While I have no claim on internet retailing experience, I've found that my prime membership (and my costco executive membership) have paid for themselves each year, so far. Just watching Bionic Woman episodes on Amazon Prime TV was sufficient, Ah Jamie :-).
LOL... good on you. We watch a lot of Prime too.
Is it really that hard for posters here to delete the irrelevant text that they are responding to? It's a very common problem from many of the regulars here and that has long been an annoying thing in usenet. Really guys - you can't snip everything except the relevant point you are responding to? Sheese...
-Mike Marlow-
What I can't figure out is why, after going to the store to handle the thing, you go home and order it online instead of taking it with you - particularly at stores that will "price match".
Not necessarily pointing this to the current poster - I've lost track of the web of the thread or whatever - - SO to whoever is bitching abot the difference between 5 cents and 79 cents or whatever for the same product from retailer and online - - -
You need to run 2 businesses so you can understand the diffewrence. Open a bricks and mortar store in a prime retail location and hire workers who won't riob you blind, will treat the customer like a human, and will show up alert for work every day. This includes front line sales people, shelf stockers, and cleaning staff. Then open a web presence drop-shipping product from your wholesaler's warehouse.
Stock the same small parts in your store as in the wholesaler's warehouse, and sell those $0.05 parts from your retail store for the same price as from the warehouse drop-shipper, and see how long the store stays in business.
This is particularly poignant in businesses that carry hundreds or thousands of different small bits where purchaces may vary from 1 to several hundred, and where you may make several sales a day, but may not sell ANY of several of the items for 3 months, then sell 50 each to 5 people in the next week.
There is a REASON there is a difference between wholesale (warehouse) and retail (store) pricing - and it has nothing to do with the retailer going after your gonads.
I suspect neither has any experience in retailing PERIOD.
About 15 years ago I was a proud Sears investor; after all Sears was an american icon--almost as old as the trains. When it went down 20% or so, I doubled up, after all. The results of that made me really unhappy. When I had a chance to get out with "only" a $500 loss, I took it, and that turned out to be absolutely the right thing to have done. That was of course, before they left their shareholders behind via their bankruptcy (and reorganization with Kmart). Lesson learned (I'm not exactly sure what it was, but I learnt it!)
Do not do Amazon in this household, you see my wife is in the publishing business. Amazon has made margin in that business a joke.
Publishers have mede it a joke, specially fer textbooks.
nb
Lost Art Press seems to be holding up their end. What happens with textbooks is more like a crime... One possible exception may be Pearson--they accompany most of their textbooks with pretty nice online software (online homework, for instance), which takes the resource to another level--and they are aware of it.
And you would be wrong. I ran an automotive center at 21 and chose to retired at 40. I knew retail pretty well.
Did you change the topic to OT? I thought your post was going a contribution. ;~)
Then you should know better than most what is involved - I spent the first half of my working life in the automotive repair business - not a tire and muffler shop but real automotive service - half of it in dealerships. (from age 15 to 37) - then later a few years working in the window business and computer business, supporting business management systems etc.
OTOH, Amazon allows individuals to self-publish, keeping more of their royalties and saving the buyers money. Not good for publishers but they don't have a value add in this sort of market.
Just as annoying are people who don't leave any context.
Well as my wife is Director of an university press the damage done by Amazon is viewed critically. Self publishing is easy, getting your stuff sold though. As a matter of survival she has started a "vanity publishing arm" and so it goes.
If you know of the OLD and first store - not far from it. I was in MITS building next door to HP and the medical building.
If you know the area - the HP building had a linear Accelerator and various targets to make isotopes for medicine.
I'm familiar with the SLAC on the campus of Stanford.
Mart> Mart>
From some stories I've heard, the publishing industry is getting what they deserve. I guess it depends on what side of the fence you are on.
A guy I work with wrote a book with the intent of having it as a memory for his family. Amazon let him publish and list it and he has sold about 400 copies. Simon & Schuster types would not bother with the likes of him.
Times are changing. No money in publishing? How about going into buggy whip and shoe hooks?
17-23, tire stores. Manager at 21. 23-28, manager of the parts department for a large Olds dealership. 28-30, Service Sales Manager for same Olds dealership. 30-33, parts director for Olds and Isuzu dealership. 33-40 the GM for an AC/Delco 3M wholesale distributor. 40 retired my real jobs. Last 22 years custom design and build furniture, a hobby that has evolved into a small business.. 2016 was a banner year.
How would you know how much experience we have with on line retailing?
Besides, we certainly have plenty of experience with on-line retailing from the customers point of view, and that's about all that counts. If the customer doesn't like what you're doing, you're doing it wrong.
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