You will always be able to sell traditonal and widespread products at a profit if you are doing it right. Look at your traditional local grocery store. They all sell the usual produce, meats, dairy and boxed/canned products. They certainly make a profit with very little innovation especially in their corporate branded items. The relatively standard products are the bread and butter of their business, if you will. Trader Joes business model relies on pushing the innovation envelope much further than the majority of grocery stores. Their penetration for Trader Joe’s branded niche products is much higher which is a different strategy than the majority of grocery stores. Some stores focus on low prices and volume, think Walmart, some focus on high quality and the accompanying higher prices, think Whole Foods and some focus on innovation like Trader Joes. So yeah, all businesses are looking to profit but there are many different ways to approach it.
I’m not sure that the answers supplied in this thread really explain this phenomenon. I’ve had this ‘have a favorite product disappear’ thing happen to me countless times.
Most recently it happened last year, when Ruffles potato chips had their “Thick Cut Cheddar Baked Potato” flavor for sale. I loved those damn things. They reminded me of the old O’Grady’s Au Gratin potato chips from back in the day.
Now, maybe the Ruffles Thick Cuts were introduced as a test marketing experiment, but I’m not sure how that is or what they were trying to find out. I don’t remember seeing one single ad for those chip varieties in any medium. That’s an odd way to market a product, not telling consumers about it. I just happened to spot them on the shelves, bought them on a whim, and was delighted. After that I made a point of buying them whenever I saw them in the market, sometimes buying two or three bags (I suspected they might be one of these short term products). The stores never seemed to stock a lot of the product, but what was stocked did seem to move off the shelves; a bunch of bags on the shelf quickly turned into empty shelf space wherever these chips were sold. So people–not just me–were buying them. I even had conversations with folks in the checkout aisles about how good those chips were.
Then one day–poof–they’re gone. Apparently never to be seen again. What the hell is that? They had a good product, one that sold whenever stocked, even without advertising support, apparently based on word of mouth–why the hell stop making and/or selling that product? Is it just some weird strategy to manipulate people’s buying habits, like I’ll buy more of the regular Ruffles once I can’t get the Thick Cut flavors anymore? Maybe. But I don’t really leap at regular Ruffles the way I did the other kind. They haven’t really increased their business from me, and I can’t imagine it helped them with most other folks, either.
Perhaps this is symptomatic of one of the biggest problems with American corporate entities–too many calories burned on marketing and sales strategizing, not nearly enough concentration on simply making the best possible products and maintaining that consistency and quality.
The whole thing leaves me confused and cranky. And possibly enraged. Yeah, don’t forget enraged. Just give me my damn chips already!
I don’t know… the chain Gelson’s just continued five-pound bags of whole wheat flour, which I thought was a staple. (They do have the two-pound bags of lovely King Arthur whole wheat, but at $50 gazillion a bag it’s not worth it.) When I asked why they said the product “didn’t move.”
I’ve seen just a few days ago on the grocery shelf, packs of M&Ms - strawberry peanut butter flavor! :eek: Thought to self: yeah, those will be a big seller. :rolleyes:
Yesterday, I saw several hundred packs stacked up , for sale cheap, at the discounted-oddball-foods store. It was inevitable.
In marketing there is a phenomena known as too many choices. Marketing will show that for the average product once you get more than 3 choice, the consumer actually gets frustrated and is just as likely to choose another brand as one of the “extra choices” you provide.
For instance, you might think, well let’s make as many kinds of Coca-Cola we can. People will like Coke and will stay loyal.
But in practice it doesn’t work, once you get more than three choices, the consumer gets frustrated: “Should I buy Coke, Diet Coke (w/Splenda), Coke Zero (with aspartame and acesulfame potassium (ace-k)) etc etc”
The consumer after a certain number of choices will be just as likely to buy Pepsi as one of the other Coke brands.
If there is only a few Coke Brands they will be more apt to stick with it.
So companies if they introduce things don’t want to flood their market. Also the “limited” encourages people to hoard. For instance, I LOVE the Peanut Butter cups with the peanut butter on the outside and chocolate on the inside. Or the fudge chocolate (as opposed to milk chocolate) peanut butter cups. So I’ll buy more than I would. Yes, I fall for this.
Also limited things make you “long” for things. Like I still long for the days of my youth when I ate “Boo-Berry.” Several years ago I picked some up and either my taste changed or the way they make Boo-Berry changed, 'cause it was awful
White…chocolate…M&Ms??? MUST HAVE! WANT!!!
Heh. How x-treme. A regular Snickers has 4 grams of protein.
I’d try 'em!