Thread: Best place for tires...

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Welcome to the world of unintended (or are they?) consequences. Within the last year or so a new import tax on foreign made tires was implemented. Wonder if that will affect anyone's vote?

This kind of situation brings up a dilema for the observant consumer (see Mike's post on PAW for a derivative). You can get a better price from a sales outlet (ne: mail order) with a more favorable operational cost stucture than your local tire store, but, are you willing to live with the consequences? If the local store can't contain it's mandated expenses to remain competitive with the alternatives that the internet, especially, offers, his choices are to reduce costs in other ways (labor is by far the single highest operating budget item a small business has) and/or lower the quality of his product/service. I do business with a particular local tire store because the shop foreman knows how, and is willing to, mount specialty tires without gowing up the painted rim. How will an online vendor cater to that? Ultimately many will go out of business or leave for greener pastures depending on their business circumstances. That's when we end up seeing complaints about how, for example, we can't find a parts store with knowledgable help anymore. Or a miriad of other examples you can probably think of. This comes from decades of loading social costs on businesses, which results in higher employee costs that the consumers work to find an alternative to, while nodding approval when they don't see any direct impact on their wallet or lifestyle. The piper must always be paid, it just isn't always clear how.......at least not immediately.