Just because you like the store. If you don’t have a pet, pet ownership costs can be quite crazy at times–especially if your friend needs frequent trips to the vet, which can cost an arm and a leg.
Well, a few days ago I had a random discussion with someone about dog food, and we found we buy our food from the same place–a really small “mom & pop” type of store with great owners, a married couple. As we talked, we both found that we no longer buy food from them because the brand of dog food they were selling didn’t work out for our dogs. However, we both still go back to buy treats and other small things just because, well, we like them. Similar to brand loyalty I guess?
Maybe this is an argument for customer service? Do you find yourself patronizing a particular establishment for the same reason? How do you justify how much of a “premium” you would put on a store you like?
In my situation, Brownie’s dog food costed about $35 for a 35lb bag, but his new food costs $17 for a 40lb bag. Quality of the new food is just as good, ingredient for ingredient. When I see the numbers I can’t believe I was even thinking about continuing to try and buy this dog food just because I liked the place. I figure now I can buy dog food, and go back to the little store to buy toys and other things.
Kira
August 10, 2006 at 6:57 am
I totally go back to places that have nothing special about them, I just like them. I have no compunction about spending more there than I would at other places (unless, like in your example, for something like food which adds up over time.) Like today, I really liked this new vet.. they were really nice and they had a resident cat. I began thinking about taking our cat there as well (we were only there for the guinea pigs) because I just really liked it.
S/100/30
August 12, 2006 at 7:19 am
Heh, good timing. I’m in the middle of working on a post about sentimentality and money, of which brand loyalty and wanting to patronize small, local businesses are two examples.
freedumb
August 19, 2006 at 11:34 pm
Kira, Funny how we pick up on certain things and that becomes the draw. I don’t have many places that I go to because I just like the place…besides food places, which I go to because the food is good!
S/100/30, will be on the look out for it!