warehouse club warning

[leo]

Maybe not, but... don't assume that Sam's got where it is by leaving quality control
to chance.

Let's say you are Sam's Club, and you order $25 million worth of paper from Ilford.
The order is a LOT more concise than "Paper for printing stuff on with a printer, 8"
x 10, 100 sheets per pack." The specifications are far far more detailed. They
know and specify EXACTLY what they want. Then you have quality control people who
will do random inspections of various batches right at the plant. They check HOW a
product is made. They have to see the process whereby the product is made to those
specifications.

Granted, someone may not have been doing their job, and companies will sometimes
compromise even the safety of foods or medicne to make a buck, but companies like
Sam's can't afford to screw over their customers for long.

All retailers would do such thing -- to a limit, but I would think that
to many discounters, glossy photo paper, is just, glossy photo paper,
unless there is radically change in the appearance, as if changing to
matte finish. You think the purchasing department would hire a
photography guy to test the paper, and other _experts_ to test ten and
thousands of the merchandises? I do hope it's just some goof up at
Ilford, but not intentionally to make such a confusion. BTW, I don't
shop at Sams and rarely visit Walmart (or Target etc.) but I think we
shouldn't simply assume it's Walmart's evil act without further checking.

 

[Dave]

I am 7th generation 'Texian'. It might take some research to find out
exactly what that means. Unfortunately, I was BORN in New Orleans, but
it WASN'T MY FAULT!

Now hold on there about New Orleans and don't count yourself short by
being from there. Just to show you how funny this is getting and how
tied together it is getting..... The person in my lineage that was at
the Alamo was Robert Moore (Great/Great/Great Uncle on my Mother's
side). He was a Virginian who moved to New Orleans. Actually, it is
said that he ran off to New Orleans because of some misunderstandings
over a horse or two found in his possession. I come from a long line
of honorable horse thieves and admirers of other men's wives....
Anyway, while in New Orleans, Robert Moore joined what was called the
New Orleans Grays of which around 20 volunteered their services to the
cause at the Alamo. The rest is history.

So, just like the Grays, you came from New Orleans to Texas except,
you lived to talk about it.

Now, as far as those Aussies go.... I served along side Aussies in
Vietnam way back in the 60's. On one of my R&R's, I was asked by one
of those Aussies (who was also taking a 2-week R&R) to catch a hop
with him to Sidney as his guest in his home for our two week R&R. I
did and have never forgotten his kindness and the camaraderie we
shared as all men share in the field. I'm sure if he were alive today
that he would be sickened by what he hears some of his fellow
countrymen saying just as I am about a lot of my present day
countrymen.

Regards,
DW

 

[Petey the Wonder Dog]

Sam's sells thousands of products. How many people do you think they
can have inspecting merchandise that way and still make a profit.

It isn't important to inspect every product, or even every production run.

All you need to do is inspect the production line during a production run, and be
ready to make a surprize inspection if the quality falters.

After a buncha customers complain about seriously deminished quality, a few corporate
eyebrows may get raised, and the threat of halting bulk purchases would have a
positive effect.

 

[Ron Hunter]

I am not sure how we got to "basic rights" here. We were talking about
ways to judge a company. I agree that companies should not be
responsible for health care: if we want to live in a healthy society
we need to deal with it as a societal level.

Oh, you mean socialized medicine? Doesn't work. Many countries try it,
and end up spending 40% or so of their GDP on it, and people wait for
months, if not years, for needed surgery while doctors flee to other
countries.

 

[Ron Hunter]

Now hold on there about New Orleans and don't count yourself short by
being from there. Just to show you how funny this is getting and how
tied together it is getting..... The person in my lineage that was at
the Alamo was Robert Moore (Great/Great/Great Uncle on my Mother's
side). He was a Virginian who moved to New Orleans. Actually, it is
said that he ran off to New Orleans because of some misunderstandings
over a horse or two found in his possession. I come from a long line
of honorable horse thieves and admirers of other men's wives....
Anyway, while in New Orleans, Robert Moore joined what was called the
New Orleans Grays of which around 20 volunteered their services to the
cause at the Alamo. The rest is history.

So, just like the Grays, you came from New Orleans to Texas except,
you lived to talk about it.

Now, as far as those Aussies go.... I served along side Aussies in
Vietnam way back in the 60's. On one of my R&R's, I was asked by one
of those Aussies (who was also taking a 2-week R&R) to catch a hop
with him to Sidney as his guest in his home for our two week R&R. I
did and have never forgotten his kindness and the camaraderie we
shared as all men share in the field. I'm sure if he were alive today
that he would be sickened by what he hears some of his fellow
countrymen saying just as I am about a lot of my present day
countrymen.

