The banner on the store website – right beside the 30% off banner – indicates free shipping on orders of $79 or more

http://www.utrechtart.com

There is another banner – very visible -letting you “upgrade shipping” for $ 2.99.

On the “Shipping” information under “Customer Service” the charges are spelled out in a clear table, based on the value of the order. On that page free shipping only kicks in at $150.

http://www.utrechtart.com/Shipping-g17t0.utrecht

There is nothing that indicated free shipping of a 2 oz tube of paint.

There is nothing compelling retailers to off the same prices online as in a bricks & mortar store where the company has to pay for light, heat, maintenance, cleaning, and pleasant staff and where some of that extra money, that extra $2, stays in your own community to be used to keep your local economy afloat instead of all being sucked out to a centralized shipping centre in some anonymous suburb of a city far far away.

I have no problem paying my independent local art supply shop or my independent bookstore, or my locally owned grocer or butcher a little premium in price to keep them in business. I look on it as an investment in my community that returns far more value to me in the long run, and keeps my city going, which helps keep me earning an income too.

I’m sorry you felt deceived, but usually when something seems too good to be true, it is.

Wendy,

We have an FAQ section regarding our pricing policy available on both our Blick and Utrecht sites. I have posted this FAQ here for your convenience. Please refer to Part II which focuses on our retail, catalog, and online pricing as well as other concerns that you have raised.

Pricing FAQs
PART I: Demystifying MSRP (aka “List Price”)
What is MSRP? MSRP stands for Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (also known as “list price”). For virtually all products, MSRPs are published by the manufacturer of each product. Unless a product is our own brand, we do not set or inflate the MSRP. We report it. For our Blick and Utrecht brand products, the MSRP is established based on the MSRP of the third-party brand that most closely compares to ours in quality. There are also a few vendors (most notably, Sherwin-Williams/Krylon, Crayola, and 3M) that do not provide MSRPs. In these few cases, the “list price provided” is admittedly subjective.

Does a discount off the MSRP represent a sale price? Not necessarily. A typical example would be that a product has an everyday discount of 30% off the MSRP, but during promotional periods it may rise to 40% off the MSRP. Other products might be 40% and 50% off, respectively, etc. Paint lines often observe this type of format. Some products may never be promotionally priced.

Are the large discounts off the MSRP offered by Blick and Utrecht real? Yes. Many retailers, if not the bulk of them, use the MSRP as their everyday price. You will find this to be the case at big box craft stores. Blick, Utrecht, and other discount art suppliers offer significant value to the consumer by offering steep discounts. Both Blick and Utrecht (and our like-minded competitors) work hard to make sure artists get great value.

Why is the MSRP valuable to the consumer? As long as the MSRPs provided by the manufacturer are reported honestly by the retailer, the larger the discount advertised off the MSRP is, the lower the price to the consumer will be. In other words, if one retailer prices a product at 50% off the MSRP and another prices it at 40% off, the retailer at 50% off the MSRP is indeed charging a lower price for that particular product.

PART II: Location-based Pricing
How do we set store prices? Our local retail staff comparison-shop all discount fine art supply competitors located within 25 miles of each of our stores. We adjust our prices based on these efforts to ensure that our customers are getting the best price. Further, we adjust prices toward online prices to ensure that after shipping and handling, preferred card discounts, and other factors are taken into account, the online and retail prices are similar overall. Blick and Utrecht guarantee to match the price of any art supply competitor within any store’s reasonable selling area.

How do we set online prices? Online prices are based on comparison-shopping at other online resellers. Blick’s online store adjusts its prices both up and down every day based on these comparisons. In this way, we try to take price out of the equation, making the consumer’s purchase decision come down to service and selection, where we believe Blick is superior. Eventually, Utrecht’s online store will follow this approach as well.

How do we set catalog prices? Annual catalog prices are set once, based on expected annual price increases from manufacturers. Unless a manufacturer has a very large price increase during the year (which is very unusual), these prices are honored throughout the year, but are typically higher than our online prices. Scholastic (K–12) and other institutional buyers are encouraged to contact our bid sales staff to establish a discount program off the annual catalog prices. Prices in the quarterly sale flyers are set based on the online price at the time of publication, but also include seasonal promotions offered through vendors.

Where do we charge the lowest price? The answer varies by product and transaction size. Some products have shipping characteristics (bulky, flammable, heavy, etc.) that make them cheaper at retail. Sometimes, there are products that are priced lower in a particular market at the request of a large customer (for example, an art school). However, as a general rule, larger transactions that can achieve the free freight threshold (usually set around $100) are less expensive overall online. For small transactions, it is almost always more economical within the Blick/Utrecht system to buy at a retail store to avoid shipping and handling charges.

Why don’t we just charge one price? Our policy is that each store must be market-competitive AND profitable. To us pricing is a local market consideration. With different cost structures and different competitors, a one-price approach would force us to close some stores because they could not break even at the lower prices offered at stores that have a more advantageous cost structure. If we raised prices in the low-cost locations to protect the high-cost stores, it would mean those other stores would lose volume and profitability because they would be charging a price higher than their local market would accept.

This FAQ is available to view on our Utrecht site via this link:http://www.utrechtart.com/Pricing-FAQ-g140t0.utrecht

This FAQ is available to view on our Blick site via this link:http://www.dickblick.com/customerservice/pricingpolicy

We hope that these FAQs help you, and all of our customers, better understand our pricing policies.

