re: #307 Bert’s House of Beef and Obdicuts

Just so you know, Killgore, I’ve found a pretty serious error in the piece already.

Their low price also comes from having fewere QA runs done on the line of products coming into Wal-Marts. Wal-Mart is very much in a position to be able to tell manufacturers what it will be paying for their products, so one of hte way manufacturers get access to Wal-Mart’s markets and still make a profit is to make a special production line for Wal-Marts that receives lower QA, and subcomponents of lower quality, than goods going to other markets. So while the model # is the same (or has a letter suffix at the end designating the different line), the construction is actually inferior.

A good example of this is the Levis that you find at Wal-Marts, which are completey substandard when compared to Levis elsewhere. They’re also cheaper, but in this case, there’s a reason for that.

The author of the piece appears to be playing false and loose with the idea of ‘spending power’, counting it as though getting a cheaper product is always a good thing and overlooking the difference in quality in products.

I’ve known a few salesmen who have called on Walmart. They say they have to cheapen the product to meet Walmart demands. Many walk away from millions of potential business. From what I understand the whole buying process is bizarre.