[QUOTE] you don't expect a thank you from Coke when you buy it from 7/11[/QUOTE] But you do when you buy it direct from their warehouse. Also, Coke does billions of dollars in sales, so it would be impossible for them to thank you personally each time you bought one of their products. A merchant here on the other hand, obviously has a much smaller and more managable customer list than Coke does. However, I do think it's up to the merchant as to whether they wish to send a thank you note to those that buy their products. I usually leave a note of review after I've tried the product in order to provide feed back to others who may also enjoy the product, and as a general thank you to the merchant for putting out something of quality that I enjoy using.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi