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w h smiths disgusting exploitative bastards
at bham new st I went to get some water.
they had loads of bottles, the cheapest of which was £1.79
yet I knew that just 20m away on the other side of the barrier was a M&S with 'normal prices'
I would have complained, but I doubt very much if they pay the cashiers 'SPECIAL' rates for working in a 'SPECIAL MAGIC' prices (just because you cant go out of the barriers.
This is exploiting a monopoly....ok there are other retail outlets.....with similarly high prices.....which makes it a cartel.....agaisnt the public.
of course network rail wont do anything about this cos they also want things to cos more.
What would be the best way to protest?
drink water out of a tap
Just dont' shop at WHsmiths
honestly don't know how they are still going, considering the prices of their competitors.
Because of their locations.
Airports and railway stations where there's little or no other choice and convenience comes at a premium.
exactly this, they offer nothing that i desire that other shops dont
except when they have a monopoly instilled by something like transport, where you are not 'free' to exercise consumer choice by walking to another retailer, due to barriers.
The post office in Winchester is in the WH Smith
There are very few places I'd like to be less than there.
The post office in Bournemouth us in the WH Smith too...
conversely the old post office building is now a Pizza Express.
There's a proper post office on Holdenhurst Rd though
And it's opposite the incredible Centro Pizza
Indeed there is.
I'm all about Winton post office, I don't even live there anymore, but it's ALWAYS open...well, nearly.
Also, mad props (as nobody says) to Pizza Centro, my hangover saviours.
Good point, didn't think of that.
Still, their high street stores?
The one near me doesn't charge for carrier bags?
W H Smiths bags are also slightly smaller than the average carrier bag so it's a struggle to try and get a bloody magazine in one.
there are no taps in birmingham new st
or on trains, they do not make water freely available
I was at BNS on sunday
Barriers were open so I got to go to M&S and get a lovely salad instead of a stodgy wrap.
Bring your own water.
I was dead proud of myself on Sunday for spending five hours inside Wembley stadium and, by bringing my own food and a water bottle, not spending any money.
How many of those five hours were spent in a queue for the water fountain?
where are the water fountains?
we couldn't find any and the guy at the bar pretended not to know anything about them so we had to spend fuck loads.
Near the first aid bits.
I barely needed to queue 'cos hardly anyone knew where they were. Luckily one of the volunteers told me.
they let you take stuff in?
Only an empty bottle and a light picnic.
Worked for me.
I normally do
but this time mrs knees had thrown out all the bottles
grounds for divorce, that
They're outrageously expensive, especially for drinks and sweets
and it's made even more annyoing by the fact that their fridges almost never work. If I'm going to pay their exorbitant prices for a drink, I want it ice cold.
not posting for a bit
will probably be the best direct action you can take against these guys.
Should have just asked one of the friendly staff on the barrier
to let you pop out to go to M and S. They always do for me.
For right or for wrong, the best way to protest is by just not buying the item. Agree that it's an extortionate price though.
yuh
even the unfriendly ones normally let you through with a "can I just nip through the the shop?"
I don't think anyone has ever refused me
Even if sometimes they look like they would rather slice their own face off than let me through
Those barrier staff are a waste of time being there
You can walk past them without a ticket and they wouldn't notice, Im sure.
Secondly, you are allowed to go through to where M+S, etc is and back again. There's nothing naughty about it...
well then I was obviously picked on previously
so it is not wonder that I am angry
Odd, they are usually too busy talking to each other than to notice anything other than a vaguely orange thing in your hand.
When I've had tickets to pick up but couldn't do it at my station as the office was shut, I was expecting to have to plead my case to be let through to the machines. I didn't even start explaining before I was waved through.
Regarding the 'breaking your journey' that's only if you leave the station and M and S, etc is still in the station.
To be fair
if National Rail didn't charge such extortionate rents to the tenants on-concourse, the retailers probably wouldn't commit daylight robbery on their patrons.
as if
yeah WHSmiths is uniformly extortionate
high prices don't necessarily imply a cartel
Don't know why I'm bothering to reply to this.
if the items are uniformly priced to ensure that someone cant get something at a price that is nor,mally
available outside the barriers, then yes I would say that that is a cartel
It would arguably be abuse of a dominant position but that isn't the same thing as a cartel
Because a cartel requires there to be collusion between independent undertakings (which is also not the same as those undertakings independently arriving at similar pricing strategies by responding to market forces).
