If you are a registered user of this site (basically a Gardex active customer…although we may have a few dead ones subscribed) you get the occasional email blast showing products we have on sale.
Seems the world is full of Sales and Discounts. BOGO…gotta love that one. Is it in Webster’s yet? Senior’s Day for chrissake….
Why do we run the Specials? Why not just whack the hell out of the price and leave it there???
Simple
Supply and Demand…with complexities x 1000.
And to think it all started a millennia ago!
About 40,000 years ago actually.
Caveman Groot finds an apple tree, eats his fill of ’em, then gets a smart idea. old Groot starts trading a peck of apples (the forbidden fruit) for 10 pounds of wooly mammoth meat to Caveman Grunt. Good deal. Groot has an apple tree, Grunt loves to hunt. Birth of the balanced diet even!
Peace abounds.
Then all of a sudden..WHAM…all my apple trees produce at once and Groot has more apples than he knows what to do with. There’s too many to store, and the shelf life isn’t so good.
SO…WHAM…Caveman marketing idea ONE. Put them on SPECIAL!
“How about 10 pecks of apples for maybe 80 pounds of mammoth meat!” Groot hollers from his cave.
“You betcha”, grunts back Grunt! “I got a bunch of mammoth meat just ready to go! Got run over by a T-Rex so might be slightly chewed….tenderized I call it” (Grunt’s been thinking on how to market the slightly ripe meat).
And marketing is born!
So look at our little corner of the world today.
The Canadian Pest Control Industry is small…less than 5% of the US market in terms of product supplies (chemicals and plastic)
So in order to serve the customer, and partake in manufacturing efficiencies, some suppliers to the Canadian market run their products in batches. Maybe once a year, maybe 2 – 3 times.
Too many apples for them to manage. They need to move some out into the market.
So they make a deal. Trade their apples (which are now plastic bait stations maybe) for something better than mammoth meat….MONEY!
And Gardex steps up to the plate, with new warehousing facilities, operational efficiencies (operational excellence actually – gotta blow my own horn) and the wherewithal (always wanted to use that word) to market the product move effectively through the channel.
So once or twice a year we have an uptick in product inventory. And hopefully at a better price.
And then pass on any cost savings to you the customer. (Not all of it…that would be stupid….)
But with the added cost saving and extra profit…or savings…obtained it’s a good business practice.
The supplier sees manufacturing efficiencies and cost savings.
Gardex sees cost savings in volume discount and more efficient use of the warehouses.
The PMP sees cost savings on raw materials…with “SPECIAL PRICING”
So the SPECIALS will continue….
And hopefully life is good for all the cavemen of today.
All because of an apple tree and good old Groot and Grunt.