Regards,
DW

I meant no disrespect to New Orleans. But my father had been sent to
New Orleans for a special welding assignment (he was a superb welder),
building ships during WWII, and my mother went with him. I was born
there, and the family moved back to Texas two weeks later. One has
little control of such factors. I am Texan through and through.

As for Australia, and Aussies; I have long admired the descendants of
political dissidents who managed to build a real country out of a
hostile, and strange place. The ones I have known have been friendly
and self-reliant people with a special zest for life. I only wish they
would move the place a few thousand miles closer so I could visit.

 

[Ron Hunter]

It isn't important to inspect every product, or even every production run.

All you need to do is inspect the production line during a production run, and be
ready to make a surprize inspection if the quality falters.

After a buncha customers complain about seriously deminished quality, a few corporate
eyebrows may get raised, and the threat of halting bulk purchases would have a
positive effect.

Sam's doubtless does exactly that. They often discontinue a product
after a while, due, sometimes, to inability of the company to maintain
supply, or quality, or price. At least some items just disappear, in
spite of obvious good sales.

 

[George E. Cawthon]

How about if it's neither a trick nor a mistake...

One of the ploys that companies like Sam's, (+ Walmart of course,) and Costco do is
buy millions of dollars worth of product and when the manufacturer ramps up their
product to the increased demand, the big store demands price decreases or threatens
to bail out. The manufacturer has no choice but to lower quality to get to the lower
price.

Bull! You obviously never shop at Costco or no
over a long period. Costco often gets newly
introduced stuff which sells at a high discount to
other stores. And we are not talking about
different models but the identical item. Then
Costco often sells out of the item and it is never
offered again. What is happening is that Costco's
low prices create a market and the manufacture
will no longer sell at a discount to Costco.
Quite a contrast to what you are saying.

Don't know if what you say happens at Walmart, but
I doubt it. Any substantial reduction in quality
would quickly result in decrease sales and an
excess of product.

 

[George E. Cawthon]

Maybe not, but... don't assume that Sam's got where it is by leaving quality control
to chance.

Whoa, you were just saying that manufacturer's
were forced into lowering the quality by Sam's
demand for lower prices, but that Sam's didn't
check everything. Now you are saying that Sams
knows what the quality is, so you are saying that
Sams deliberately lowers the quality by lowering
the price paid to the manufacture. You can't have
it both ways. And, don't you think that Sam's
knows that lowering the quality at the same price
will have an adverse effect on sales?

Let's say you are Sam's Club, and you order $25 million worth of paper from Ilford.
The order is a LOT more concise than "Paper for printing stuff on with a printer, 8"
x 10, 100 sheets per pack." The specifications are far far more detailed. They
know and specify EXACTLY what they want. Then you have quality control people who
will do random inspections of various batches right at the plant. They check HOW a
product is made. They have to see the process whereby the product is made to those
specifications.

Granted, someone may not have been doing their job, and companies will sometimes
compromise even the safety of foods or medicne to make a buck, but companies like
Sam's can't afford to screw over their customers for long.

Right, Sam's can afford to screw over their
customers, but that is exactly what you have been
saying with regard to the prices they are willing
to pay the manufacture after the manufacturer
ramps up production. Your whole argument is a
house of cards. One little push and it collapses.

 

[George E. Cawthon]

All retailers would do such thing -- to a limit, but I would think that
to many discounters, glossy photo paper, is just, glossy photo paper,
unless there is radically change in the appearance, as if changing to
matte finish. You think the purchasing department would hire a
photography guy to test the paper, and other _experts_ to test ten and
thousands of the merchandises? I do hope it's just some goof up at
Ilford, but not intentionally to make such a confusion. BTW, I don't
shop at Sams and rarely visit Walmart (or Target etc.) but I think we
shouldn't simply assume it's Walmart's evil act without further checking.

I can't believe all this crap about stores testing
products. Stores don't test products, they sell
product. Warehouse and such type stores sell what
sells. The research they do is market research
not quality control. If 50 percent of the market
is held by brand X toothpaste, they will sell it
at the lowest profitable price. If there are
agreements on minimum sales price for a brand
name, the warehouse may get the manufacture to
sell the same product under a house name.

No store is going to test a Cannon A95 camera.
They will probably look at sales stats and
customer satisfaction before offering it for sale
or baring information may simply test the sales by
buying a small amount of the product. The same
thing is true of all those brand name groceries,
drug items, etc.

