On Mon, 16 Jan 2017 11:37:55 -0500, Jack wrote:

On 1/14/2017 3:20 PM, wrote:
On Sat, 14 Jan 2017 09:12:54 -0500, Jack wrote:

Since neither of you seem to have any experience with
online retailing, perhaps you're both tilting at windmills.

How would you know how much experience we have with on line retailing?

Besides, we certainly have plenty of experience with on-line retailing
from the customers point of view, and that's about all that counts. If
the customer doesn't like what you're doing, you're doing it wrong.

Well that's certainly a novel idea --- If the customer is always
right, perhaps he should go into buainess while he knows it all?
Perhaps the "customer" can change the laws of economics - - - -

All retailers live by the basic law of economics, which is no customers
no business. It is directly where the saying "the customer is always
right" comes from. If Sears or Amazon can't make me happy in a
competitive market, they will fall. Sears is about toast, as are most
local retail outlets. Online will kill off most of them, either today,
or tomorrow, but die they will.

Sears makes me unhappy charging 79 cents for a nickle item (shelf
bracket) and making me look for a half hour for a salesman. Amazon
makes me unhappy charging $26 for a $14 product (Sony earphones). I
just noticed Amazon is charging $56 for an $18 chair slide. Do it
enough and you will be toast, that's a basic law of economics in a
competitive market.
And how do YOU determine it is a nocle item, or a $14 product?, or
an $18 chair slide? Just because someone had them on either clearance
or as a loss leader does NOT make them only worth that amount.

If the replacement cost to the retailer is more than a nickel he can't
sell them for a nickel. Depending on the volume he buys at a time, his
price may vary from $0.05 to $0.17 each - then the shipping costs getr
devided by yhe number bought, and added to that cost - so if shipping
is $10.00 for a minimum order of 100, and the same for up to 500, his
shipping cost per unit ranges from 2 cents to 10 cents each for
shipping. If he buys 1000 at a time, it's only 1 cent each --

The more he buys, the more his warehousing costs and carrying costs
(including opportunity costs) are per unit, which can easily offset
the ammortized shipping savings.

By the time that nickel part is sold, if he has an average turnover
cycle of 90 days, his total cost will be somewhere between $0.08 and
$0.20 cents per unit - and that's not counting retail costs (keeping
the lights on, paying the cashier, cleaning staff, heat and AC, etc -
nor is it accounting for the "five finger discount" shrinkage due to
the "customer" who figures it's fair play becaude he's being "ripped
off" for $0.20 for a nickel item.

In many cases, with parts such as those shelf brackets, the "five
finger discount" can exceed 30%..

You really need to have some experience on the reseller side, or an
education in basic business accounting, to understand that YOUR
understanding is WAY off.

So how do the online retailers sell for the price they sell for??
I'll give you an example.

Say ou can buy a brake rotor for your 1004 Taurus, for anywhere from
$9 to $30 on a given day from Rock Auto, pluis $7 shipping.

That same part is $39 shop price at Napa, with a $54 MSRP, or as a
mechanic your shop price from the Ford Dealer is $57 with a MSRP of,
say, $85.

Just pulling numbers out of a hat here, based on past experience.

How does Rock Auto sell for such low prices???

They buy the dead stock off the shelves of bankrupt resellers, and
overstock from large warehousing companies who are optimizing their
shelf space and minimizing their "opportunity cost" by freeing up cash
to buy higher profit and higher turnover parts. They buy the stock
for pennies on the dollar.
So just because Rock Auto can sell you a Centric brand rotor for $9
does NOT mean that ba Centric brand rotor is only worth $9. Nor does
the fact they can sell you a motorcraft rotor for $27 mean the
Motorcraft rotor is only worth $27, or that it is worth 3 times as
much as a Centric branded rotor.

The actual wholesale value of both may be close to $20, and the "fair
retail" may be closer to $55. Your NAPA store may well be paying $35
each quantity 10, and $40 for a single order shipped to their store
for a NAPA branded rotor that came off the Centric asswembly line.