I'm Working Again, Parking is Available and What is With This Pricing Nonsense

18k pink gold ring with diamonds

I'm happy to report that as of last Friday I was given permission to get back on the bench and I have jumped right back in.  I can't say that working is pain free but I'm just happy to be able to be back doing what I love to do.  I've gotten started on replacing my best selling ring (see it here) which I just sold again recently, working on a piece for my wife's upcoming birthday, and working on some tanzanite earrings for a customer who just ordered them.   The tanzanites are 7.5 mm round stones so they are big!  I'll get a picture of them up in a few weeks when they are finished.  And I'm mucking around with some of the new stones I got recently to see what else I can come up with.  So if for some reason you were waiting for my personal touch on a piece, you can now get it again.

For those of you who live in Cambridge, or those of you who regularly travel through Cambridge, you already know that virtually the entire city seems to be under road construction right now.  My area of Massachusetts Ave. is part of this and large parts of it seem to be under constant construction.  Besides the fact that the construction itself is both temporarily and permanently taking away parking spaces, it seems the construction crews only want to park and leave their supplies on Mass Ave. so we have even fewer parking spaces available than usual.  So I am coming to the rescue to my many customers who come in from out of town and don't have Cambridge parking permits.  We have one parking space behind the store that is only in use at certain times of the day.  Anyone who wants to come see me is welcome to call me when they get in the area and if the space is available, I will direct you to it.  This service will be permanent, regardless of whether or not they actually ever finish all the construction.

In two different articles I have posted (here and here)I have discussed pricing issues in America.  Both of these articles came to mind last week when we were once again booking some airline tickets for our winter vacation.  We had been checking fares regularly for about a week and finally made the decision to purchase the tickets because it appeared the prices were going up.  Kathy had looked at the prices and they were up significantly and we figured we had better make them before they went up any higher.  She was planning on doing it in the late afternoon but got busy and couldn't get to it.  That evening she went back on line and the prices had dropped by $300 (for the pair of tickets) for exactly the same seats.  In other words, simply by waiting approximately three hours we saved $300 (which works out to $100/hour).  How could this possibly make any sense?  What could have happened in three hours that would have lowered the price by that much? Three hours!  Not an entire day.  Not looking at 11 pm and then at 1 am.  Just three hours on the same day. 

The very next day there was an article in the Boston Globe that brought this subject home further.  It was about how online retailers (especially in the travel industry but also some retailers) are tailoring their pricing to the individual customer who is searching on line.  Apparently if in the past you stayed in high end hotels, the sites will offer you prices that are higher than if you stayed in dumps usually because they feel you will pay more for the exact same room.  Also some of the retail sites have started to do this as well; adjusting pricing based on your past spending patterns.  (You do all know that everything you do is watched on line these days, right?)  This is so patently unfair to the customers and I don't understand why people put up with it.  It would be a little like my quoting different prices depending on how you are dressed that day! 

So again, you can rest assured that I won't charge you more if you're dressed in a suit (or less if you're in jeans) and my prices don't go up and down by the hour.  And that's just
the way I think things should be!