On 2013-09-01 11:24:46 +0100, David Hill said:

On 01/09/2013 10:57, Janet wrote:
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.

How the hell did our parents and grand parents survive?

My grandparents didn't have cars, so in the case of one she had a
longish walk to the shops and back and the other had a small shop in
the parish. I'm fairly sure butchers delivered but fishmongers didn't,
so it would have been a bus to town for both of them and then back
again. I daresay many of us can remember parents and grandparents
coping with daily life in just that way.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

In article ,
Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
'Mike' wrote:

Sorry - mistaken attribution.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Your apology accepted Nick

Mike



"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message ...

In article ,
Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
'Mike' wrote:

Sorry - mistaken attribution.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Sun, 01 Sep 2013 10:46:47 +0100, stuart noble
wrote:

I remember a guy telling me that he invested heavily in machinery to
fulfill an order from M&S. He would have been in clover had they
repeated the order, but they didn't, and nor did anyone else

A colleague had exactly the same problem with M&S. We stopped shopping
there but what's the loss of a few customers matter?

Steve

--
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com

On Sun, 01 Sep 2013 11:24:46 +0100, David Hill
wrote:

How the hell did our parents and grand parents survive?

By shopping more often at the small local shops. I went to the shop
every morning before going to work.

Steve

--
EasyNN-plus. Neural Networks plus. http://www.easynn.com
SwingNN. Forecast with Neural Networks. http://www.swingnn.com
JustNN. Just Neural Networks. http://www.justnn.com

In article , david@abacus-
nurseries.co.uk says...

On 01/09/2013 10:57, Janet wrote:
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.

How the hell did our parents and grand parents survive?

Because society was completely different. Nuclear families were less
common; extended family at hand for looking after children. Divorce was
rare; "single parenting by choice" almost unheard of, two employed
parents rare. Few people had cars or fridges. Shops opened 9 to 6,
closed at lunchtime and weekends; lots of them delivered.

Janet

In article ,
says...

On 2013-09-01 10:57:41 +0100, Janet said:

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.

What a lot of assumptions you do make, Janet. You know much less than
you think about my life now, or in the past.

I know what you just posted from that moral pedestal;

"The more I hear of this sort of thing, the less inclined I am to use
supermarkets and am minded to go back to the old days of shopping at
small individual shops for every need, wherever possible. It's less
convenient, it takes longer and it may well be a bit more expensive"


Janet

In article ,
Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...

What a lot of assumptions you do make, Janet. You know much less than
you think about my life now, or in the past.

I know what you just posted from that moral pedestal;

"The more I hear of this sort of thing, the less inclined I am to use
supermarkets and am minded to go back to the old days of shopping at
small individual shops for every need, wherever possible. It's less
convenient, it takes longer and it may well be a bit more expensive"

Inter alia, you are making the assumption that is a moral pedestal.
I might well have posted the first sentence (though not the second),
and my grounds for doing so are not primarily moral.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
says...

In article ,
Janet wrote:
In article ,
says...

What a lot of assumptions you do make, Janet. You know much less than
you think about my life now, or in the past.

I know what you just posted from that moral pedestal;

"The more I hear of this sort of thing, the less inclined I am to use
supermarkets and am minded to go back to the old days of shopping at
small individual shops for every need, wherever possible. It's less
convenient, it takes longer and it may well be a bit more expensive"

Inter alia, you are making the assumption that is a moral pedestal.

Not an assumption. In two posts Sacha said it's the (supermarket
practice) moral issue that she objects to ; "it's the morality of it
that gets me".. that being the reason she is minded to stop using
supermarkets.

Janet.

(Nick Maclaren) wrote:

Starting with supermarkets, but now in almost all areas of
retail and 'service' (such as banks), we are no longer the customers
but their commodities.

I heard an interview with Phil Zimmerman, author of Pretty Good Privacy and
net privacy guru. When asked about "free" services like Facebook, Gmail,
etc., he said "If the commodity is free, YOU are the commodity."
There's a lot of that going around on my side of the pond
too....supermarket loyalty cards so they can tell what you're buying, sell
the info to their suppliers, etc.

--
Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic
Zone 5/4 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

In article ,
Gary Woods wrote:

Starting with supermarkets, but now in almost all areas of
retail and 'service' (such as banks), we are no longer the customers
but their commodities.

I heard an interview with Phil Zimmerman, author of Pretty Good Privacy and
net privacy guru. When asked about "free" services like Facebook, Gmail,
etc., he said "If the commodity is free, YOU are the commodity."
There's a lot of that going around on my side of the pond
too....supermarket loyalty cards so they can tell what you're buying, sell
the info to their suppliers, etc.

It doesn't have to be free :-( All that is needed is an effective
monopoly/cartel and a requirement to use their services, then your
only function is as the resource to be exploited. To use what I
think is an Americanism, they have us over a barrel and are seeing
how far they can push the broom handle.

The trouble is that the English are so damn docile, and they
dominate the UK!


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On 2013-09-01 14:46:09 +0100, Janet said:

In article ,
says...

On 2013-09-01 10:57:41 +0100, Janet said:

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.

What a lot of assumptions you do make, Janet. You know much less than
you think about my life now, or in the past.

I know what you just posted from that moral pedestal;

"The more I hear of this sort of thing, the less inclined I am to use
supermarkets and am minded to go back to the old days of shopping at
small individual shops for every need, wherever possible. It's less
convenient, it takes longer and it may well be a bit more expensive"


Janet

God forbid I should make my own choices about when, where and how to
spend my money.
--

Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon
www.helpforheroes.org.uk

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.

What a lot of assumptions you do make, Janet. You know much less than
you think about my life now, or in the past.

I know what you just posted from that moral pedestal;

"The more I hear of this sort of thing, the less inclined I am to use
supermarkets and am minded to go back to the old days of shopping at
small individual shops for every need, wherever possible. It's less
convenient, it takes longer and it may well be a bit more expensive"


Janet

God forbid I should make my own choices about when, where and how to
spend my money.

The point I made is that having that choice is a privilege.

Janet

The trouble is that the English are so damn docile, and they
dominate the UK!

Who the English or the Supermarkets?

I hate to interupt this cosy 2 way banter. but Janet please decide where
you stand.
You said earlier
" 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."

You now say

"The more I hear of this sort of thing, the less inclined I am to use
supermarkets and am minded to go back to the old days of shopping at
small individual shops for every need, wherever possible. It's less
convenient, it takes longer and it may well be a bit more expensive"


Janet
So does that make you a comfortably off non-working
housewife with a car to spend more time during the day, and more money,
shopping in small businesses?