quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
I like a particular kind of tart cherry juice. There are NEVER more than 2 or 3 bottles on the shelf, and lately there have been none.

I asked an employee about it. His response:

"We can't keep it in stock so we quit stocking it."

I vapor locked and just stood there with my mouth hanging open.

Now I read that as the store has an unreliable source, so they just gave up.

There are things like the retailer will pay only x the supplier will fill orders with product that is not sold for x+. Might happen every delivery in a poor growing season.

I used to live in Salt Lake City. There was a story there called "Allied". It's merchandise mixture was a farm/country/gardening/ hunting/camping fishing mix. In many ways it was like going into an Atwoods or a Tractor Supply.

They had a motto painted around the building that read: "If we don't have it, you don't need it."

Got tired of this many years ago and just stopped checking, wasting time and gas or waiting until the last minute to stock up on something I often use. These days, most of my shopping dollars make a stop at Amazon before heading off to mostly China I think.

 
When our local Safeway has a sale, you can easily identify what's on sale by the empty shelf. One would think they'd order extra stock for the sales, but it doesn't happen. I have piles of rain checks waiting to cash in.

A geographical oddity. Two weeks from everywhere.

It is FAR better now, but 40 years back when I first moved to Montana from NJ, I was amazed at stores never seeming to have ANYTHING remotely out of the ordinary. If you wanted shirts in a mens LONG...forget it. Wanted bluejeans in anything longer than 34" ...forget it.

Drove me nuts. I was so accustomed to stores stocking everything and anything, OR happily ordering you something to make the sale. Not so out here.

Auto parts were tough. Unless it was for a domestic forget it. WHY I sold my BMW 2002 shortly after I moved out here. Plus NO Dealership in the State anyway. LOL.

But TODAY to be out of items! Hard to imagine. Guess they don't want our money?

quote:

Originally posted by OneWheelDrive:

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
I like a particular kind of tart cherry juice. There are NEVER more than 2 or 3 bottles on the shelf, and lately there have been none.

I asked an employee about it. His response:

"We can't keep it in stock so we quit stocking it."

I vapor locked and just stood there with my mouth hanging open.

I've always suspected Sam's Club of this. They want manageable turns.

There are two ways to look at this, in the era of universal bar-coding and checkout-scanning. It could be

1) the retailer is just smart enough to recognize an item is popular but somehow not smart enough to order enough, or

2) the supplier is flaky and can't deliver reliably, in volume.

Either situation could result in 'not being able to keep it in stock' but #2 relies less on the retailer being both smart and not smart.

Retailers nowadays stock what they want to sell you....not what you want to buy.

And then they wonder why customers go to online options.

quote:

Retailers nowadays stock what they want to sell you....not what you want to buy.

And then they wonder why customers go to online options.

I'm curious to know how many of you making these types of comments are business owners, because as a business owner I see things entirely differently.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

Retailers nowadays stock what they want to sell you....not what you want to buy.

And then they wonder why customers go to online options.

I'm curious to know how many of you making these types of comments are business owners, because as a business owner I see things entirely differently.

This was a known issue that contributed to the Borders chain going bust. The buyers at corporate had ideas of what they wanted to carry that was different from what local stores actually had demand for.

Or look at Dicks, where the CEO is proud to lose 150mil in sales because he feels better about himself.

It's becoming a hard to deny trend, that the managerial class running many large organizations run them to please their peers, not to further the ostensible goals of the organization.

Smaller companies can't survive that, and so have to be more responsive. I know when I worked for a small retail business we took enormous pains to figure out what customers wanted and make sure we had it. (Very small business, the buyer would generate POs and I'd print them off and call them in. I was also the guy who unpacked our daily UPS shipment and did the receiving.)

But everything was way harder than it needed to be because so many suppliers really sucked. Hard to contact, difficult terms, slow to process and ship, just flat out getting shit wrong.... Much easier just to deal with a few big distributors, they generally had their shit all in one bag, as it were. But they only had the generic stuff that everybody would carry, and someone else would always have cheaper so what's the point.

My relationship with Walmart has evolved over the years. Before college, I worked there and they were the driving factor in me deciding to go to school fore something. Anything. I don't look down on retail workers. Done too much of it to do so, I just knew I would not survive, mentally, if I were going to make a career out of it.

