Meet Gort!

[Tex]

Well Tex, the Behmore was not a 'mainstream' product.   In honesty none of this 'stuff' really is.  It's a niche item selling to a niche crowd.   Not the costco / walmart crowd.  He did very well with the behmore selling to a niche crowd, as many other manufacturers did.   I don't see how you can justify that the only way to be successful is if mass marketing picks up on it.

Also, how can you say nobody is talking about it, we have been doing so for the past 10 pages, or are your meds wearing off again?

Aaron

Believe it or not Aaron, every one of us could buy the new brewer and the new operation would still go tits up. And Costco doesn't just do mainstream stuff; they do niche stuff like this & this.

[jimec3]

Well Tex, the Behmore was not a 'mainstream' product.   In honesty none of this 'stuff' really is.  It's a niche item selling to a niche crowd.   Not the costco / walmart crowd.  He did very well with the behmore selling to a niche crowd, as many other manufacturers did.   I don't see how you can justify that the only way to be successful is if mass marketing picks up on it.

Also, how can you say nobody is talking about it, we have been doing so for the past 10 pages, or are your meds wearing off again?

Aaron

Tex LOVES him some Costco.

Personally I avoid things from the large box stores.  I don't support thier homoginization of quality or thier business practices as a seller or a buyer. 
I know that a weber grill at walmart and a weber grill from a "weber grill retailer" are not the same.  In order to enter the walmart market quality is sacrificed for price and profit.  If it were me buying a new 200 dollar brewer I would avoid box stores and deal with the community that I have developed a relationship with, online or locally.  I pay extra for that.

Believe it or not Aaron, every one of us could buy the new brewer and the new operation would still go tits up. And Costco doesn't just do mainstream stuff; they do niche stuff like this & this.

[BoldJava]

...
Personally I avoid things from the large box stores.  I don't support thier homoginization of quality or thier business practices as a seller or a buyer.  .  .  If it were me buying a new 200 dollar brewer I would avoid box stores and deal with the community that I have developed a relationship with, online or locally.  I pay extra for that.

...

+1.  My car is unfamiliar with parking lots at Walmart and Costco. 

[Ascholten]

jimec3.  I understand what you are saying about the 'weber' grill as an example being less quality at walmart than at BBQ store.  Can you prove that?  Do you have any links to substantiate that?

Reason I ask is, im curious if this IS true or just more urban myth and part of the I hate big box frenzy.    Also, let's say *I* am Weber,  I sell my products at a set quality level, because that IS what Weber is.  Now if walmart gets one of my knock offs and sells it as walmart brand or tries to knock it off, callig it wobbler or whatever, ok because it's being sold as THAT, but I am NOT giving them a piece of crap, or something that failed MY own QA tests to sell with MY name on it!!

First that opens me up to liability issues, and secondly I do NOT want them selling a piece of shit with MY name on it.  If you get a piece of garbage from walmart, most people are not going to say oh wait i got it from walmart that is why it was a piece of crap... they are going to say. wow  WEBER is a piece of crap, and that is what I want to avoid at all costs.    Letting a store sell inferior products with my name on it kind of hurts myself.

Aaron

[MMW]

The only way it can become a viable product is to be picked up by a mass seller like Costco, who'll then undercut all other retailers. Maybe by offering deals to members of forums with thousands of members, the product could pick up some marketing momentum; otherwise how many folks are going to shell out a premium price for a machine that so few are talking about?

Or Williams-Sonoma...add an "exclusive" feature and add 30%

(Now with even more accurate scoop!)

[ScareYourPassenger]

Weber may not be a great example. The TVs sold at Walmart are. I went shopping or a 37" LCD a year ago and found that Walmart and some other bit chains had models that had no reviews because they were not a a general offering but were made for Walmart.

I try to avoid Walmart but Costco is on my list of stores I visit regularly. It isn't for the gizmos. In fact I have never bought a large electrical appliance from them. They do have high quality meats, real sugar cokes from Mexico and the freshest tuna steaks I have bean able to find. Whole foods wasn't even close to as tasty.

There is a lot to said for moving inventory quickly when something needs to be fresh.

