Home Depot's Inventory Control Problem

Afford food stamps? Tell me more.....

Oren

And you might end up with an "educated idiot"; a BS degree in Criminal Justice", having never seen a criminal (education does not equal common sense). Ten percent at the bottom of the class...attorneys. doctors, you ...know..

Oren

Apparently, you've never worked in the business market.

EVERY government contract ( except Halliburton ) is let on the bid-system.

Thats local, county, state, or federal.

You want to supply goods or services, you'll be the low bidder.

You aught to read the Vlasic Pickle story. About how Walmart put Vlasic Pickle out of business.

dickm

Inasmuch as "decimate" means "to reduce by 10%," that's not too bad. If you meant "destroyed," well, good-o. 17,000 people get lower prices, better hours, and greater variety. Shoppers in your town now have a $300 BILLION company standing behind their sales and service. Compare that to the mom-and-pop stores.

Small vignette: I recently bought some tires at Walmart. After the hippie installed and balanced the new tires, I asked: "All done?"

"Not quite," he said, and disappeared. He returned in a few moments with the automotive manager in tow. The manager was carrying a torque wrench and proceeded to test all the lug nuts. While this was going on, the hippie oozed over to me and said: "Company policy says I have to have another member of the staff test all the bolt-thingies. Wouldn't want your nuts to fall off! Hee-hee."

Needless to say, I approved of the redundancy. Especially considering the dope-crazed beatnik in charge of the project! Hmm. Maybe that's WHY they have the policy -- to many customer's driving off with missing lug nuts?

And, since there is now no competition in your town, did the great bug-a-boo, Wal-Mart raising their prices since they are now an effective monopoly, actually come to pass?

Two reasons: 1) The company is not willing to pay more, and 2) The employee is willing to work for what's offered.

Often the difference is not between $5.70 an hour and ten dollars per hour. The difference is between $5.70 an hour and nothing. In your examples (ditch digger and garbage collector), think back-hoe and automated trash trucks.

In India, for the non-degreed unemployed, all is not hopeless. There's still black-market organ donation.

Graffiti in college toilet: "If you're a History Major, this is the only job you'll ever have."

Yeah. Mostly urban legend. A significant part of Walmart's staff are part-timers who, on their own, opt for government-sponsored insurance because commercial insurance - via Walmart - is too "expensive" (the average Walmart employee pays $23/month for health coverage). Many other employees are covered by their spouses' policies.

But both were included in the "little people" class-action suit a few years ago complaining of housing discrimination. As a result of the litigation, a new apartment house was built in Chicago and various "little people" were given free rent. The residents, never happy, are now complaining about the name of the housing project. Seems they don't like: "Stay Free Mini-Pads."

There's just no pleasing some folks.

.=2E.

Main Entry: dec=B7i=B7mate Pronunciation: 'de-s&-"mAt Function: transitive verb .=2E..

While you're correct with the first definition, it isn't really the one in common use as the Roman legions have been gone for quite some time. The above alternative is undoubtedly the most widely used these days, particularly in the given context.

It's only slightly larger here and the same is also true wrt family businesses.

And, it certainly isn't all good...those vacant storefronts aren't valued anything close to what they would be if occupied and many are, in fact, arrears in taxes as there's no incentive for the owners to keep them current. Retail sales tax receipts haven't increased that much and the rebates on property taxes and required services are enough to pretty much wipe that out.

I'll grant longer hours, but who needs shopping at 2AM??? As for selection and prices, the prime thing that happened is that everything became lowest common denominator as Wal-Mart is not exactly known for catering to anything except the masses.

As for the tire shop, I'm not impressed -- I'll continue to deal w/ the local fellow I know and have known for 40 years. I don't need to worry about somebody checking up on whether he did the work properly or not.

I walked out leaving a purchase ticket for a $3600 outdoor shed laying on the counter because 3.... Three.... THREE!.... McIdiots at the register could not figure out how to do the transaction and the manager would not answer his/her page. Two months later they burned me on the last of three fraudulent rebates and I have never darkened their sorry door again.

I do Lowe's because our local store employees knowledgeable people in each department and they have cashiers that have brain power above that of plant life. Actually our local Lowe's cashiers know how to find items in a book at each register when that item does not have a scan bar on it or if it comes out of a broken box.

Top marks to Lowe's and I wouldn't piss on Home Depot if it were on fire.

Regards,

It a thing of the past because Joe Beer Chucker has grown complacent and expects unqualified, non-motivated brain dead turnips to be working at these box outlets. Instead of demanding anything better, Joe Sixpact just sluffs it off and keeps on coming back for more.

It use to be "America gets what America Wants", now it's "America Gets what America lays down and Complacently Tolerates".

Regards,

No. I heard it on the radio, and the radio paraphrased it or I got it wrong. Because I wasn't certain, that's why I didn't put what I had in quotes,

But I don't think the sense was different from what he actually said.

I was also wrong about his being a Congressman, it seems. Ambassador to the UN and mayor of Atlanta.

I believe all of this, and I don't think it's unusual, and that's why I don't like Walmart.

Actually. I know a whole lot of non-college people in the "trades" that are charging, and getting in the neighborhood of $35/hour. The best I have heard of lately in our area is a commercial plumber that gets $65/hr. I got my college education after getting out of the service in the early 70's but never used it because there was no way I could make the money I was already making in the Tile trade.

Now please don't get me wrong.... I am not advocating not getting a college education. The merits of a college education are that some college graduates can make as much money as a well paid tradesman without having to physically bust their ass.

Back to the discussion at hand...... One can choose to work a McJob for some slave driving bunch of trash in a dept store or flip burgers at the Rot&Gut or they can learn a trade. But after seeing this brain dead kid at McDonalds trying to make change and failing miserably today, that might be a tall order to fill (Learning a trade). However, for those that posses brain power somewhere above plant life, a well paying trade is an option and alternative to college.

Regards,

No, its a lot better there now. They are all now phone tech's for Gateway, Dell, HP and all the other Sales and Marketing firms that make you think they are computer manufacturers.

Regards,

Interesting story. Only thing is, Wal Mart did not do them in, they really did themselves in. At some point, you just have to say, "sorry, no deal"

Now, you are probably thinking, "easy for you to say" and I must reply, yes, not only is it easy we did just that to two of our largest customers. The first was a major appliance manufacturer that accounted for over 25% of our sales and much of our profit. After doing a job for a year, they asked us for a 10% price reduction. The reasoning was that by now we have paid off our R & D and start-up costs, and we probably found better methods to make our parts. They were correct and we agreed and the following year we did well. Year three, they said in order to maintain their market share, they have to reduce costs. They pressured us for another 5% and we agreed, but they also went from 30 days to 120 days payment. That year was OK, but not as profitable as it was in the past.

Now comes price negotiations for year four. They said they wanted a 25% reduction (remember, it was already reduced 10% and 5%). And, if we agreed, they also wanted a 6% rebate for the business from the previous year. That is when we said "sorry, no deal, where do you want your tooling shipped?" We watched as they took truckloads of material from our competitor. We watched as our competitor struggled and finally closed a manufacturing plant when they did not make enough to pay their bills. As for the appliance manufacturer, they closed their plant and now import everything from China and Korea.

Two years later, we were faced with another situation. We walked from that also. We made more profit from less sales. Not every sale is a good one.