These days, I try very hard to limit my visits there but invested a chunk of change in their stock. Never bet against the American consumer. Currently, it is sitting at a 47% return, not including dividends for the past couple of years.

When I worked on cars for a living I always wondered were Tomorrow was. The part I wanted wasn't in stock but could be had Tomorrow.

quote:

Originally posted by BigSwede:
Which is why I grab three or four when I see an item I will need down the road

Yeah, me too. If I use it, I stack it deep, in bulk. Targets, ammo, weapons, toilet paper, paper towels, laundry det, trash bags, etc, etc.

Of course that take a minimal amount of (1) forsight (2) planning and (3) capital to purchase items early.

Lots of those are foreign concepts to people these days.

I don't think people stay in a given profession for any length of time anymore. It takes ten years or so to get really good at something and most people leave long before that.

These problems go much, much further than retail. Many jobs that used to pay a reasonable wage have been beaten down by inflation and other downward pressures on wages. The number of incompetent people I'm meeting these days is stunning to say the least.

V.

Almost all stores are stocked with data-driven analytics now, and much of the inventory ordering is done via AI.

They only want to stock items that move.

Once upon a time, it was customary to have a variety, and accepted that a few items may sit on the shelf but having a complete range of supply was best for the customer.

That era is over.

Nobody fully stocks anything, and only the most common items that regularly sell are on the shelf.

It sucks.

Needed a bar, chain, spark plug, air filter, & fuel filter for an Echo CS-271T chainsaw that I bought new from the dealer 20 minutes from me.

Went something like this:
Go in

Wait in line for the parts guy (about 5 minutes while he's busy doing something else.)

Give him the parts numbers so he can get the stuff I need and ring it up

Him) "Nope, don't have that. Or that. Or that." "Let me check and cross reference to make sure they don't have new parts numbers"

Wait another 2-3 minutes while he does what he does...."No sir, we don't have any of those, but I can order them for ya"

ME) "WELL NO SHIT, SO CAN I. Amazon will have it all here in a day or two. Figured I'd give you a chance to make the money first. How long will it take you to get it?"

Him) "We'll have it next Friday."

ME) "A full 10 days. 10. 10 fucking days to get parts to a saw that you sold me? 10 days to get parts to a saw you still stock and sell everyone else!"

Told the guy that I would never be back to spend another dollar there. Bottom line is I wasted an hour trying to do business with someone that didn't want my money

quote:

Originally posted by ridgerat:
Retailers nowadays stock what they want to sell you....not what you want to buy.

And then they wonder why customers go to online options.

That statement reflects someone who knows nothing about business.

quote:

Needed a bar, chain, spark plug, air filter, & fuel filter for an Echo CS-271T chainsaw that I bought new from the dealer 20 minutes from me.

I recently purchased a Stihl from a local farm and home supply store. They not only sell a full range of their equipment, but they also stock all of the parts and accessories. During my first attempt at using it I flooded it and fouled the plug. Took it back to see what I was doing wrong, they fixed it, replaced the plug, and wouldn't even take any money from me.

The other day I saw a video about a tool used to sharpen the chains. I stopped by their store figuring that they wouldn't have one and that I'd either need them to order it or turn to an online source. Not only did they have it, but it was $20 less than amazon. Honestly, I would have paid $20 more than amazon had it for just because I could walk out of the store with it.

Some businesses are run better than others, but some of the "problems" with local businesses are also a direct result of the internet.

quote:

I don't think people stay in a given profession for any length of time anymore. It takes ten years or so to get really good at something and most people leave long before that.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Can you name the professions? BTW I am a professional. I never considered doing anything else once I got my degree.

Honestly, one of the reasons to buy at a brick & mortar is that you can get it NOW.
There are other reasons - in the past there used to be salesman/people with actual knowledge or experience.
Not so much today.
But if you can wait, do your own research then by all means Internet buying is good.
In addition you can shop for price too.
It takes a LOT to have a successful local retail store now but with a slew of uneducated customers that don't appreciate what a local can do it gets wasted.
It is an evolution (of business) we all just have to acclimate to.
You do know these local guys DO need to make a profit to stay around and carrying a shitload of non-turning (selling) items doesn't keep them in business very long.