Price Matching - Moral?

Price Matching. Just to be clear I understand this to be an offer by a retailer to sell an item at the lowest price a customer can find it elsewhere. It is an aggressive marketing ploy, if completely successful aiming at the elimination of all competitors. During the early phase the consumer benefits. He is king, and appears to call all the shots, driving down prices until the retailers creak under the strain. Great for him - until one retailer succeeds in out-muscling the others, perhaps putting them out of business in the process. From this point the boot is on the other foot, and over a period of time prices will rise, as the retailer dominates. This is sheer market economics in the raw, at its ugliest - dog eats dog.

I have been pondering the morality of this as it applies to the market in christian books sold by self proclaimed christian companies. Is it fitting that publishers, bookshops and online retailers employ Price Matching? But then, it is a difficult time as the recession bites and the waterhole is shrinking. Temptation abounds.

Sometimes it is consumers who provoke a price war. Last week we had someone ring up to ask "Do you do price matching?" She had located a book cheaply elsewhere and wondered if we could or would sell it for the same. Now we were not going to play the rival Supermarkets game. But was that a christian attitude for her to have? I freely confess that I myself shop around and look at all the options and deals on and offline when buying goods, so am I just being hypocritical here? However is it not one thing to set your stall out and sell at what you can afford (maximising customer service and other enrichments as well) thus creating healthy competition, and another to advertise Price Matching? I feel that oversteps the mark. Managing a Christian Bookshop, I want to earn a living, but I want others in the same field to as well. Otherwise Biblical principles regarding love to our neighbour are violated. Price Matching discredits christian retailing, and it is shameful for sober christian people to provoke it. Feedback wanted please!

Jeremy

Christian Behaviour by John Bunyan

Those that know me will know that I have a certain fascination with books on 'Child Training' - I am always tempted to buy them in, then they sit on my bedside table for months while I decide if they really are any good and if they are worth stocking. Having now read 'Christian Behaviour' by John Bunyan I realise that really all these books could be boiled down to a few pages - and John Bunyan does this perfectly. This small paperback (76pp) starts by expounding Titus 3:7,8

That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.

and, as you read further you realise how important this introductory section is. The 'ground rules' are laid down: Faith is all important. Bunyan then moves on to the specifics - the master of the family, parents, correction of children, masters to servants, duties of wives, duties of children to parents, servants to masters and neighbours to each other. He writes in typical puritan style with lots of subheadings and sub-subheadings but he is easy to follow and very practical in his applications. For only £2.95 (maybe the low price explains the poor cover design?), I really would recommend this as a useful addition to any bedside table!

Lorna