Senior Discounts?

KL Smith

CGF II, Certified Grumble Framer Level 2
Joined
Jun 18, 2005
Posts
277
Loc
Jordan Village, ON, Canada
Do you as a rule, offer senior's discounts? And if not, how do you reply when they ask for one? I'm not talking about the person that brings in an armful of pieces to be done. Just the regular type of customer.

I don't offer discounts to seniors as a rule, and most don't ask. However, it seems that the ones that do ask ask are always the ones that park their Caddy, Jag, Lexus or Mercedes right in the middle of my two car parking lot taking up as much space as they can:) They are usually weighted down with enough gold and other assorted boubles to choke a horse.

BTW: Just so you don't think I'm the tightest cheapskate in the world, I do offer all police, fire and miltary personnel discounts, no matter if they are on the job or retired.
 
It's not their fault...they've been trained by the AARP to automatically ask for a discount on anything. Whatever rationale is used (fixed income, fought in the great war, I've lived this long so I deserve it....) seniors feel entitled to a break on price*. There are some businesses that cater to this notion and some that don't.
The short answer is you don't give discounts if you haven't designed that into your pricing system so that you can still make a profit.

*crashing generalization, I know. There are plenty that "get it".
 
We give away free glass cleaning on their custom order. And if they are nice, and we like them a whole bunchies, we'll throw it in on their photo frames too.

As Wally points out, if you didn't figure it in, don't take it out.

One thing we never thought of was that ($%@&!# 3% for the credit cards, which make up about 90% of our orders. It got rectified today; as well as the glass cleaning.
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Pat,

I like that!!!

Mike
 
I think that is where we (seniors) have an advantage; seniors don't seem to ask fellow seniors for a discount. :D
 
I think it makes more sense to give freshmen discounts. We need to hookem young then when they graduate, they come in and THATS the time to gouge the heck out of em.
 
I have always thought that we should give working people discounts instead of Senior one's... as to the My income is fixed rational the follow through on that thought is that ours are "broken"...lol.
We and the working people in general do not really know if we will have money next month...people with "fixed" incomes do.

sorry this is my personal soap box. LOL
 
No discounts to seniors, or to military (and we have two AF bases near). My prices are waaaay reasonable already.
 
Personally, if a discount were based on need, I think the young family with 4 kids in school would be more in need than a senior on fixed income. I never could understand the rational for senior discount. As my kids left home, we seemed to have more disposable income.
 
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