The grocery store near my office always runs out of all its brands of premium 100% whole wheat bread on the day they are delivered... which is only one day a week. Meanwhile, there are shelves and shelves of squishy, sugary bread of different descriptions (white, multigrain, squishy, sugary "whole wheat") that just never seem to sell. Can't somebody in this store notice this and FUCKING ORDER MORE of the bread that SELLS and LESS of the bread that DOESN'T.

One of the supermarkets I go to makes whole wheat baguettes. Likewise, these ALWAYS sell faster than the white ones, of which a couple always have to be discounted the next day. Can't they figure this out and MAKE MORE of the ones that sell better?

Likewise, when I last went to buy a swimsuit, they were all out of ALL medium sizes in ALL the styles. They didn't know when they'd be getting more. Meanwhile, there were plenty of suits in the XXXS or XXXL range. I mean, HELLO it's not Noah's Ark for fuck's sake. We don't need to order 2 of each. Obviously the medium sizes sell better because there are MORE PEOPLE with medium-sized waists so why not ORDER MORE OF THEM for fuck's sake!

And is it SO FUCKING hard for restaurants and bars to have ONE GOOD BEER available. I mean, it's not like Guinness is having supply problems. Is there a special reason why ALL the beers have to be indistinguishable piss in differently labeled bottles?

Also, is it SO FUCKING hard to have whole wheat bread as an option in restaurants? It's not like it was invented yesterday. And obviously, since it's selling out in all the grocery stores I go to, I must not be the only one who wants it.

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Originally posted by rasmus raven:
The grocery store near my office always runs out of all its brands of premium 100% whole wheat bread on the day they are delivered... which is only one day a week. Meanwhile, there are shelves and shelves of squishy, sugary bread of different descriptions (white, multigrain, squishy, sugary "whole wheat") that just never seem to sell. Can't somebody in this store notice this and FUCKING ORDER MORE of the bread that SELLS and LESS of the bread that DOESN'T.

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Yeah, I know. I bet the reason is because the markup on the plastic bread is higher, and conversely the good bread has a shorter shelf life. So they keep only as much of the good bread in stock as they *know* will sell before it goes stale, counting on all the people who come in for the good bread to buy the plastic instead.

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Originally posted by rasmus raven:
And is it SO FUCKING hard for restaurants and bars to have ONE GOOD BEER available. I mean, it's not like Guinness is having supply problems. Is there a special reason why ALL the beers have to be indistinguishable piss in differently labeled bottles?

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Originally posted by rasmus raven:
My experience of the market suggests that the so-called efficiency of the supply and demand mechanism is really just crap.

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What's sad is that so many of these establishments have spent big money on computery systems to monitor sales and inventory, and they still can't keep the stuff on the shelves.

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Again, it's markup. At the restaurant where I work, supplying a higher-quality beer isn't going to bring in new customers or make people drink more, and the restaurant makes a higher percentage profit on the domestic swill, so they have no motivation to supply good beer.

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This is probably true most of the time. If I'm going to a restaurant to eat, then beer selection isn't a factor. But for example, there are a couple of cafes I like to hang out in, and I'm often thinking "I'd like a beer", but their beer selections sucks so I don't go there. And especially bars. I simply don't go to bars that don't have good beer.

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What's sad is that so many of these establishments have spent big money on computery systems to monitor sales and inventory, and they still can't keep the stuff on the shelves.

I'm convinced that the majority of stores don't ever even peek at the data.

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This is definitely true for the supermarket and swimming suit store (which is at the university, which does probably mean there is an even higher percentage of medium-sized waists, as sock puppet says. Although it IS Speedo, which you would think understood its market better). I can see a couple of problems: the staff who are at the store are overworked or underpaid or simply don't care, or all of the above; perhaps access to inventory data is centralized, and fine-grained information is overwhelmed by the bigger picture. Probably decisions about product category get made based on data, rather than individual products. It was like this for a long time at my supermarket with the organic milk, which they weren't ordering enough of. Finally what worked was talking to the manager. But the computer system didn't have much to do with it. I wonder if these types of local inefficiencies have been studied, and how they compound in the broader market.

[ 16 April 2005: Message edited by: rasmus raven ]