Why must our buyers be crack addicts?

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

So you all know the economy sucks. People don't have excess money lying around to blow on luxury purchases. Stores are closing. Things are tough all over.

So what comes in on last night's truck? Lane recliners. The same Lane recliners you might find in a full-service furniture store such as Kusanagi's.

They start at $500 and the most expensive one is $1,000. And the customer either has to put the damn thing together themself, or somebody on staff will have to on the off chance we actually sell one.

I played Norm Feuti's clearance game with one of the truck guys. I already called those recliners "new clearance".

How so very smart to bring in all this expensive shit as the purse strings tighten and the wallets close right up.

[LoTech]

I think that it is BECAUSE the purse strings have tightened that things like this happen.

The buyers at the more upscale stores are either buying in smaller quantities or not buying at all because they still have excess unsold inventory in their stores from previous shipments.

Thus the suppliers are forced to unload their excess product (that they can't sell to their normal, already overstocked, customers) in other markets, perhaps at significant enough discounts that lower-tier resellers can afford to stock them.

Sadly, that only answers the question of why you have them. I have no answer to the question of how you are supposeed to sell them in today's market economy. Sorry.

[protege]

Some of it could be...that the product was scheduled to roll out long before the current cash crisis. Reminds me of those expensive model locomotives I saw at the hobby shop. These are Broadway Limited steam engines, and are quite nice. They were announced last winter. Now, they're priced at nearly $1,000 I don't know about the rest of you, but I think that's a bit steep for something that's basically a toy...even if it does (short of actually burning coal) sound and act like the real thing.

Instead, many hobbyists have cut back on purchases. We simply can't justify the cost, and no, I'm *not* one of those fools dropping a grand on a toy. It'll be a cold day in Hell before I do that.

But seriously, some of those things...eventually cost the shops money. All that unsold inventory has to be housed somewhere, it has to be paid for, etc. The longer it sits around, the longer it takes the shop to make their money back. Usually, the item only moves when the shop cuts the price significantly.