So I’m driving past Advance Auto Parts today. Checked out the window banners, saw a good price on windshield wiper fluid. Noticed two signs stuck on wire stakes on either side of the driveway. A great deal on motor oil? No. Special savings on wiper blades? Not at all.
Jumbo Cashews $4.88 a pound.
I can maybe see selling the darn things at an auto parts store. Maybe.
But to put out special advertising signs?
I guess if they didn’t, no one would know they could get such a good price on cashews there. But who was the purchasing guy who said, let’s stock cashews! We can merchandise them right next to the replacement headlight bulbs!
Or did he get forced into a deal…if you take 500 cases of cashews, we’ll give you 500 cases on transmission fluid at 20% under wholesale.
What other strange merchandising decisions have you come across?
It gets weirder. It isn’t just that store. I drove by one in Denver that had the SAME SIGN advertising cashews, so apparently, it’s a national campaign.
Sometimes a wholesaler with a boatload of an item will approach chain stores with some super deal where the profit margin is sufficient to justify moving them via their outlets. We occasionaly had some of these items when I was a Radio Shack Manager in the early 80’s, but even if they were totally oddball items they were still kinda-sorta electronicaly related. We never got any food items.
Speaking of bait, I know a grocery store (you Northwest Dopers would know the chain) that sells herring right alongside other frozen seafood. The herring packages have a label on it that says, “Not for human consumption.” The rest of the seafoods don’t.
There’s a shop here called Scayles Music. When it first opened, IIRC, it was just called Scayles.
It sold second hand fishing gear and musical instruments & equipment. The owner really liked fishing and music, so he combined his interests!
It’s since changed hands and no longer sells fishing gear.
Well, I used to work at what I am forced to assume was the Universe’s only combination copy shop, balloon delivery service, and tanning salon. Clearing paper jams: good. Wiping down tanning beds: yick.
I once saw a place in Middle-of-Nowhere Georgia called “Jimmy’s BBQ, Antiques and Towing Service”. I stopped. We ate. Best darn BBQ I’ve ever had, and cheap. Coulda been Soylent Red for all I know, but it was wonderful. I also got a bag of fresh fried pork rinds for the road.
The antique shop had some pretty interesting stuff. I was a good way to kill time while the food settled.
I didn’t have an opportunity to test the towing service but I’m sure it is outstanding.
I wish I could find the place again, but I have no idea where we were at the time.
There used to be a great little Mom & Pop eatery in my town with a sign out front that advertised, “Fresh-Baked Bread - Home Made Pies” (They both were, and both were excellent).
Unfortunately, during the summer they added, “Maggots - Mealworms - Nightcrawlers” to the sign.
Not the most appetizing thought, especially when you were eating a rice dish…
There’s was a gun store we went to when I was a kid in Mississippi. One half of it was your usual full service gun store and the other half was your usual full service gym (with weights and everything). Apparently, the owner liked guns and the wife was an exercise buff, so the combination was…natural?