I believe the reason people are having trouble finding starch depends on supply and demand. I have no trouble finding Argo and the old blue bottle of Sta-flo starch in my area. If there is not a big demand for the product in your area, the stores will drop the product. In my county, there is diversity in age depending where you live. In the neighborhoods near me, people are old enough to know what to do with powder or liquid starch. If I drove 10 miles west, where the average people are younger generation, the stores' products differ. That generation would rather go to a dry cleaners than iron their clothes. If you show a lot of the younger generation a box or bottle of starch, they probably wouldn't know what to do with it. Many do not even own an ironing board.
As far as product selection and retailers: Watch the Costco documentary that is showing this month on MSNBC. We have problems with Costco dropping products. The documentary explains how Costco buys, product lines, markets, etc. The problem is that the retailer and manufacturer cannot agree on their wholesale prices. When this happens, Costco drops the product. Costco has a 15% markup and regular grocer retailers have 25%. Costco is the number one retailer right now. When Costco, Sam's Club or WalMart drops them a product... what an impact the top three grocery stores can make on a manufacturer. Costco carries a limited assortment or only one product (example ketchup) to deliberately not give customers choices. Research shows that if you only have one or two choices of a product, a customer will buy it on spot so they don't have to go to another grocery store. Given a big assortment, a customer is confused and will not purchase. Here a video of 10 minutes of the documentary: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rock-center/47182853#47182853 Calvin Klein sued Warnaco Group, a supplier to Costco and other retail clubs, for selling CK goods to these cheaper retailers. BTW, you can still buy SK goods at Costco. http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20000601&slug=40239 91 Which would you choose for clothing-- Costco's 15% markup or a department store's 50%+ markup for a designer brand. My husband and I did an interesting survey last week. I was at Sam's Club and he was at Costco at the same time. We both had a copy of our monthly grocery list. We talked on the cell phone and compared prices. Sam's does carry a larger assortment of products than Costco. Costco only carries 4,000 products. Off the mainland U.S., Costco carries more products...I've been to their stores in Hawaii and Liverpool, England...love them! I wish we had the choices these location have. A big problem with retailers and manufacturers is the extreme couponers who are purchasing entire shelves of products. I don't think either end knows how to get a grip on this problem. But it is causing problems of keeping merchandise on the shelves for the other customers to purchase. Lastly, some retailers have different prices according to the location of the store. I have seen this at Lowe's and Food Lion within 10 miles of my house. Strange, both charge higher prices in lower income areas. Lowe's actually carries lower and higher ends goods at higher income neighborhoods. Now, Lowe's is tracking your purchases by your name. Try it! Get their Lowe's discount card, and purchase an item. Go to any Lowe's without a receipt to return the product. They will scan the item and card, and pull up your receipt from when you originally purchased the item. This can be good and bad. Penny Ladnier, owner The Costume Gallery Websites www.costumegallery.com 15 websites of fashion, costume, and textile history FaceBook: http://www.facebook.com/TheCostumeGallery _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
