Business Proposition
True story.
My wife and I love sparkling water or mineral water, and we usually get few bottles every week from Meijer. They cost $0.69 per bottle, but the problem is they are always out, which means people are buying it.
Last couple of weeks we were sparkling waterless.
Anyway, few weeks ago I went to Meijer to get some mineral water and guess what? They were out again. I took a piece of paper and wrote down:
Dear Meijer management team,
“I am a regular customer of yours and I have a really good business proposition for you in which the only winner will be you. I have noticed that shelf where you keep mineral water is empty most of the time. I am lucky to buy it or see it on the shelf once a month.
This might seems crazy business proposal but I will mention it to you anyway. You WILL profit from it. Here it is:
GET SOME MORE!!! “
I placed my letter on the empty shelf and left. I went to Meijer two days after and guess what I saw on that shelf? No water, no paper.
Wasted perfectly working pen and two minutes of my time teaching economics class to Meijer management, but I got to give them some credit. They did get mineral water (a week later) and I still have to see empty shelf.
February 6th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Don’t always blame the manager, they are sometimes at the mercy of the coporate office. Several years ago my wife worked at Sears in the hardware department. When they had a good sale on an item they would often run out and would take rainchecks, which often would go unfilled because of the time it took to get enough of the item back in stock. The store manager did know of the problem but his hands were tied. The corporate office would only allow a maximum number of the item to be ordered each week. With oridinary sales this was fine, but when it went on a particularly good sale (50% or more off) a month before Christmas they had over 50 rainchecks. Simple math tells you most people were going to walk away unhappy and that translates into lots of lost sales. How many you can’t tell as I’m sure there were many more people who didn’t bother with a raincheck when the item wasn’t on the shelf. To give the store manager some credit, if he knew in advance of a good sale, he would order as many of the items as possible every week prior to stock up. (Given this was a corporate problem, it doesn’t surprise me at all that Sears has done poorly since my wife stopped working there (based on this and other growing problems we saw)).
My wife has run into the same trouble with a pet store and more recently even with the us post office. The local office was only allowed to order a certain number of 2 cent stamps at a time. This of course ment they ran out half way though the first day when the postage price went out. There seems to be a general corporate attidude that they can’t trust their local managers to decide what will best sell in the local market, and they can justify it to themselves because their own figures show that no store has sold more than 5 widgets (because they wouldn’t let the managers order more!)
February 6th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
I see what you’re saying but i am just a simple guy trying to get my mineral water. I can’t go that deep and dwell into corporate realm (I already have enough of them at my job).
I know that corporate is making their decisions based on numbers and staticstsics but as of since that letter i still have to see empty shelf.
I am not saying that my letter went all the way to corporate but i think that store mangers and directors at least have authoroty to order few bottles of mineral water.
Just my $0.02
February 7th, 2006 at 12:35 am
Grocery stores do it all the time. They know well in advance which items are going on sale as they print the ads for the newspapers, but do they know enough to stock up on those items ? NO. If you dont get there early the first day, those items (and usually only those items) are always gone, nothing but bare shelves. And it takes awhile to get them restocked then it happens again promptly. Wether it is local management or corporate it seems to me that someone is being overpaid for incompetence. Of course you are not talking a “sale” item, but something they could sell everyday ! Frickin` water !! Want to increase sales ? Keep the supply up with demand, simple basic business sense !!!
Note: Not all stores are like this, I know one in particular that does put extra stock out in the aisles knowing the shelf stock will deplete quickly and I commend them for it.
February 7th, 2006 at 12:46 am
I agree with you all, but what makes me mad is that Meijer is actually wondering why they are loosing business to someone like Wal-Mart. I can go anytime of the day in Wal-Mart and find what I want. Not to say that I like Wal-Mart but there is no other choice.
Mineral Water was just icing on the cake. Half of them time they only have two or three registers open when there is a half a mile colony of customers ready to be checked out.
They cannot call more workers for help because they laid them off, since they couldn’t afford to pay them while they were competing with Wal-Mart.
February 7th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
I agree with moody’s point, but I beg all of you: don’t go to Wal-Mart! They are a fascist corporation that exploits people like slaves. I mean all corporations do it to a certain extent, but Wall-Mart is shameless about it. For example, an FBI investigation has revealed that Wall-Mart stores used to lock illegal immigrants into the stores overnight to clean their place. These people were paid below the minimum wage. And Wall-Mart was fined something like $7 million, which is nothing for them. Furthermore, they allow no unions or any kind of worker protection. These are the plantations of the 21st century my friends. My urge to all of you: don’t buy their cotton!
Fyodor
February 9th, 2006 at 2:12 am
Man if you keep posting this stuff i’m going to approach wal-mart with my latest in tin-foil hats.
Wal-mart locks its doors at night like any other store. But hey, you’ll be happy to know that wal-mart found a new concrete flooring which requires no buffing. Now the nonoppressed wal-mart floor buffers can finally retire to welfare thanks to the amazing detective work of the FBI. Thank you liberal nutters.
February 9th, 2006 at 8:14 am
Listen, all companies make mistakes, and the more people you have, the more mistakes you make, and the bigger the mistakes can be. I am not ready to boycott Wal-Mart yet.
p.s. Raising Minimum wage hurts the working class…(I used to think it helped them)
February 9th, 2006 at 11:15 am
“Raising minimum wage hurts the working class…” This is absurd.
February 9th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
It’s another capitalist myth to increase profits and perpetuates the welfare state.
February 10th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Yeah I totally agree asylum. Maybe we should work for free..this is definately great for the working class…Urgh.