No dumping: I had a boss who produced Poinsettias for retail sale in his
greenhouse at a local nursery which was open to the public. People came in
all summer and fall to watch the progress. We did them from cuttings in the
summer and tended them as they grew and the season arrived to sell them.
These were PREMIUM Poinsettias. He would *NOT* discount them as Christmas
got closer and customers started trying to bargain. He would say he would
rather toss them outside the morning after Christmas than give them away the
day before. Since their selling value drops to zero on Christmas morning,
this is exactly what he did with many of them, but I do believe he was
correct in his assertion that dropping the price creates a false sense of
their value for future sales. Another way to illustrate this future value
effect is with that of seasonal sales. I had a 20% sale one July, typically
my lowest sales month, and the next year in May and June I had customers
asking me when I was going to put things on sale again and telling me they
were holding off buying until I had the sale. And the numbers for the
months leading up to known sales did tend to drop a bit as people waited for
the bargains they thought were coming. The only reason to have a sale is to
increase income. Often you shoot yourself in the foot by reducing the price
to prevent loss. It is better to plan ahead as much as possible (I prefer
spreadsheets) and learn how much stock to have on hand than to dump or slash
because in the end it comes back to bite you on the butt. I can imagine it
must drive the vendors who rely on show sales to put their kids through
college insane to watch backyard vendors destroy livelihoods and calling it
'profit' without any inkling of what they are truly doing. There are ways
to do things like "George Washington's Birthday Sale" that increase income
and reduce prices, but these are *planned events* and do not dump
merchandise in the manner we are discussing here.
"Susan Erickson" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 9 Nov 2006 21:29:13 -0500, "Kenni Judd"
wrote:
Big question: would he be willing to do it again?
We used to drop prices on Sunday afternoon - it increased traffic...
but it got so people often waited for Sunday afternoon to buy. This
year we found a local vendor to front for us. We did not take
discounts because he took back what we could not sell. So we had a
better selection on Sunday and nothing looked Shop-worn. He claimed
he was getting the phone calls - he might as well be our wholesaler.
Have his tags in the plants, etc.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/orchids
Yes, He has signed up for March 2007. He considered it an advertising
piece as well as covering his costs. It is the Contribution Margin
that is slim here. But at least when someone calls to ask about one
of the plants they bought he can tell them to come in and bring it. It
has his tag and it was his volume sale. He wants to bring "club
specials" to the preview party and have more exciting plants for the
club growers. Species and Ascda, Vanda, etc.
Most of the sales are for the non-growing public. Generic (but
labeled) phals and other pretties or easy growers.
SuE
http://orchids.legolas.org/gallery/orchids