When it comes to buying a personal care item in a
bottle, it better damn well be the same in every
bottle manufactured (within quality control
limits). I buy a lot of contact lens solution, (a
single kind within one brand). The cost varies
from about $6 a bottle to nearly $9 and I and
everyone else expects to get the same product
regardless of what store it is bought from. Does
anyone really think the manufacture make
deliberate changes in a formula and marks those
for specific stores. Depending on the facilities
the manufacturer most likely makes a run of
100,000 for Walmart, 100,OOO for Target, 50,000
for Albertsons, etc. from the same batch. And
the shipping department has no idea if it is mixed
batches or not.

 

[Ron Hunter]

Bull! You obviously never shop at Costco or no over a long period.
Costco often gets newly introduced stuff which sells at a high discount
to other stores. And we are not talking about different models but the
identical item. Then Costco often sells out of the item and it is never
offered again. What is happening is that Costco's low prices create a
market and the manufacture will no longer sell at a discount to Costco.
Quite a contrast to what you are saying.

Don't know if what you say happens at Walmart, but I doubt it. Any
substantial reduction in quality would quickly result in decrease sales
and an excess of product.

Decrease of sales NEVER increases profit. And NO profit is 'excess'
from a beancounter's point of view!

 

[Howard Lee Harkness]

At least some items just disappear, in
spite of obvious good sales.

The reason for that is usually that the supplier simply refuses to
continue submitting to the strong-arm tactics of places like
Sams/WalMart or Costco, and discontinues the particular item that they
are losing money over.

There are some companies that simply refuse to sell to the warehouse
clubs. The smarter companies refuse to allow any one customer buy
more than about 10% (or less) of their products. When you let one
customer have more than about 20% of your output, that customer then
has you by the gonads, and it's only a matter of time before you feel
the squeeze.

 

[Petey the Wonder Dog]

When you let one
customer have more than about 20% of your output, that customer then
has you by the gonads, and it's only a matter of time before you feel
the squeeze.

You're tight, Howard. I'm sure it would be very tempting if you are a relatively
small company, competeing with others, and Sam's comes along and tells you they want
ten million units this year. How do you say "No"? They give the busines to your
competition, who now gets lower prices from their respective suppliers thanks to
economics of scale. Buth then they have to deal with pressures from Mr. Walton.

It's a tough world.

 

[Matt Silberstein]

Oh, you mean socialized medicine? Doesn't work. Many countries try it,

Works well in Costa Rica and Canada.

and end up spending 40% or so of their GDP on it,

Who spends a greater % of GDP on health care than the U.S. and what is
their life expectancy?

and people wait for
months, if not years, for needed surgery while doctors flee to other
countries.

As opposed to simply letting people die from a wide range of solvable
problems because they don't have money or insurance.


--
Matt Silberstein

All in all, if I could be any animal, I would want to be
a duck or a goose. They can fly, walk, and swim. Plus,
there there is a certain satisfaction knowing that at the
end of your life you will taste good with an orange sauce
or, in the case of a goose, a chestnut stuffing.

 

[Matt Silberstein]

Decrease of sales NEVER increases profit.

Nonsense. Price/Sale is a curve as is Cost/Production. There are
plenty of places on much such curves such that moving to the left
increases profit.

And NO profit is 'excess'
from a beancounter's point of view!

You misread "product". "Excess profit" is usually a tax or regulatory
issue, very much a beancounter concern.


--
Matt Silberstein

All in all, if I could be any animal, I would want to be
a duck or a goose. They can fly, walk, and swim. Plus,
there there is a certain satisfaction knowing that at the
end of your life you will taste good with an orange sauce
or, in the case of a goose, a chestnut stuffing.

 

[Petey the Wonder Dog]

Your whole argument is a
house of cards. One little push and it collapses.

Maybe so, or maybe I'm not being clear with my thoughts. I think maybe I'm trying to
understand the dichotomy of doing business to a giant. How does a company keep on
supplying Sam's when they constantly demand lower price points? They love the
initial sales jump. Then the return margin shrinks little by little.

Ilford doesn't want to sell crap, but Sam's demands lower prices. A choice is to
elect to stop supplying to Sam's. So Sam's now goes to Agfa, who think they can do
the job and make money. Their market share grows. Ilford loses a large percentage of
business and stock values take a big hit.

Okay. You're right. I don't have a solution to the ebb and flow of global market
forces.

So how then does Ilford, or Acme Lens Cleaner Corp. keep it's quality benchmark when
they get less and less revenue.