Managed to bore myself now. Back to work.
Actually, can we just pretend I saw sense a few seconds earlier and abandoned reply?
Thanks.
OK I see that the definition of a cartel is a 'formal' agreement
what is an informal agreement called?
Still called a cartel
But the adoption of similar pricing strategies by independent undertakings does not necessarily imply the existence of collusion.
The high prices they charge at airports and train stations are basically single handedly keeping their entire operation afloat
And if you knew there was another shop with lower prices, they're not really exploiting you are they
there was not another shop with lower prices that I could get to
because it was on the other side of the barrier
nothing that costs £1.79 could get me so angry, tbh.
think the closest i ever got was when a pub near my house started charging £1.35 for small packets of Kettle Chips.
why on earth do you think that I am so petty as to merely be annoyed by an instance like this in itself
it is the principle and the concept and the attitude, surely you know that? or are you just trying to provoke me?
Yeah but you can get a big bar of Cadburys Caramel for a quid.
They get charged loads for the premium location
and so pass that cost on to their customers. Looks like those stupid humans with their hubristic economics have got you again creaks.
my especial objection to this is that water is not a 'convenience'
if it were the sweeties or other stuff that was overpriced then I would be less angry. it is the fact that it is water, where other sources of it are not supplied. water that is priced at the same as the other drinks.
Water (that as someone pointed out in a debate about the price of milk recently) that is more expensive than milk.
Why? is it magic water? no.....but water is sometimes necessary.
this is expolitative and should be frowned upon by all of us if we want to not be exploited.
why arn't the papers or sweeties double the price that is available outside? because people wouldnt buy it.....but people NEED liquid
for the duration of a journey.
by all means defend their right to charge what they want for our 'choices', expoit our 'choices'
but not our 'needs'
its immoral to expoit needs.
Remember the days before everyone bought bottled water all the time?
The dried out corpses littering the street? The fainting children? Terrible times indeed.
You never see the olds buying water do you? Perhaps why they die more often.
yes, ha ha ha ha
when I started work I was anticipating to progress within one company which was local. I got a house near to it, I could walk to work.
Now I have to travel weekly to remote locations.
this is evident also by the amount of road traffic.
Since Tebay/Westmoreland services started offering decent value for money consumables other motorway service stations have obviously started to follow suit, often by merely adding M&S and Waitrose branches, but nevertheless improving the food that you can consume for a decentish price compared to the obnoxious quality/price that used to be available in all service stations.
I think that you are being unfair in mocking me for this.
I think that I have explained the root of my anger and yet you trivialise it.
because people like to have stupid inanity (which can be easily justified instead) rather than examine the basis of my underlying points.
Well, you have shamed me
With hindsight it's hard to believe that I could have been so trivial about this.
Perhaps you could explain to the sales assistant that you were so outraged that you have started a thread on DiS and until they review their prices you will continue to start threads on other alternative music websites. It may seem extreme, but someone has to stand up for what's right.
why are you just reacting to me rather than the concept of someone
chargin double for a necessity when they have a monopoly cw not charging double for 'choices' (sweets, pop, crisps)?
OK fine so people can only react when something reaches the level of criticality?
how do you think things reach criticality in the first place? by letting things slip, by not being vigilant.
But I conceed that I am a very annoying person, and so I probably damage any argument that I put forward by the fact that it is me putting it forward.
Mainly because
I think I have something to offer this thread in terms of gently teasing you for cheap laughs. You're taken yourself seriously enough for both us.
Do you really need a discussion or advice on this? The situation, your options of protest and the varying degrees of futility are self-evident.
that last sentence is very true
As the youth of the day would no doubt say:
this post made me LOL.
I learnt about this in A-Level Economics
Think it's all about supply and demand (or something). If WHS can sell at £1.79 and people will buy it, then they will do it.
please dont treat me like an idiot
but to reply in a similarly simplistic dumb down way
"oh really? then why cant people sell cannabis to people who want to buy it? why cant people sell tazers to people who want them? huh? why are there rules against monopolies? why cant people just do whatever they want huh? why cant you break your journey for 2 minutes to get something from the other side of the barrier huh? why cant someone get off at an earlier stop on a train, without having to pay the full fare again huh? "
Sorry I like you, but why spout stupid simplistic things about the laws of 'economics' or supp;y and demand, when we live in a world which is OBVIOUSLY not pur supply and demand but is a mixture of this and regulations and restrrictions and licences that must be obtained to 'supply'
IT IS NOT THAT SIMPLISTIC
but mostly I am now getting angry that no one is discussing the issue that i wanted people to discuss....that it is immoral to exploit needs rather than choices.
