| Supply charges at auto repair shops are a practice that are older than I am, which means that the first one was probably written on papyrus, maybe even carved in stone. If it is a percentage of the total bill, and the percentage is reasonable, the approach makes sense to me from the perspective of both the customer and the business. Neither of two obvious alternatives -- counting and placing a price on each screw and washer used, or charging the customer for an entire package of two dozen screws when only four were used -- seem realistic or fair to me. |
