Apr 16, 2003
On the power of the retailer...
I stopped into a T-Mobile store today to ask the salesman about some of the phones they had - primarily b/c Lon bought the hottest new phone on the market, the SonyEricsson P800, which only works with T-Mobile right now. T-Mobile happens to have the best selection of phones available in the US (a selection which is substantially worse than any country with mobile service).
Anyway, so I walked out of the store rather upset, because the guy at the store didn't have any of the phones I was interested in looking at (similar to the P800). His answer was that they're not that popular, so he doesn't stock them.
What pissed me off is what occurred to me a few minutes later. It occurred to me that at first glance, its OK that this retailer doesn't carry a certain set of phones, b/c that is the market speaking. He should know from experience and expertise what the market wants and doesn't want. As such, he only carries the stuff that the market will buy, b/c as a retailer, his margins aren't that high, and every time he tries to make a sale, he needs to score, and make the highest profit. I'm cool with that - I love capitalism, and think it works well.
But then I started thinking... this guy was like every other mobile phone salesman in the city - who doesn't work at the phone-company stores like a Verizon Wireless or Sprint store. This guy is a recent immigrant who doesn't speak much English, clearly is working very hard, and I commend him for appearing to be a productive member of society. But my problem is that there is no way that he knows the market that well, b/c he barely knew anything about the phones he had in stock, no less about the phones I was interested in that he didn't have in stock. As such, I was bothered by the fact that in general (barring the Internet) its up to people like this guy to determine how to stock their shelves, and as such the average person who walks in will buy whatever is on the shelf. Most people aren't crazy like me, who would be willing to wait 2 weeks for a specific mobile phone to come in, because I want that one. Most people, when they decide to buy a phone, want to walk in today, and buy it. Furthermore, people want the phone that looks cool, most of them don't do hours of research, like Lon.
So what I'm getting to is that not only isn't this guy a good person to be making decisions about how to properly stock his shelves, his decisions on how to stock the shelves are based on what he believes the market will buy. But if you look further, the market will buy whatever he can sell them. So essentially, the products that get put on the shelf are the products which retailers can most easily sell. And considering that most retailers do less research on the products they sell than the diligent consumers (such as Lon and myself), we're fucked from day 1!
Yet another reason progress is impeded every day!
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