From: P. J. Alling<[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Myopic Bulls**t Artists
To: "Pentax-Discuss Mail List"<[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010, 8:12 AM
On 2/4/2010 11:01 AM, Bob Sullivan
wrote:
Bill,
You got me on the milk example. I wouldn't pay
them extra and would
stop shopping with them. Does this mean I will
stop shopping at B&H
because somebody complained? Not until I see
higher prices or
experience bad service.
On the Pareto rule (80/20), McD's gets 76% or their
business from 26%
of the population who visit the stores once per week
or more often.
Keeping these people happy and coming back is really
important. The
rest - not so much.
Vegans? Not a very big part of the customer
base. Vegetarian food?
Not enough interest for McD's to offer it. 74%
of the population
doesn't visit McD's in a week and your not interested
in them? You're
damned right! (Nobody says this but if I was
running the railroad...)
The product and services offered do
not appeal strongly to these
folks or fit into their lifestyles. And offering
products and
services that do is too damned expensive. (I'm a
dirty capitalist
stockholder now and insist McD's make a profit on it's
enterprise.)
You can't be all things to all people. Focus,
focus, focus on the
part of the customer population that you can serve
profitably.
(And I can see that I'll have to teach you about
profit in a fast food
restaurant. The meat sandwiches have the lowest
profit margins and
the highest cost. For drinks, the cup probably
costs as much as the
liquid inside of it. Great margins on
drinks! I enjoy going to
Burger King and buying a 99 cent double cheeseburger -
just the
sandwich, no drink or fries. It's my guerilla
effort to help them go
out of business!)
Regards, Bob S.
That's what I do at McD's. Not necessary to make them
go out of
business, but then my Cousin owns, (last I knew), 8 Burger
Kings, (or
rather the bank owns>50% of those stores, she runs them
and takes a
share of the profits), and I'd rather buy a loss leader
from the
competition, (plus McD's double cheese tastes more like a
cheeseburger
is /supposed/ to taste).
On Thu, Feb 4, 2010 at 8:48 AM, William Robb<[email protected]>
wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Bob Sullivan"
Subject: Re: Myopic Bulls**t Artists
Bill R, after your retail experiences, I can't
believe you want to
keep that last 10% of the asshole customers who
cause you all those
problems.
First, the number of "problem customers" is
nowhere near that high, i would
say less than 1/10 of 1%, and no, you encourage
them to shop elsewhere. If
you have a good business model, customers who want
to cause problems don't
get to do so.
If you refuse to serve 10% of the people who walk
in your door, you will
very quickly find yourself in a position where no
one comes in any longer.
I mean really Bob, you retailed hamburgers for at
least some your working
career, did you see 10% of your customers as
undesirable? Did wanting to
look after their health and refusing the high
profit "Supersize" option
cause you to want to kick their sorry asses out
the door for having anti
corporate thoughts?
Did you refuse to serve the people who just
stopped in for a coffee because
they were a low profit maker for you?
What if they didn't want an order of fries with
the Filet O Fish? Kick them
out because they stole your profit margin on the
meal?
Lets get real here for just a moment. You serve
who comes in your door. It's
what you take on when you open a store, whether
you are flogging hamburgers
ar cameras.
And when a customer brings a mis marked item to
the till, you sell it to him
for the price it is marked at, you don't villify
him because you fucked up.
I asked Paul this, though it went unanswered, I
suspect because it would
have gone against the cheerleading he was doing
for Robin Hood Photo, so
I'll ask you as well.
You take a quart of milk up to the cash register
and are told that the price
marked is actually per pint even though it clearly
indicates per quart on
the price tag.
Do you happily pay double?
And
Do you think that the store has a right to brand
you as a "problem" if you
object?
I am interested to read your thoughts on this.
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