PBS airs something interesting
Lastnight I saw some of frontline on PBS, it was an analysis of Wal-mart and its rise to omnipotence. One of the interesting points was about changing the system from "push", where manufacturers create products and then convince retailers to sell them, to "pull" wherein the retailer approaches the manufacturer with requests. This drives the price of goods down (in part because Wal-mart is a monster and will crush any manufacturer that doesn't comply, see Rubbermaid) because the supply lines do not suffer from lag. In other words, they are producing what they need, not selling what they've made. Its obviously a good idea (they're making shit-tons of money), but they're driving all the producers to China for lower costs. One more thing I thought of; with a pull system the retailer chooses what the manufacturers produce. And Wal-mart decides what to make based on what is selling best, which means what I can buy is directly derived from what everyone else in the US is buying. And since I've decided that Americans are fucking morons, I'm never going to see the products I want produced. Come on guys, lets tell Wal-mart what we really think. STOP going there and BUYING that SHIT!
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All the big box stores do this, that's why you shouldn't buy a drill from home depot. HD tells, Black and Decker for instance that they want to sell a 129.99 drill for 99.99. B&D says, "fine, but it'll be made with all plastic parts." HD responds, "cool, we just need the branding for the fucking morons who shop here." *Bang* you have a custom made POS for the teeming masses.
Also, these guys (in the case I'm most familiar with, B&D) go to their suppliers and say, make this case/drill/bit/whatever for us and we'll give you this huge contract. The supplier says sure, generally they're hard up and need the cash. But then the next year B&D says, OK, you're gonna make this for us but for less and less every year instead of more and more. They're 80% of this guys business so he's screwed if they drop him, so he agrees to work for less and less and eventually goes out of business. Awesome!
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