

 

Not to derail the thread but I do love the management hierarchy and advanced POS systems these non NYCers are imagining exist in bodegas.

Pretty sure the cat is the manager on duty at most of em.

Oh and trust me, he wasn't accidentally pricing other Founder's 6 packs, cause lord knows those aren't even 9.99 in Brooklyn!

 

Maybe you want to go around being the know it all that wants to tell stores how to run their business, but me? I don't want to be that jackhole. (Do you also stop people waiting to get in to a taxi and let them know they can use Uber for cheaper? After all, your moral obligation appears to be saving someone a relatively minor amount of money.)

Why does everyone assume that the bodega's normal customers would pay the going NYC rate for KBS? It is worth that higher rate to you. To their normal customers, maybe not so much. How is this any different than the celebrated stories of stores who sell old WWS for $2.50 a bottle? To you and at another store it is worth far more because it is an aged WWS, but to that store it is dead inventory eating up space.

This is how arbitrage happens. Something is worth more to one person than another. So is arbitrage now immoral? Or is the value being brought by that middleman who knows what something can be sold for elsewhere worth a price for the service? (Why are they obligated to share their learned information for free? Does this mean all learned information should be shared for free? What are the criteria?) And if that consultant's value is worth something, why can't the end user make the same arbitrage purchase directly and pocket the middleman's fee?

So much wrong with people who think there is a high moral standard to be adhered to in this scenario.

 

How about both?

 

Like a lot of people in this thread - you're rationalizing and you're making crap analogies. Also the last paragraph - I have no idea what's going on there - some kind of stream-of-consciousness? What the f**k has arbitrage got to do with a small store accidentally mis-pricing a case of KBS?

Long story short - for me (and I assume anyone else who would tell the store) - I would want to tell the store because if I was in their position I would hope someone would tell me. I give the person back the $20 they dropped because I would hope they would do the same for me. Etc etc etc. It's not hard.

 

I'm quite sure that I do. It was a simple question. Like I said...there is zero reason not to snatch it all up. If the place goes out of business due to that, they were never going to stay in business anyhow.

 

Your act is getting a bit old and tired Biff, maybe time to change your avatar and BA name.

 

Yeaaahh....

I was really beer-advocating it up last night and had some temporary dyslexia, seeing "amoral" as "immoral".

I'd like to say I won't post while drinking anymore but I can't promise anything.

 

Wow, there are more armchair economists in the BA community than I suspected. As with any other retail transaction, I pay what I'm asked, unless I deem it too expensive, then I don't. My job is to be the consumer, not the retail watchdog. Don't overthink things, fellas.