OK - fair point
I was being over-simplistic (and maybe a little bit sarky) but I stand by my post in terms of its intention. My point is that WHS do this because they CAN - if people walk in and think 'fuck that: no way I'm paying £1.79' then they wouldn't be able to charge that. But they do because there is a demand. Not saying it's moral, or that it's right (I tend to agree that it's a piss-take tbh) but there are thousands of similar situations happening all over the country. I will always try to avoid being ripped-off in this fashion (go prepared, shop somewhere else etc) but sometimes we don't have an option. What we then choose to do about it when we are aggrieved is a personal thing
Also: just remembered something
At Derby station, WHS often give a 500ml bottle of water away when you buy a newspaper. Not sure whether this adds anything to the discussion, other than perhaps reinforcing the point that the price charged for an item will be as high as the retailer can get away with.
I will dance on their grave when they go.
Worst shop of all time.
Don't get the competitors argument, at pretty much all the train stations I'm regularly at there's a sainsbury's local 30 seconds away.
yes but theres a fucking barrier in the way, that i cannot cross
as I am not allowed to break my journey
aas told to me by someone on the barrier previously
Should have just asked...
...and if I'd wanted a 1KG Dairy Milk I'd have picked one up before
going to the till.
have you noticed that even the automated pay
machines offer you an item for a pound just before you pay, and they're all lined up behind the machine? Made me chuckle that.
W H Smith at New Street
you obviously didn't clock the unmissable
BUY 4 BOTTLES FOR £3.00*
BUY 3 BOTTLES FOR £2.50*
BUY 2 BOTTLES FOR £2.00*
*actual amounts may vary but it's a good deal
actually just realised you're talking about the WH Smith that is on the inside of the barrier and not the one outside which has the drinks deals described above, never been to that one.
Here's a tip: head to platform 9, take the lift from the platform up to street level, you will find yourself opposite the M&S outside the barriers. You may then proceed to visit your chosen shop and then head back down in the lift and continue on your journey without having your ticket checked.
ooooh I like that
although I will feel obliged to somehow pass this snippit on to all others
Careful
It's a bit like a tax loophole: if everyone starts doing it they'll find a way of stopping it.
Then p_a_u_l will be really pissed off!
Or you could just ask to go past the barrier.
I have previously attempted to, but that was when I was told that the tickets are invalid if you break your journey
As said above. I have always been able to
Just smile real sweetly
Thinly veiled
'I'm better looking than you are' post
;)
:( thinly veiled ageist ticket barrier operative
(I like to kid myself)
my smile is more like a livid scar
Self-serve machine: Would you like to pay a penny for a bag?
Me: No, but you aren't going to stop me from taking one are you, my computerised friend? Ha!
John Menzies would never have let this happen
I hate WH smiths
it fails as a newsagent because you don't have a friendly shop keeper, just a twat pushing his discounted sweets all the time
The WH Smith water situation pisses me off
I went in to get some water, it was a saturday I think.
Till guy: You get this water for free if you buy the telegraph
Me: No its okay, I don't want the telegraph
Till guy: Well you get the water for free if you buy the telegraph.
Me: I don't want it thank you, i'll just buy the water. I don't need the telegraph.
- Till guy rings me up a telegraph but I just pay the price of the water -
He then gives me the telegraph! I DONT FUCKING WANT THE TELEGRAPH.
This is a bit like the scene in "Five Easy Pieces"
Is the Telegraph cheaper then the bottle of water?
if it is then you aren't a very savy shopper
By like 20p
And I won't read it and i'll just have to carry it round
Leave it on a train
or in a cafe, it's like charity!
I'd recommend bombing WH Smiths. That would be an apt protest.
However recently there was a chap that was arrested for making similar comments about an airport.
Note to GCHQ. This is said in jest.
they normally have some offer where water is free with a paper
there must be 5 or 6 whsmiths at waterloo now, including stealth mini ones
jay zs laughs