There is also diminishing return for some long-lived products.

I bought an electric shaver from Costco years ago. Good product, great price.
Costco sold a ton of them, then, seemingly, everyone who wanted one, now had one. So
Costco dropped it. Shelf space has to have a given return, so out it goes.

Now the manufacturer has all this idle equipment and revenue drops.

 

[Petey the Wonder Dog]

Costco often sells out of the item and it is never
offered again.

A regular occurance.

What is happening is that Costco's
low prices create a market and the manufacture
will no longer sell at a discount to Costco.

How can you know that is true? Are you saying that if I sell a widget to Costco, and
they make me lots of money, I'll drop Costco as my retailer of choice and sell to
Dollar General?
I can't think of an example of a product market that was created by Costco's low
price, where the manufacturer no longer needed Costco and decided to sell to others
instead.
Have they "chosen" to stop selling to Costco because other stores were willing to pay
more?
Or maybe has Costco squeezed them to the point they can no longer get a usable
profit?
Or maybe the publics desire for a particular product went away.
Or maybe it was just a seasonal product.

Neither of us can clearly know, and certainly there are different causes and affects
for different products, so we prolly agree and disagree on different things.

 

[Elmo P. Shagnasty]

Ilford doesn't want to sell crap, but Sam's demands lower prices. A choice
is to
elect to stop supplying to Sam's. So Sam's now goes to Agfa, who think they
can do
the job and make money. Their market share grows.

But Agfa has the same problem as Ilford.

Therefore, it's not a given by ANY stretch that Agfa's market share
grows.

 

[Petey the Wonder Dog]

Any substantial reduction in quality
would quickly result in decrease sales and an
excess of product.

Judging by the shit that Walmart puts on it's shelves, I can't agree with you on that
one.

 

[George E. Cawthon]

Decrease of sales NEVER increases profit. And NO profit is 'excess'
from a beancounter's point of view!

What the hell kind of response is that? OK, I can
play. Santa Clause wears gray suits. Bye, you
are obviously a troll.

 

[George E. Cawthon]

Maybe so, or maybe I'm not being clear with my thoughts. I think maybe I'm trying to
understand the dichotomy of doing business to a giant. How does a company keep on
supplying Sam's when they constantly demand lower price points? They love the
initial sales jump. Then the return margin shrinks little by little.

Ilford doesn't want to sell crap, but Sam's demands lower prices. A choice is to
elect to stop supplying to Sam's. So Sam's now goes to Agfa, who think they can do
the job and make money. Their market share grows. Ilford loses a large percentage of
business and stock values take a big hit.

Okay. You're right. I don't have a solution to the ebb and flow of global market
forces.

So how then does Ilford, or Acme Lens Cleaner Corp. keep it's quality benchmark when
they get less and less revenue.

There is also diminishing return for some long-lived products.

I bought an electric shaver from Costco years ago. Good product, great price.
Costco sold a ton of them, then, seemingly, everyone who wanted one, now had one. So
Costco dropped it. Shelf space has to have a given return, so out it goes.

Now the manufacturer has all this idle equipment and revenue drops.

The world is not static, it keeps changing. A
company competes by responding. Sometimes a
quality product just goes away because nobody
wants it. No matter how high quality a typewriter
is, sales would be slow at $20.

You are looking at ways to blame poor quality on
Walmart, but Walmart doesn't run the business
world. Most stuff has a rather narrow range of
quality where it works and below that quality it
just doesn't work and won't sell. E.g., bottled
water is either clean or not and sales are based
mostly on hype. Aspirin is either the right
stuff or not (no chance for quality adjustment).

But take Ilford, which is an old company and knows
what goes on. Photographic papers have very
distinct names and characteristics, they have to
be consistent or photographers will go elsewhere.
I suspect that papers for printing inkjet images
are similar. A company may make papers for
specific segments of the buying population, not to
satisfy the needs of a retailer. There is no way
that Sam's dictates what Ilford makes. If they
don't produce what the public wants, they go down
hill. If the public wants crap, they will
probably make a "model" that is crap, but like
most companies of the type they also publish
brochures of what the various types are suited for.

BTW, your last point is bogus. Electric shavers
don't last that long and they demand a constant
supply of maintenance products. Costco still
sells electric shavers, maybe just not the brand
you bought (probably because people moved on to
another brand). Most people, btw, still use the
old fashion safety razor and foam in a can. Twin
blades kind of made sense, but three blades and
four blades don't. That nonsense will eventually
pass.