I feel it’s important to support your local homebrew shop and realize their prices are going to be higher than you can get online. But I’m curious what everyone thinks of what is a reasonable markup. I gave my old kegerator to a friend and am building a completely new one. So the other day I purchased some gas and liquid tubing from my LHBS.
I bought a few other small things. This would have cost $80.13 @ morebeer and $143.41 @LHBS. That is $63.28 higher at my LHBS or around 70 feet of tubing and a couple of other small things.
Unless my LHBS does not carry the item I order from them. That price difference you have is irrelevant IMHO if they close and you no longer a get those last minute items.
For example I would never order liquid yeast on-line so having a LHBS is a must for me
It’s your money so you spend it as you see fit. Supporting your LHBS is a great idea and I wouldn’t blink at paying an extra 10, 20 even 30% to support one (if I had one). But that only goes so far. Maybe this is being a bit too harsh, but if I were in the same situation, I would have ordered from More Beer and pocketed the $60+. I didn’t get into this hobby to try and save the world.
Maybe your LHBS is more in line on other items, and you can still give them business when you can. But if they are that overpriced across the board, they aren’t likely to last long anyway.
I gladly pay whatever my LHBS is charging. I know that sounds bad. But I buy for convenience — they’re 15 - 20 minutes away. Plus, I prefer liquid yeast and shipping liquid yeast scares the heck out of me, because as Forest Gump would say: “you never know what you’re going to get”.
As a homebrew shop owner, I will tell you that I try and do my due diligence in researching what I am charging compared to what the “big boys” are charging but sometimes things get missed. I am highly involved in all the clubs in my area so most of the time, if something seems off in prices, my customers will let me know and I’ll take a look and do what I can, especially if it is a huge difference. Most of us want you all to come back and stay loyal so I’m sure if we can’t come down to a comparable price, it’s possible we’ll explain why we can’t. I could go on and on about this but hopefully your LHBS isn’t like that across the board and it all levels out with cheaper things in the store.
I would assume that the shop is simply trying to stay in business and pay their staff reasonably. I would doubt that they are setting prices to gouge anyone. I lost mine about 9 months ago (with no alternatives) and miss it!
I would give quite a bit to have Northern Brewer and Midwest stores open again. I always bought everything from them and enjoyed interacting with the people who worked there. Once they closed, I no longer support them as they are just another onlline retailer. I’d pay a premium to have a decent local store in the Twin Cities that had a similar inventory.
Agree that the unfortunate reality is that they need to do this to stay in business. Costs depend on a lot of things, including wages and real estate in the local area. Many consumers likely won’t pay prices that high, so the effort might be futile.
Are all the prices there that much of a markup? I wonder if this is just a case of a small thing that people usually buy less of, so they hope to make more margin on it than other big ticket items. For the lengths you’re getting, maybe they’d sell you a roll at bulk prices? I know my LHBS has higher prices than online for things sold by the pound or foot, but also offers great deals on whole bags of grain that you can’t get anywhere else once you take shipping into account.
I to will support my LHBS knowing that I pay a bit more. The idea of not having a local source for most of my yeast and last minute supplies scares me. The LHBS does not carry Wyeast because of the price for a minimum order and I am forced to have yeast shipped occasssionally–always a nightmare. Plus we are fortunate, the LHBS owner is a wealth of knowlege or he knows someone that can answer the question. He also supports local clubs in competiitions ( drop off spot ) and club beer projects. All of this makes the little bit of extra money a worthwhile investment.
Been wanting to add my 2 cents to the conversation because recently I decided to put my costs on an excel spreadsheet. As background I brew weekly 3.5 gallons. I went back over the year to look at my costs for the homebrew store and then I looked at the costs of the recipe ingredients for each. Both showed that my costs went up to $2 to $3 over the course of the year.
Considering what I see, I realized a couple of things:
While the grains went up, it was the yeast costs that went up. I went up to dry yeast awhile back.
the local seeks to offer best deals possible including AHA discounts and money off a bill to accumulative sales ($10 off for every $200 spent.
The owner offers expertise.
Owner offers to be go-between for no fee for those wishing to sell equipment