Many retailers, if not the bulk of them, use the MSRP as their everyday price.

That is not true. In fact, while looking to find some art supplier that actually sells products for MSRP I found zero. None. Cero. That doesn’t mean they not out there, but of the 20 or so online art suppply outlets I checked recently, every one of them sold below MSRP. Those with higher savings had higher shipping costs or other tricks to bring the bottom line up.

I would rather drive to Blick’s in St Louis to keep my money in the community even though I’m not crazy about paying sales tax. But I simply cannot afford to. Example:

Logan 350 mat cutter. Blick online – $98.00 plus 8.5% tax (for me), Blick in store – $129 plus 8.5% tax. Even with price match it’s about $115 because your site says you will add in the shipping before matching. …plus 8.5% tax. Art supply outlet selling through Amazon – $99.00, no shipping cost and no sales tax. As I told your clerk on the phone (and suggested he pass the comment on up the chain) businesses like yours are putting yourselves out of business.

Comparison – chain home improvement store – sells all their cordless blowers for the same price online and in stores. I know because I’ve been looking. I checked a few other items – same prices in store and online. If they can do it, you can do it. And still make profit!

Price isn’t everything. But in cases like this, I feel cheated when I can’t buy for the same price in store and online. Do your really think someone who feels cheated is every coming back? I’m thoroughly convinced that a retailer’s worst enemy is an informed consumer. I think you believe it, too, because you sure seem to treat us that way.

Blick’s isn’t alone. All the chain art supply outlets do the same thing. You spend too much money trying to make all the money you can and have lost sight of the fact that business is a two way street, not an opportunity to pick pockets with tricks and gimmicks.

How about this – when I drive 40 minutes down to Delmar, spend 20 minutes in Blick’s down there, then drive 40 minutes back home – you pay me the shipping fee just like you pay UPS? Why should I do for free what you pay someone else to do?

Harsh words, I know, but that’s how I see it and how I feel. And they are based on fact, not what someone else is saying.

You’re the pro at finding those things and it took you five minutes? Hmmm. But remember, I didn’t say they didn’t exist, I said I hadn’t seen it in the 20 or so websites I viewed. 1 out of 21 isn’t “the majority” as you stated. And that was just one product.

Instead of spending money on coming up with more tricks and gimmicks, just give your customers a fair price on the products across the board. By fair I mean to you and the customers. Or pay the people who deliver your products to their own doors the shipping fees. Fair is fair.

Of course, in another thread you stated that selling your products internationally in small quantities loses money for you. I know you don’t really lose that money because somebody else makes up for it. Wonder who that is.

In another thread a WC member came here for a solution to a problem after getting blown off by your customer service department. Your response? Call customer service.

If other chain stores can offer same price in store as they offer online, so can you. It really is that simple.

And, please, don’t throw in our faces that you support WC. You wouldn’t drop a penny here if it didn’t make you money and the cost wasn’t a business deduction. That statement is a slap in the face.

Nitpick all you want. It’s your business model, but not one I like or will submit to.

My job is to try to inform customers so that they can make their choices. We take no pleasure in disappointing anyone. I spend a good part of my day reading surveys etc. to try to better serve customers while also, admittedly, trying to make a buck. Either I’m not always very good at it, or it just isn’t that easy.

In reading your message more carefully, I would tend to agree that most websites and sell below MSRP. The largest craft stores run some sales, but otherwise, tend to be very near list. They make up for it in part by offering single item coupons at 40% off, but these are riddled with exceptions. Our internal studies show that we can be 40% less on larger transactions these guys. We think that’s pretty good value. Brick and mortar stores tend to be near list on an everyday basis, with some squirelliness around private lable goods.

In terms of fair price and the delivered price model for web matching: We disagree, no question, but we don’t hide it. We want our customers to feel secure that if they support our local store they aren’t going to pay more than if they had it delivered to their home. Depending on the product, you may pay less. It’s their choice – only the customer can make the tradeoff of convenience/cost to go to the store.

You want us to “refund” your cost of driving to the store or take that into account. We don’t look at it that way – if the cost of driving is too high, our view is that you are better off buying from our online site.

In terms of the sponsorship point: Absolutely, we do it to build our brand reputation. It’s one of our differentiators. We hope that when it is a tie in other factors, people will take our support of the arts into account in their purchase decision. It’s more altruistic than you give us credit for, but certainly we wouldn’t do it if we didn’t think it was in our long run interest to support the industy that nourishes us.

From the forum and its members, we at least expect to get the benefit of the doubt and treated respectfully. In your analysis on the matcutters, you did not use the active home page offer to determine the price and then were factually incorrect the wrong way about our actual price in comparison to our competition, both in brick and mortar and onlne.

This goes past cynicism into the territory of damaging mistruths. And, if that’s the best we can get out of the relationship with forum users at Wetcanvas, we will need to re-evaluate the relationship. That’s not a threat, it’s a fact.

Thank you Blick for your well-thought out response.

I was going to post some….. sanity….. in response to some of the comments and accusations but it isn’t worth it, it won’t make a difference.

Thanks Blick for doing that online matching program. That was really awesome of you, and i was so surprised the first time I saw the discount at checkout.