Date: Sun, 31 May 2009 09:47:40 -0400
From: Jody@Tritech
Subject: Re: Matthew Rudolf: “Antonella’s refuses the Plenty”
Matt, if my business was in Pittsboro rather than Siler City, I wouldn’t take payment in the form of the Plenty either. The fact that they can be exchanged at a bank for $0.90 each does nothing to help. Furthermore, if the expectation is that I would render $100 in services and that I’m supposed to be willing to take 100 Plenties instead of that $100 and that somehow that’s *supporting* my business, that’s a laugh and a half. That expectation equals me giving everyone with this semi-fake currency a 10% discount, meaning my business *loses* 10% of the gross income from each sale in which I accept the Plenty as equal payment on the dollar, because in the end the exchange rate is USD$1.00 = PLE$0.90 at Capital Bank.
Now, given that I run a computer shop and I have to purchase *a lot* from outside vendors and companies (computer parts, light bulbs, screws, shelves, not to mention electricity, VoIP and cell phone services, water/sewer, Internet access, etc.) and not a single one of those vendors accepts this currency, I would essentially have no choice but to convert it back into USD$ to pay the bills.
The whole idea behind the Plenty is to keep money in Pittsboro, but this represents a myopic view of the economy when almost all of our goods start somewhere else in the state, country, or even world. The hair place that you went to has to buy combs, clippers and clipper maintenance products, Barbasol, chairs, sinks, shampoos, dyes and dye-related consumables, curling implements and equipment, and much more, all of which originates in factories and businesses outside of Pittsboro.
The economic climate is already fairly rough for everyone, and places like local hair shops are losing money because other people are trying to cut costs everywhere possible. What you’re doing when you demand that they accept a 90% payment as equal to being paid in full is asking them to give you a 10% discount. The problem lies in the fact that they’re probably not making a lot of money in the first place, and 10% off their gross income is not the same as 10% less profit. In fact, if they’re only making 10% in profits, your purchase becomes “break-even” and they didn’t make anything, and you know how hard it is to pay bills when there’s no money to pay it with. To take the 10% hit of accepting Plenties on a regular basis, costs would have to go up, making dollar-spenders take a hit on these services to subsidize the losses incurred by Plenty-spenders.
As a very small business owner myself, I also find your previously expressed attitude as a customer to be difficult to stomach. You are judging a business not based on the quality of the services that they rendered to you, but on whether or not they take your admittedly rare choice of payment method which incurs a built-in 10% hit, far more than taking any credit card I have ever been made aware of. It bothers me that people exist who would judge my business based on any factor other than how well I provide my services, because if you hired someone to perform a task and they did a fantastic job (particularly in the case of cutting hair!), that’s all that should really matter, is it not?
In business, there are some customers that will make unreasonable requests and actually expect the business owner to fulfill them. In mine, people will buy an old $50 used computer, promptly load it up with viruses or other garbage and kill it (the record so far is two hours after the purchase), then come back to us and try to claim a pre-existing defect in the computer to get us to fix what they broke at no cost, despite all the evidence on the machine that proves they trashed it. Apparently in her business, people will demand discounts
via the Plenty on prices that can’t realistically go any lower without going out of business. People who don’t want to do business with us because we won’t honor unreasonable requests simply are not the kind of customer we are able to serve. That may sound a bit crude, but it’s the sad truth. The customer has to be reasonable before the shop owner can be reasonable back, and all the business owners reading this right now are nodding their heads in silent agreement because they know all too well what I’m talking about.
I want you to take a moment and consider what you’re demanding of her business. I’ve talked to many other business owners in Chatham about this, and we all agree that accepting a currency with the terms that the Plenty carries would hurt us, because *someone* has to take a 10% hit in the end, either the business owner or the customer. The expectation is the former, which is not sustainable long-term. The truth is that a business that gives its services away will not remain in business for long, and that’s why she doesn’t want to take your payment in this form. If you want to do something that supports the local economy, spending dollars in the local economy is sufficient. This Plenty thing is getting fairly ridiculous and needs to vanish as quickly as possible before people do business with places outside of Pittsboro because everyone that is *inside* Pittsboro refuses to take the Plenty. “Well if you won’t support the local economy, I won’t do business with you, then!” Local businesses ***are*** the local economy, and the Plenty will ultimately harm them, particularly when the price of combs and shampoo goes up.
Sorry about the rambling. I hope that this helped someone understand why most businesses are not at all thrilled about this new currency. I can’t speak entirely for them, though, so I’d encourage you to ask any local business owner you know about how they feel regarding the Plenty rather than simply taking what I’ve said as gospel. Thanks for taking the time to read what I had to say.
–Jody