Don’t Let Politicians Fool You Into Thinking Competition is Bad

Today I made a trip to a tailor to get three dress pants, a blazer, and a coat altered. The first time was two weeks ago at Le’s Alterations, but after my items were altered I wasn’t exactly satisfied with the results. The plan was to get three pairs of dress pants and a blazer tapered to a slimmer fit, and although the tailor did an excellent job during the fittings, the end result was much baggier than I had wanted.

So how does my visit to the tailor’s relate to economics?

After I picked up my items at Le’s Alterations I spotted another tailor, Josey’s Alterations, literally right across the street. Out of curiosity I did a quick Yelp search to check their reviews and discovered dramatically lower prices, and one reviewer noted that she had six items altered for $25. Le's set me back almost $110. So I decided to pay Josey’s a visit to alter the same items Le’s did for me, and Josey’s got the job done for only $45! I’m kicking myself for not comparing prices. Let this be a lesson if you’re deciding on an expensive and permanent service.

The reason why Josey’s Alterations was able to offer much lower prices for the same quality is because of competition. The owner knew that she had competition all around her especially the one across the street, so in order to attract more customers she must’ve concluded that lower prices should be offered, even though she might've felt that she deserved more. I’ll definitely be returning to Josey’s for future alterations as she has the lowest prices and quality services near where I live. This is the beauty of competition because the savings get passed on to the customer and it prevents monopolies or duopolies from forming, and creates customer loyalty. As the not so common saying goes, competition a day keeps the monopoly away.