Schaff Piano price list

[william ballard]

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.
wbps at vermontel.net

Reality is the first casualty of technology
     ...........NPR Commentator Daniel Schorr
+++++++++++++++++++++


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