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Arghl! I went to town late this afternoon, wanting to eat a crêpe. With the Altstadtfest still going on, there were plenty of stalls. And crêpes they sold, along with crepes, crépes and crepe’s. Eeek, bad orthography and typography galore. How can people who do nothing but sell a single type of food possibly get the spelling wrong or accept the wrong spelling? How can people have up to three different spellings of the word on their stall? Surely even the dumbest businessperson must be able to spot that.
I also visited my former flatmate Philipp who also runs a stall there. It’s a fleamarket-type thing, selling CDs, both used and dodgy bootleg types, as well as used books and some dictionaries. The book section is quite good. Some good books in there, some best sellers, some comics. Quite a few books were sold and prices were a bit high but OK. Comics were very popular, particularly Asterix. The dictionaries are the same kind of bargain you’d find at bargain bookstore, thus they were affordable and popular as well. Just the CDs are too expensive. And people noticed. Just some of the really expensive and special bootleg stuff was popular. Scaringly many people are in the metal-type music and Die Ärzte are popular again (probably the first band I ever had a friend make a tape of for me… and I think they’re crap now).
As for the prices, I find it difficult to ask €10 for a used CD when I happen to think that that’s already a lot for a new CD. It feels indecent. And then there’s the whole bargaining thing. I’m very uncomfortable with that. I like things that are fixed. Doesn’t the fact that I agree to bargain mean that I admit my prices are just made up and too high? I think it feels dodgy. I’m in favour of clear an fair prices which everybody pays in full.
I guess I’m more a beancounter than a merchant.