On 4/15/2015 10:43 AM, Mike Marlow wrote:
Leon wrote:
On 4/15/2015 10:08 AM, Puckdropper wrote:
Leon lcb11211@swbelldotnet wrote in
:

Has anyone noticed how buying in larger quantities is more expensive
per pound than smaller quantities? We have noticed that "2" 16#
bags of dog food are less expensive than "1" 30# bag of dog food. And
that 30# bag used to be 40#.


Yep... It's one of the games they play. Sometimes buying the big
bag is cheaper and sometimes it's not. The only way to know for
sure is to pull out the calculator and crunch some numbers.

Puckdropper


BUT it could also be other factors. Especially when the lower pricing
is on the smaller quantity per lb. Risk of injury by stockers could
be a factor. Especially in these times of litigation litigation
litigation.

Having worked in retail, and had visibility into special offers, pricing,
etc., I would say that is probably not even a considersation. For the most
part, we're talking about items that are commodities which are well under
the weight requirements of the typical floor job. It's usually more a
reflection of an offer from the manufacturer who is trying different things
to drive sales. Some of those contradict their normal, baseline pricing
strategies. That's why they are limited time offers...


FWIW I controlled pricing my entire management career whether that was
retail or wholesale. I was always in a situation where the store was
very successful, so we were tweaking all prices. We, 25+ years ago,
based our pricing on some items as to whether they was easily handled in
all aspects. And that was long before computers were really being used
much to track those aspects of particular parts. While this very well
may not be the situation of the dog food package size, more and more
stores encourage you to get an employee to help lift those items and
often it is 2 employees that do this. That costs more.

As far as special purchasing incentives go that was on going for us and
that was seldom passed on the customer. It was more of an incentive to
help the manufacturer to lower his stock levels. If we, especially in
the automotive business, lowered pricing it was difficult to raise the
prices back up. So we simply slowed our inventory turns by stocking up
and increasing our gross profit. I vividly recall buying freon for
38 cents per pound in one pound containers back in the early 80's.
Bought straight from GM it was $1.50 something and doubled that for
retail pricing. Going from 38 cents to $3.00 something a pound was a
wonderful profit item. I typically ordered 2400 one pound cans each
spring to get us through the summer. The larger bottles were available
but they were heavy and not priced as well.