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. 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. > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and > follow the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
