Quote:
Originally posted by bgadow
One little story: there is a tv shop in our town that still sells new Zeniths (as far as I can tell). I went in there last Christmas because I thought about buying my mother a DVD player and really wanted to buy it from a mom & pop. I really couldn't stomach the $169 they wanted so I got her something else. Anyway, the shelves in that place are very sad. They have a couple 13" Zenith tv's, one a vcr combo, brand new, never sold-they are at least 10 years old. Priced around $350. Well, he probably paid a couple hundred dollars or so, right? And now Wally World is 15 minutes away selling them for $100 (or whatever) When he opened that store 20 years ago he stocked the shelves with clock radios, police scanners (mostly crystal type) and various small appliances-they are all lined up, unsold. Very sad. Real nice folks, mom at the counter, father & son in the back at the repair bench. Today, though, its all about volume. Another repairman in town said that the minimum purchase now for sets was something like $5000 (I have a bad memory on this but it was in the thousands) and so the new tv's from the local shop are actually bought from a larger appliance store in another town.
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That reminds me of what Lionel trains went thru in the early 50's. They had contracts with their retailers that basically said that no one was allowed to sell for less than full price.
Along comes a chain operation that got a contract and decided to sell at discount anyway. Lionel sued and lost on ground of restraint of trade, or some such thing. This forced all manner of internal price cutting at Lionel which combined with changes in the market drove them to the precipice.
I believe this country started down a horrible road that day as this created a monster that could never be put back in the bottle....one of constant price pressure beyond what's possible to allow a manufacturer to charge a reasonable price so that he may pay his workers a living wage.
Don't give me any of that fair market economy crap either....the chinese have suppressed their money's value and pay their workers slave wages and feed them asbestos laden lunches, so that's not a fair comparison.
We've been spoiled by these present market conditions that are exacerbated by the nature of modern electronics which generally dictate that the next generation device will do more and cost less (sorta like the car industry used to be pre WWII).
And that, Ladies and Germs, is my convoluted view of this. Class dismissed.
Anthony