Response to Kevin Provost

In one of Kevin's blogs he makes a good argument about bank hours. He discusses how most of bank hours fall under a time that is difficult for most people to come at. I have always found myself wanting to run to the bank after hours. With work and school it is difficult to make time to go to the bank during the week. Weekend hours are the only time that I can usually make it. The problem with this is that my bank has reduced hours on the weekend and aren't even open on Sunday's. Kevin talks about all the business they are losing by doing this. I have found myself saying this before. If a different bank had significantly different hours then mine I would consider changing banks. Still most banks have roughly the same hour making it not worth the extra work. Banks should stay open later to make it easier on the consumers that they have.

Pricing

Over spring break I went to the Bahamas. I noticed that they dealt with pricing and marketing a lot differently then we do. They have little markets and huts where they sell products. Everything is homemade or home grown. The didn't seem to have too many chain stores or resturants. The competition that these sellers have is each other. As the consumers we were able to bargain with the sellers. We would be able to offer them a price we taught the product was worth. Depending on the vendor they would either agree or ask you for a few dollars more. If the vendor would not offer the product for a certain price we would simply walk over to the next person. When you began to walk away they would instantly offer you some amazing deal. They would want to sell the product for less then they thought it was worth, then have you give the money to another vendor. It was interesting to see how this worked out for them. They got most of the money they made from the tourist and wanted to make sure that they made the most they could.

My question is do you think this was a smart way to price products or a bad way to sell products?