Economic principle: Pay less. Get less.

Continuing from yesterdays posting on the idea of “Discounting.”

A blatant example of discounting occurred way back when. Pretty much the beginning of the discount rush to “discount” retail goods. I was living in Los Angeles back in the late sixties. My wife and I use to shop at Safeway for our groceries. One day we see this notice on the Safeway door. “For your convenience and savings, we will be closed tomorrow for our big change over. Safeway will be repricing its inventory to reflect the all-new discounted prices.

However, when the store reopened a few days later, here is what we experienced. First of all we quickly noticed some very empty spots on the shelves where product use to occupy. Looking like there was a shortage of can and boxed goods. Almost like there was a grocery rush by food hoarders. Or maybe, Safeway forgot to restock their shelves the night before. But, that was not the case.

The next thing we noticed was a absents of our favorite brand names. Del Monte, Libby, Kraft, Bisquik, and other familiar names were off the shelves. Gone. Perhaps awaiting discount agreements.

However, in their place was a cheaper store brand. Generic brands labeled for Safeway but lower in quality. And, certainly lower in price. Reinforcing the old maxim, “you get what you pay for.”

So, from that point it was all down hill from there. Not only did prices go down, quality suffered as well. From that point on there was a mad rush to compete with pricing and not quality or good customer service. Of course, the buying public thought they were receiving a good deal. A good deal of fakery that is. Receiving lesser quality and volume in order to offer a smaller price. Smaller packaging and less quality to offer a discount price. Reinforcing the concept of selling quantity at a lesser price. Certainly at the expense of and compromising quality.

The bottom line is you pay less, you get less. Les quality goods. Less volume. Less flavor. Less healthy product. More water and less food. Mostly stuff coming from China. We are not getting the same foodstuffs for a lesser price. Do you see my point? Consequently, the more we buy into this “Discount” notion, the more we have to buy. We have to buy more to get what we use to get way back when. Back when at a time we got what we paid for. Good product. Good customer service. Products made in America by Americans who could afford quality goods.

Discount is just code word for bigger bottom line for the business owners and their shareholders. Nothing more. Nothing less. It’s not about product or service. It’s max profit and minimum output. You get what you pay for. Low volume. Less goods and service. How sad. Once again, reinforcing the idea of the “Dummying Down of America.” We have been deceived. We have been fooled. We have been taken advantage of. Holy Moly! Discount. Schmishount. It’s a bunch of crap.