Best Buy to Carry Alpine feb 05

As it was said by forrbidden, its all about the dollar. Wal Mart has single handedly put companies outta buisness because they start to do buisness with them, so the company expands there facilities to accomidate the huge increase in production, then Wal Mart turns around and drops the company and that same company is pretty much outta buisness over night. And there arent very many companies that are to big for that to happen. Like dont think for a single second that Alpine is not going to have to revamp its production to start supplying best buy. We are talking about, I believe 468 stores in USA and 18 in Canada if they plan on using BBYC. I hope this doesnt bite them in the ass.

Well i thought I should finally get in on this one.  So I work at a walmart up here in canada.  The day we get Alpine stuff is the day hell freezes over.  If we get a new deck it takes about 2 months just too put it in the display box.  We carry, low low models of the pioneer, all the sony crap and then theres some rampage and a really low level blaupunkt.  I work at the front end and if I ever get asked about anything to do with stereos, I usually tell them to save their money and get somen decent.  I had a kid come through and buy 2 10" rampage subs, the purdy blue ones, they rang up at about 30 bucks a piece.  He couldnt say enough about them, how deep they hit, clear and loud... on and on, I had to hold in my laughter.  Sure its nice and cheap, but you get what you pay for. 

Chris

I just wanted to add to this comment about Wal-Mart and the way they do business. I know from first hand how Wal Mart works and most companies that are not world wide giants will usually benefit from Wal Mart as long as their product sells to what Wal Mart forcasts for them.

When Wal Mart comes to a company and asks them to produce a certain product from them, they forcast a sales number for the year and then expects the company to deliver 100% of this forcast every month and then demands a 5% price savings to them every year of production, otherwise no deal. Forecasts are usually 2X what the company produces in a year ! This is JUST Wal Mart, not even including what they have to produce for their regular customer's.

So the company does this and fills the initial order and if the product sells then the company has to keep filling the shelves because it is their responsibility to control inventory at Wal Mart not Wal Mart themselves. If the product doesn't sell, then Wal Mart tells the manufacturer to stop production and wait until it does. This is bad when you consider that most companies have to hire double ,sometimes triple the staff to accommodate the Wal Mart order's and then if it doesn't sell on their shelves, the company is stuck holding all the inventory they produced + what's not selling on the shelves of Wal Mart ! 

YES !! Wal Mart is so big now that they demand that inventory control and instore inventory is not their responsibility. They own none of the inventory inside the store and is completely the manufacturer's responsibility to keep shelves stocked. This is very harsh for companies that are small that have a great product to sell, but can also devestate larger companies too. In my books, Wal Mart's business philosophy will be replicated all around the world and will soon be an industry norm.

This model (consignment inventory) is already the norm in many industries.  It will eventually drive all but the biggest companies out of business, IMO.  It's no wonder that the single largest source for Wal Mart products is the government of China (as they support and subsidize their growing manufacturing sector) and that Wal Mart imports from China represent nearly 25% of that contry's exports, and nearly 15% of the total US trade defecit.  As long as the Chinese government will subsidize potential losing propositions like a Wal Mart deal, US companies will not be able to compete.

This, along withthings like their discriminatory hiring practices, failure to pay OT and censorship of what they will and will not sell are some of the reasons I can proudly say I have never set foot inside a WalMart store.

Iv only stepped in walmart 2 times in my life , , once to look, , and another time to buy poly fill.  Everything else i get a family hardware stores, or canadian tire becuase its owners live in my city,and they own a few family businesses around town.