@tobaccocardyahoo wrote:
@retro_entertainment_collectibles wrote:
@soh.maryl wrote:
On eBay, just like at B&M retailers, sellers can list for any price they choose.
B&M Cannot do that. They are afforded very little variance from distributorships for current product. Product is consign. If they could do that, Target as you're example would have ceased to exist ages back as Walmart can easily afford to put them under pricing everything low enough to do so. Its deemed Anti-Competitive Business Practices.
Although it appears that it might be "predatory pricing", it is done frequently, often underwritten by the manufacturer.
When I ran marketing for a division of a Fortune 200 corporation I had two lawyers on my staff whose sole function was making sure we could price as we wanted for any customer that our sales department wanted to without violating anti-trust laws. Some of those deals were novel and squirrelly. but legal.
Walmart was frequently accused of "predatory pricing". Whether they were guilty was not something I had an opinion on. By the time they expanded to New England, any competitor who was not brain dead, knew how to survive the arrival of Walmart. The only retailers who closed their doors were of retirement age and did not want to do what it took to compete. Frequently, their real estate was worth far more than their business and those I knew were well positioned financially for a comfortable retirement.
Oh there's many creative ways to be sure and of course the bigger the players the more weight that can carry with distributorships. We worked with Ingram allot and Navarre both of which were quite nasty about it.
Walmart of course is also not what they once were, "America's Retailer." I remember a time when they actually purchased a significant share of varied merchandise versus consign. Yea, I'm not a fan of Walmart their variable pricing models having folks in poorer communities who generally pay by EBT is so shoddy. Like gas stations now doing zone based pricings too due to claimed costs of freighting etc to terminals.
Now I was just reading that many retailers are scaling or looking to scale retail space as "GEN A" comes of age and the article said they are the first fully mobile generation. They tend to browse Brick and Mortar for many products but tend to buy more online than B&M. So B&M are moving towards holding less stock in stores and more in online warehousing towards direct fulfillment. Obviously Walmart perhaps even more so than Amazon has quite advantage there given their nation freighting capabilities. Be interesting to watch albeit as I said, I loath the company, they do not hold the traditions ole' Sam built them as.
I also the other day read a danged scary article which is also prattled on my ex (politician) about. This coming election year maybe just ghastly economically for sales. One side of the equation pushing economic fear, border obviously and crime... Retail crime. So I asked her is that likely spill into the online universe by "Cap'n Tramp." So, its 110% certain things will spill over into consumer stress, anxiety and worry of their wallets, it already has or economics whilst always on a general election radar is very much already on it and has been. She told me he'll do whatever is necessary and if that includes bringing the issues surrounding the Shop Safe Act into the national radar he'll do just that. She did tell me should they hold Congress/Senate and gain the WH it's pretty a given. They'll pass whatever comes across the desk in favor of manufacturers/retailers yet interestingly enough Shop Safe was penned by the other worms.
She's the lady that threw me the phrase I've used at least 25 times in the last week, "The most advanced, free and unique nation to ever exist ends up with two choices as leader neither the least of nations in the world would accept." Thats just WILD when you consider it in a historical context and damned scary as a reality.
klhmdg • Volunteer Community Mentor
