The Capital HACKER » Smart Business

Regional Monopolies

James Phillip — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:41:00 +0000

In a recent article I talked about setting up a high end audio system for your PC. As I searched for speakers that I wanted to demo I came across a couple of brands I wanted to hear. Along with that I wanted to have a couple of places to get quotes from so the best price could be found.

I do a search in my area and come across 3 dealers. They are all owned by the same place and no other dealer is in my area that carries those speakers. So I get to thinking, what a slick way to make sure you get a premium price for your product.

Now this cannot work with everything but if you are reselling a product and can purchase a “zone” then why not game it up and set up several stores. Once you set in place a great plan you should have trapped a geographic area to either buy from you or force them to drive 30-40+ miles if they want to deal with someone else.

You seen many warnings on company sites that you will not get a warranty if you purchase from an Internet reseller and you clearly know why now. I cannot really find those speakers online and I really don’t want to drive over an hour to “try” to save a few bucks so what can I do other then pay up or chose another brand?

Aggressive business so you have to love it, unless your the one buying from a regional monopoly.

IKEA’s wicked store floor plan

James Phillip — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 13:02:48 +0000

I had to add another category for “Smart Business” because after walking around the IKEA store I had to post up my thoughts.

First off the raw amount of the people at the store is amazing for such a downed economy in the rust belt here. But it is a bargain store and you would assume those low on cash would be looking for a deal.

The floor plan is amazing. It must take us a good 30min to walk the entire maze they have setup. The plan has you zig zag through each mini-section looking at all the different departments. This is setup is kind of Kaizen like where you follow the arrows to the desired path. Signs also note the next sections and there are places to take a shortcut but their rather hidden so unless you are looking for them you stick to the beaten path.

They pretty much force you in a good way to view their entire store and a large percentage of their product base. By doing so you made me look at things that I didn’t even come here to buy which worked well because we found a couple of decorative items we thought would look good although we were not even in the market for that stuff when we walked in the door.

Reasonable prices on products with decent quality along with a floor plan that makes any logistics manager drop their jaw and you have one hell of a smart business.