Shut up and take my money.

I was walking at the mall and saw a sunglasses hut. What would it hurt to take pictures of yourself in new shades right? So I walk in and there's this chick with the skrillex haircut tending to some elderly ladies. I walk in on time to see them swiping their cards and leaving.

"Suckers", I thought gleefully to myself. This was going to be purely an ego trip for myself. You know how girls go into stores and try on everything then buy nothing? Yes. I was planning on doing exactly that. So skrillex chick saunters over to me and introduces me to Oakleys. Must have been her recent sale that gave her swag level unlimited so when she sold me, she sold me like a pro. I was ready to part with mine and my next three generation of souls from my first born children and theirs to come after she told me all the company schpiel. You know, the usual, how Oakleys sunglasses are bullet proof (My eyes quit literally watered at the sheer will it took to keep them from rolling) and all that jazz. But more importantly, they were polarized.

Polarized sunglasses are the shit. And I am now out $154.99

That bitch.

OK, you go.

 

I don't get it. What is it you want to discuss?

 

Ambush-style sodomy of the wallet, I think. You know, being sold on something you previously had no interest in buying.

You and I may be too cold and calculating, but I'm sure some more impulsive TFPers have purchased a Flowbee.

This thread will probably involve tales of mall hall booth fast-talkers and door to door salesman.

Typically the people that fall for said crap are the Maury viewing demographic.

 

I don't understand being suckered out of 150 dollars for a pair of sunglasses.
No one, I don't care how skilled they are at sales, could talk me into such a thing.
I don't get it.

 

FWIW, $150 isn't actually too far off the MSRP for the brand/type of sunglasses mentioned in the OP.

Really, it's not a whole lot different than paying $6 for a beer at a baseball game.

 

It certainly is much different than paying $6 for a beer at a baseball game. It's $150.

$150 for a pair of sunglasses is inconceivable to me. Understand that in many ways I am a foreigner here.

 

It's a luxury brand item. Do I really have to explain that concept to a middle class white woman that lives in Florida?

Anyway, my point was that many folks are cool with paying for the convenience of "right here, right now."

Some people are willing to pay x% more for something that they can have instantly.

 

No salesperson could talk me into shelling out more than $20 for something that I don't need. Read: need.
That's not to say that I don't go out of my way to find things that I don't need and buy them.
I guess I am pretty definitive on what I need and what I want. Salespeople are ineffective against my own self-sales mechanisms.
--- merged: May 25, 2012 at 9:23 AM ---

Yes, luxury brand items have no meaning for me. That comes as a surprise?

 

Not at all. You've got like 19 kids. You're obviously very frugal in an effort to support your other hobbies: family and stuff.

But I'm sure, as an intelligent woman, you understand the concept of luxury brand goods, especially fashion accessories.

 

I think as you 'mature' you are less likely to fall prey to paying for fashion, just for fashion's sake. At least I have.

Having said that I just paid significantly more that $150 for a new pair of sunglasses. They are prescription, no line bifocals and best of all they FUCKING POLARIZED!!!!! The frame was one of the cheaper they had at $115. Could have drop three times that for a name brand frame. I drive a lot, having a great pair of sunglasses is a necessity. Having a name brand frame isn't as important to me.

 

I understand that they exist and that people buy them.
If they're not frigging wealthy, I don't know how they sleep at night.

 

I remember this one time 4-5 years ago in the Mall of the Emirates in Dubai. Went with my friend to go skiing (yay for skiing!) there and wanted to get my signature and favorite perfume: Issey Miyake's L'eau D'Issey.

Entered a "perfume store" and this superhot girl approached me to sell her product (still talking about perfume). She bombarded me with, probably random, words for easily 20 minutes while I looked at her with a blank stare and imagining what else I could get her to sell.

When she was done, I went aheady and got myself the Issey Miyake perfume.

You suck for falling for salespeople's crap, Lickspittle.

 

Amen to that, brother.

 

Of course it depends on the perception of what a person needs and why. That's not the story that set up this thread, though.

Plus, paying $200-300 for something you could get an equivalent of for $80-90, to me, is inconceivable. Granted, that is just me and I realize that. I just don't understand why someone would come to that buying decision. I don't share that impulse to have things because they are connected with a name out there that everyone associates with some vague image of significance. Plus, it's paying into a culture that I don't respect.

 

I totally get that. And I do the same in my own way. For instance, there are certain brands of clothes (chiefly jeans, t-shirts and scrubs) that fit me better than others and I search those out. Of course, almost without exception, I buy them all second hand.