Small Business Purchases

I made a visit to Sam’s club this evening. Its supposed to be low prices and good deals for business….. and my intern said I could save a ton of money.

So I thought, it might be worth checking out, as I hadn’t been there for a few years. The surroundings were spartan as I remember, and the emphahsis seemed to be on low overhead. Sounds like a good idea. I check a few items, low prices, well maybe to the uninformed, but its more packaging and marketing such that one percieves a low price.

I guess I had a Beware the Naked Man who Offers His Shirt moment. Sam’s Club does a great job at creating the perception of great deals, and there were a few… However, much of the time is was creative repackaging to create the illusion of a good deal. Sure their prices are lower than a lot of brick and mortars, but come nowhere near the low prices of commercial distributors.

Then again, it may be that the lack of marketing to the little guy keeps him away from the big boys. Its also probably intentional. Why would you want to make a $100-$200 sale when you could make a $10,000 – $50,000 sale using the same resources. I can see their logic. Some of the big boys even discourage the small business, eg no will call, no cash or credit card sales, designated delivery routes…. but they are where the low prices truly are. I still remember having a semi pull up next to my place, with the driver crabbing about no forklift. I’m pretty small… but we wrestled stuff off the pallets, and carried it in ourselves. Lots of work, but I also paid 35% of what I would have normally paid as a small guy.