[Ascholten]

That's the thing,  a manufacturer may make items specifically FOR a big retailer with lower specs, but they will make it as a different model number.   The weber might be model 1000X  but the cheaper walmart one might be the 1000W.

This is how a lot of the stores say we will not be undersold, we will match any price.  Because  they are the only ones selling THAT specific model.  Let's say you find the costco one the 1000C for ten bucks cheaper, wally world will say, oh but that's the C model we are the W model so we are still cheaper.

For what it is worth though, Jimca is correct in that the big stores have cheaper shit, but its a different model, NOT the same model made cheaper.  It's a play on words and semantics for the most part, he is correct though on that aspect.  This is what they hope you don't catch when you buy their specific substandard model.

Oh and I refuse to EVER shop at walmart because of a few things, one of them being them supporting groups trying to ban fishing.
Aaron

[MGLloyd]

Believe it or not Aaron, every one of us could buy the new brewer and the new operation would still go tits up. And Costco doesn't just do mainstream stuff; they do niche stuff like this & this.

Wow, that cordless stirrer looks very interesting for the times I do stovetop stockpot roasting.....

[milowebailey]

Where can I get one?  Google turns up nothing for shopping results

[Ascholten]

Looks more gimmic than useful actually.   You burn something in that or do one cheese or egg dish and you are HATIN' it trying to clean that thing with all those corners and ridges.   Non stick my ass, there is no such thing when you burn cheese onto something 

Aaron

[jimec3]

So Aaron you basically contradicted yourself.  If a hoover vacuum sold at walmart is different than the one from a hoover distributor with the only external difference being a "w" then you agree they are selling an inferior product through the box stores.  Walmart is leveraging buying power to force the reduction in quality.  The problem for John Q Customer is that externally he doesn’t know the difference.  He bought the hoover quality that he has grown to appreciate over the years.  He thinks he will be able to replace impellers or motors and belts but the parts aren’t available at his vacuum repair shop.
I think hoover in the case is doing itself a disservice.  In the long run quality wins.  Customers will only buy so many disposable items before looking for something better.

[Tex]

I disagree with anyone saying Costco sells inferior merchandise. I've been a member since 1983 and IMO they upgrade products they sell, as evidenced by their 100% satisfaction guarantee on most things (computers, televisions and similar electronic items being the exceptions).,

[jimec3]

So they stand behind the mustard and underpants but not high dollar electronics? Maybe in Texas it's bigger AND better.

[Ascholten]

Why do I even try to explain this... well let's give it a shot.

Most manufacturers have several 'tiers' of products.

The best
The really good
The run of the mill.
The ok.
then some even go as far as
The mediocre
The cheapo
The walmart.

If I am selling a BMW.... which basically made it's 'name' with absolute quality,  I am not going to entertain a 'walmart bmw' cheaper, crappier because that would dilute my 'bmw' name.   Some places will NOT sacrifice quality for the sake of a sale.   On that, yes I know there are 'tiers' as well in the Beemer world, but most of it is not necessarily quality, but goodies / power / bells and whistles type stuff.

Other companies now have many tiers of products including the cheap crap.  Look at hard drives.... the green labels are the slow crap you use for big files,not very expensive, not very fast, not very big buffer, use them for archiving... the black is better... the xxx is the high performance... as an example.

I may sell my green for 100 bucks.... walmart may say, hey, if we buy 1 million of them, and want to sell them for 95 or 90, what we do to 'make them doable' at that price.  I say well we can drop the buffer a bit or not put them in the shrink sealed wrap, they are plain jane... or whatever.... we will call it the green95W model instead of the green 95model to show those slight differences.      It's already a lower end model... the green.    Now I am not going to let them cheapen my black or top of the line model because that performance that is essentially guaranteed when people buy 'black' or 'caviar' or whatever I am not going to sacrifice, THAT is my reputation there.

You are not going to see wallmart selling cheap  Rolex watches,   you might see them selling cheaper timex watches.

Aaron

[ScareYourPassenger]

Then there is Bose making crap products for high prices and not selling cheaper products even though they are not worth the paper cones they are made of.