Gun Stuff/Marketing Stuff

I bought an inexpensive laser sight on Amazon for a pistol of mine. It was around fifteen bucks, so I thought, "Why not give it a try?" Since then, I've seen the same laser sight offered in two different places. One offers to send it to me for "free" w/ $14.95 shipping & handling.
Wow! Such a deal! Today, I saw one even better. They advertised "41% off". You click over to the site and the price is $29.95.
I didn't hang around long enough to see if there was shipping on top of that.

Caveat emptor!

Speaking of marketing, my late, ex father-in-law was a salesman for Montgomery Ward. Since he is deceased and the company is defunct, I don't think I'm 'talking out of school' here. He told me that MW would advertise goods, refrigerators, stoves, etc, in their catalog for greatly inflated prices. The catalog price would establish the "retail price", and then, after so many months, required by law, they would advertise the same merchandise in their store at a substantial "discount", only it wasn't a real discount, it was a reduction to what the normal retail price would have been, but because it was "on sale" at a greatly reduced price, i.e. full price, sales would increase. And pity the poor slob who actually ordered one through the catalog!

It pays to know your prices before you shop for anything: groceries, shoes, clothing, guns, screwdrivers, etc. Don't trust "sale" or "reduced prices" unless you've done some comparison shopping.

An informed shopper is a wise shopper.

"Hot Chick a Latte"

Entrepreneurs who apparently are taking the Hooters business model to their coffee operation have opened "Hot Chick a Latte".







Tall? Grande?? Venti??? Not at Hot Chick a Latte! Drink sizes are B, C, D and double D!
And the drink names are a bit suggestive as well, such as the Morning Wood...

I guess because it has chicory in it?

This has certainly been a week for stories like this one. And Friday Night is still coming!

Update: It's on East Colfax in Denver CO.

Cross posted at Left Coast Rebel

Color Me Green, but Cynical

Don't know if you've noticed but, Proctor and Gamble, the big manufacturer of laundry care, personal products and such, has embarked upon a new marketing campaign: Future Friendly. I've seen several ads on TV and they had a coupon supplement in the local paper this AM.

Their stated goals are to save water, and energy, to reduce waste and support sustainable manufacturing. Fine. I don't see a problem with any of that. It all seems quite laudable.

For example, in the past, many laundry soaps and detergents contained fillers, designed to increase the volume of the product purchased and make it appear that one was getting more bang for the laundry detergent buck, so to speak. In turn, these fillers then had to be removed from the water supply when used as directed, and the larger volume of product required increased size of packaging, which would then add to the volume of land fills.

So, it only makes sense to reduce the fillers, decrease the size and cost of the packaging and product and either pass the savings on to the consumer or at least hold the pricing against the rise of other costs. (Or hold some back as those nasty profits which allow them to stay in business!) A side benefit is less chemicals going into our water supply.

P&G has as much right to jump on the global warming/save the planet bandwagon as anyone else. On the Future Friendly UK site, there's a landscape made up of water drops and trees interspersed with the silhouettes of compact fluorescent light bulbs! Ah! Utopia!

CFLs are not going to "save the planet, if indeed the planet needs saving! But, P&G has the right to market their products with dancing bears or CFL trees or even "Springtime for Hitler", if they thought it would increase their market share.

But, for all the hoopla about climate change and global warming, I still feel it is a bit disingenuous when any big company jumps on the bandwagon. Maybe that's just me.

Color Me Green, but Cynical!

Is WalMart Dissing "Black Barbie"?

Yeah. Because everybody wants to be her!
Black Barbie Sold for Less Than White Barbie at Walmart Store

"To prepare for (s)pring inventory, a number of items are marked for clearance, " spokeswoman Melissa O'Brien said in an e-mail. "... Both are great dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on clearance when the photo was taken, and though both dolls were priced the same to start, one was marked down due to its lower sales to hopefully increase purchase from customers."

"Pricing like items differently is a part of inventory management in retailing," O'Brien said.

Inventory management...what a concept!

"The implication of the lowering of the price is that's devaluing the black doll," said Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, a Harlem, N.Y. organization founded by pioneering psychologists and segregation researchers Kenneth B. Clark and Marnie Phipps Clark.

"While it's clear that's not what was intended, sometimes these things have collateral damage," Dye said.

Pointy headed liberals who have never run a business (the InsuranceCompany-Basher-in-Chief comes to mind) shouldn't criticize what they cannot understand. One possibility is that an earlier glut of sales of "black Barbie" may have saturated the market. Much the same happens with DVDs. Blockbusters that create high demand when first released drop in price after the market gets saturated. I waited for months before buying a copy of the Dark Knight ("dark" not having anything to do with race) until the price dropped...as I knew it would. The quality of the movie did not change. The retailers were just trying to move inventory, already having sold a boat load!

Regardless of prior sales, what these idiots like Thelma Dye also fail to see is that lowering the price of the "black Barbie" is likely to put more of these dolls in the hands of children, not less! If WalMart were truly racist and didn't want to see any of the dolls sold, they would jack up the price (as President I-Hate-The-Insurance-Companies is wont to say!) and slow down sales of the doll or at least gouge anyone who bought one.

These critics are looking through the wrong end of their binoculars!

H/T Rob Port

Still Separated at birth?

Last August, I noted the similarities in the two logos:

Separated at birth?



Now it seems Pepsi is celebrating the Obama inauguration with a variation of both!



Guess Rush isn't the only one on the cutting edge of societal evolution!