Schaff Piano price list

[Greg Newell]

Bill,
         Your missing an important part of the 
argument here. What we balk at is the fact that 
the online shopping cart for Schaff, at least, 
does not contain updated prices. More accurately 
it doesn't contain any prices at all!

best,
Greg



At 11:10 AM 4/6/2006, you wrote:
>On Apr 6, 2006, at 9:13 AM, Greg Newell wrote:
>>
>>Brad,
>>
>>         I like your thinking here. I would 
>> still prefer a web based system (password 
>> protected) in which you could click on and add 
>> to a shopping cart and their updated price 
>> would fill in automagically. Your password 
>> should automagically bring up your account 
>> info and shipping info and voila! it's done!!!
>
>You can do that now with any shopping cart which 
>allows you to back off final execution of an 
>order ("Empty Cart" or other cancel button). 
>Essentially you're using the Cart not as an 
>order form as the vendor intended, but as your 
>own personal scratch pad. When you've got 
>everything on your scratch pad, you can print it 
>hard copy, save it as .pdf, or click/drag to 
>cut&paste just the list you've built without the 
>rest of the html on the shopping cart page. 
>(Thus copied, the text is tab-delimited and 
>drops right into a spreadsheet). The one thing 
>which you might not get is S&H, which sometimes 
>only fills in after actual execution. S&H is 
>small enough to pay for out of your mark-up.
>
>Jurgen Goering was just asking about where 
>convenience really lay, whether in the hardcopy 
>or online.Years ago, I designed an estimating 
>database (whose records were parts from vendors 
>catalogs as well as my own job-costed chunks of 
>net time labor) starting with a paper inspection 
>form and ending with a report to the client. 
>However I still find myself doing the estimates manually, pad and pencil.
>
>I always prefer searching and sorting by 
>computer, but no spreadsheet or database is 
>flexible enough to contain all the numerous 
>"notes in the margin" and sidebar recalculations 
>which inevitably occur during a well-planned 
>estimate. Yes, it's possible to compare the cost 
>of boring/shaping/hanging your own hammers with 
>that of pre-hangs using a computer parts list. 
>And yes, my database can annotate whether a 
>chunk of labor and associated parts were a solid 
>element in the estimate, as opposed to an option 
>or a contingency. This is all still on the 
>assumption that estimating is as simple as 
>making a hamburger at "Have It Your Way" Burger 
>King. Unless you're replacing everything from 
>new (or unless you're on the basis of "tell you 
>how much it cost I'm finished"), it never is.
>
>Back on the topic of convincing vendors to adapt 
>web-based catalogs, I can understand a vendor's 
>case-closed and mind-closed reflex that making 
>prices available online invites corporate 
>spying. But when they realize that technically, 
>it's already there to a limited extent with the 
>shopping cart (and completely, with Steinway's 
>spreadsheet), the argument is moot. I bet if we 
>mounted a good petition and took it around the 
>Exhibition Hall in Rochester, we could find 
>someone to jump on board, and in doing so 
>trumpet themselves as the industry leader. I'm 
>betting on Wally Brooks and Jurgen Goering. 
>(Jurgen already sends out a .pdf pricelist, 
>which although searchable is mainly for printing 
>a hard copy. From what I can tell, Brooks Ltd. 
>doesn't even have a web site, but Wally could be 
>convinced to do something exciting and cutting-edge modern.)
>
>Bill Ballard RPT
>NH Chapter, P.T.G.
><mailto:wbps at vermontel.net>wbps at vermontel.net
>
>Reality is the first casualty of technology
>     ...........NPR Commentator Daniel Schorr
>+++++++++++++++++++++
>

Greg Newell
Greg's Piano Forté
mailto:gnewell at ameritech.net
www.gregspianoforte.com