No, Dennis.
Wholesale is for people who regularly purchase reasonable and case
quantities and know good business relations depend on both parties, so they
know how the business works and what the terminology might be. The savings
from this regularity for the source results in savings for the customer.
Retail is for answering all the questions from people who want to spend as
little as possible on just enough glass and other supplies for a single
project, including the (fortunately) relatively rare people who believe that
if they break a piece of glass they should get a free replacement and those
who demand obsiquiousness ["You are the employee and I am the customer and
don't give me that attitude."]
Somewhere in between are the people who make more stuff than the hobbiests
but not so much as the professionals but think, more or less accurately,
that they should get the advantages of the latter. The more obnoxious ones
think that all suppliers should somehow be forced to the standard of the
more polite ones that treat them as wholesale customers.

--
Mike Firth
No more levees
Bury old Orleans
Raise New Orleans up if it is worth saving
--
"Moonraker" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
ups.com...

Self serving? Of course - but it also serves to provide better pricing
to working artisans. If you use the materials to make a for sale
product, you should buy those materials wholesale. Retailers are to
serve the hobbyists.


Nonsense. Absolute total nonsense. By your logic, then, I should pay
retail pricing for the materials on any gifts I might make?

All you are trying to do is lend some artifical credibility to a bunch of
basement bandits and wannabes.

The cost of the glass and metal in any stained glass project is a very
small
percentage of the selling price...that is, if the project is actually
being
built by a real professional artisan. Me spending $30-50 more for
supplies
on a $1000 sale is certainly worth the convenience of having a local
source
for that odd piece of glass or whatever I need on short notice.

I'm far from a hobbyist...and I use retailers for virtually all of my
supplies. Know why? Because when that retailer gets an inquiry on a
major
repair or restoration or for new work that they can't handle, I get a
phone
call. So, I spend a few extra bucks a month keeping the local economy
going, and it comes back to me in spades. When I walk into a store,
they
know me. I don't have to give them a customer number and a password and
wait for two friggin' weeks for some bozo to process an order.