What's it worth?

For the uninitiated, I run a business. I'm a retail manager. I've run small, local mom and pop stores and national corporation stores. For many years, I still get the same feeling when it comes to helping the public; the average customer doesn't actually seem to understand how a business works.

No matter where I have worked, I've routinely been told, that costs too much. Okay, that's your opinion, but, how in the heck could you know that? What's included in that price? You do understand, if I sell something for what it costs to make it, there is no business, there is no job. Part of the cost to the consumer of any item includes the costs of manufacturing and transportation to get it to you. It also includes a slice of the rent on the building, the lighting, the heat, the air conditioning, the cost of paying an employee to unpack it and put it on the shelf, the cost of the tag to mark it, the cost of paying benefits to employees such as medical and dental, (because we all know that's part of what everyone complains about, people working for companies that do not support their workers).
Oh, and there's more, but I won't go into those costs. So, that item you think that costs $7.99 should only cost $3.99, it's simply more than that.

The other thing retail stores must counter is each other. There are some items that are priced low because other stores price them low to draw in customers. Therefore, competing stores must lower those prices. Since you can't give it all away and stay in business, you need to raise the prices on other items to make up the difference. Again, no profit, no store, no job for your high school kid or the retired guy who can't make enough of social security.

So, where does that leave us? That still leaves us with a consumer base who wants everything for free and who blames the clerk for their perceived wrongs. Have you ever seen the videos of people who tear a store apart? If a group of customers went into any other business and acted like that, they would be arrested. But for some reason, it is expected for stores and restaurants to put up with bad behavior. Just for fun, go into your insurance agent's office and push everything off the shelves or off his or her desk and see if you don't end up in jail.

Yeah, good luck with that.