Revolution!!!

Back in the 1970s Lowes did have real salesmen assigned to departments that they had expertiese in. The salesman ordered his product, stocked the shelves in his own department and sold the product. they worked on commission and made a good living. Salesmen were sent to product schools and profited from their knowledge. One of our construction reps in my store made over $100,000 a year, and that was 1970s money. They also had a profit sharing program and retirement after 15 years.

They slowly evolved into the Walmart of the construction world and no one knows anything about anything now.

My main problem with the local Mom and Pop operations is that I know more about their product than they do and often must explain to them how items work and that there are new and better glues than Elmers.

That is a good idea Rick, and I've even tried to explain Profit Margin to them.. For a business to stay in-business, you have to reinvest money into it. I am in no way an expert on prices of wholesale goods, but a general rule says you double the cost of raw materials plus expenses to figure the value of your manufactured product. You sell those to a wholesaler, who doubles the price, then to the storefront who marks it up even more. The price we pay on the shelf is roughly 8x what it cost to actually produce the product.
With that in mind, for every lot of A produced (and sold), I can produce two more lots of A. The problem is that the folks I'm dealing with want to put all that profit in their pockets, so they can drive brand new 2012 Ford 4x4 "Eddie Bauer" trucks and have 6000+ channels of HD in a two-story house built for 3 people with 10 acre yards........
The trick is to do without those things in your "personal life" so you can build your business. you take so much of your "profit" and put it back into "investments" like stocking your shelves. If grocery chains OR the ma & pa grocery store across the road didn't do that with milk and bread, none of us would have toast or creamy coffee either.. same way folks around here can't get shingles to go on their houses.
Inflation is killing the american dream and only those with sky-scraping piles of money (chains) are going to be left. I almost feel helpless to do anything, because even if the ma and pa store costs slightly more to buy, I'd still trade with them instead of the chains and I think most of the homeowners (which I've asked about this very thing) would gladly pay a few more dollars to keep all that revenue in our hometown communities. Don't get me wrong, everybody wants to save a few dollars these days, but we all know that shopping locally helps drive the local economies. At this point we aren't even keeping the revenue in the SAME STATE!!

Im only 38 and love the stuff made by hand, Dovetail joints in funiture, stuff that was made with quality in mind! People who took alot of pride in their work! You just dont see that anymore.The mom and pop stores are where you find the good stuff, weather it be food,tools, building material or what have you!

Willie

Well, you are. All those folks that work at Lowe's (or Kroger or BP or any other chain) live in your community. The money they are paid goes back into the community as well. We have a smaller town north of us that lives and breaths auto industry. We have foreign owned car makers and car parts manufacturers and trust me if one of those plants close the community feels the effects instantly. I understand your point though.

When I was a kid there were family owned grocery stores in every neighborhood. The Irish had theirs, the Italians had theirs, the Germans had theirs and so on. Sometimes there would be two or three Italian or German or whatever stores. There was one across the street from my house. (The meat locker was a great place for a kid to hang around in August!). Then A&P came to town and drove out some of the business. Then IGA showed up. Today, there are no family groceries, just a couple of chain stores and no one thinks twice about going to Krogers to shop. Where else are you going to go? That's how the American economy works like it or not. Cheaper, better and more choices draw customers. It also forces the competition to become better at what they do or they won't survive. A free market society is a good thing we just don't always like what it does to our favorite shop.

Quote:

---

Im only 38 and love the stuff made by hand, Dovetail joints in funiture, stuff that was made with quality in mind! People who took alot of pride in their work! You just dont see that anymore.The mom and pop stores are where you find the good stuff, weather it be food,tools, building material or what have you!

---

I Worked For A Guy Who Had A HUGE Oak Desk That His Grandfather Had Built When He Ran The Company. When It Was Time To Renovate, We Couldn't Figure Out How It Came Apart. Then A Real Craftsman Looked At It And Informed Us It Was Built, Then Forklifted Through The Wall When It Was Being Put Up. And It Wasn't Ment To Ever Come Apart. So We Had To Knock The Wall Down And Do The Reverse. The Thing Never Creeked Or Groaned

Willie - The stuff made by hand, dovetail joints, etc. were used because that's all they had to fasten items together without increasing the costs. Nails and screws were not machine made so they were more costly. If you go back to the middle of the 17th century you won't find much in the way of furniture in America and what you find is stuff cobbled together by the owner. Farm built tables and chairs for example. Most folks only had one or two changes of clothes so bureaus and other luxury furniture wasn't needed and couldn't be afforded.

As you move forward you begin to see furniture trade with Europe and shops opening in New England. Wood workers of the day had to have an intimate knowledge of every aspect of wood before they were even allowed to apprentice and only a master craftsman was allowed to build a chair. If you want to build something difficult without screws or nails try to tackle a chair. Building anything at 90 degrees that has to fight humidity and support weight is difficult at best.

By the middle of the 1800s hand made items had mostly disappeared except with the true master craftsmen. We started pumping out mass produced furniture at lower cost. That continues today. You can still purchase beautifully hand crafted furniture from master cabinetmakers if you want to pay the price. My wife and I have purchased quite a bit of Amish furniture. It's more expensive but the quality is higher and we expect it to be handed down to our kids and grand kids.

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