Inventory Management and Drugeconomics

Yes, once again I am pissed off. This time I am pissed off at the convinience store "consumer business" industry.

There is a brand of energy bar/cereal bar that I found at AM-PMs that I really like; it's got rice crispies, dried fruit, and covered in excuisite white chocolate. There is also my local Family Mart that sold boxes and boxes of Granola Bars which is also something that I like to eat. In fact on most days all I eat are the white chocolate energy bars and granola bars. (yes, I have a very strange diet). Before I went to Oz I could find my food stash by the dozens at these convinience stores with NO trouble, and I would often go out and buy my nutrients in large batches "just in case" I ran out -- a sensible move, considering what has happened to the drastic shift in availability since my return from Australia.

These FECKERS DONT HAVE *MY FOOD* ON STOCK!!!!! I have gone to the local family mart for the past 6 days and not one single box of Granola bars was on the shelf at any time of the day! Instead, some dip-shit decided to order 8 boxes of Branflakes instead (can you believe it?). Branflakes. And those 8 boxes have not moved since Wednesday when I first went back in there to stock up on my granola bars. Why do I know they have not shifted? I noticed that the box on top was slightly damaged, and that damaged box has been there - right on top of the pile - all this time.

I don't need a degree in economics, or business administration, to work out that if I am selling a lot of one thing, I should order some more of the same shit before it runs out. I do not suddenly decide to order Butt-pluggers like "branflakes", in large volume, that shift about as slowly as they do in the human digestive system. Whose the procurement planner for my local family mart? I want to sit them down and give them a pep talk about slow moving and obsolete inventory (SLOB) versus fast moving, high turnover stock that brings in the cash -- FAST -- and reduces your liability (i.e. shit sitting around that doesn't sell). Even junked up crack dealers who consume over half their "stock" know not to go out and score a litre of Methadone to push onto their "customers". Most of them are going to move their "loyalties" as fast as I can say "Smack, Crack, and Pot" and get their precious rocks from somewhere else.

And as for the AM-PM that no longer stocks my favourite cereal bar... I know your marketing strategy. I know that you buy new stuff to see if it sells, and if it does, you just cut the supply, create a drought, and bring it back on the shelves when the demand is soooo high that if you hitch up the prices by a small-ish margin you expect us, the consumers, to not notice. Yeah, and we are so into your commodity that we will pay any price to get it. And you know it too... Sneaky buggers! You're like the drug barron, or "governments" who have a lot of support from the agricultural industry, who just holds onto the commodity so that the market is dry for a while, claiming some BS, like "oh we have had poor supply this year from the producers" as you create mountains and mountains of the goodies in some out of the way warehouse, and suddenly flood the market with your stash that now costs 20% more. And yes, we are sooooo stupid enough to buy your crap at hiked up prices because we NEED IT by the time you make it available to us.

Convinience Store Managers my arse!!! You are just ex-drug dealers who are now working in a "legit' biz" because you either got busted and sentenced to X hours community service working in the local convinience store, or you were so junked up that you couldn't multi-task your habit and the illicit drug-trading industry, and are only academically qualified to work as the manager of a franchise convinience store!! Whichever way, you all piss me off!!

Why am I pissed off? It's coz I can't get my stash of cereal bars/granola bars anymore!! Get it straight, boys and girls! Jeez, no wonder I have a college degree and a normal job. But if I ever get fired, I know can always fall back and use my BS. in Drugeconomics (with Hon.) from the University of Skid Roof, London.