GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

Janet · 01-09-2013, 10:57 AM posted to uk.rec.gardening

In article ,
says...

Not so long ago I told Ray that I'd read of a wholesale nursery going
belly up. Today, he learned a bit more about it and said it was
because it had a £3 million order from a supermarket chain which
suddenly decided to halve that order. Then it said that if they potted
the remaining order on, they might buy them. They didn't.
Personally, I don't understand why anyone puts their entire future and
livelihood into the hands of one customer. But neither do I understand
the morals of a customer who will do that to a supplier.

Why make it about morality? It's about business, what the
supermarket can sell, to customers whose choices are led by the weather
and the economy. If there's a late cold spring, down goes the demand for
tender plug plants and GYO salad trays. When budgets are feeling the
pinch paying bills and buying food, customers may spend less on hanging
baskets or pots of bulbs in flower.

It may be very lovely for you, a comfortably off non-working
housewife with a car to spend more time during the day, and more money,
shopping in small businesses. Don't you realise it's a luxury to have
such means and opportunity, one denied to many working parents on a very
tight budget. They need to shop outside working hours. How many small
bakers, butchers and grocers stay open in the evening? Even if they
did, what does a single working parent do with the tired children as
s/he trails them a mile or two from shop to shop ? Carrying the
shopping, because small shops don't have a great big car park, and
trolleys with child seats.

Janet.