Price Vs Value Quotes

A company can’t buy true emotional commitment from managers no matter how much it’s willing to spend; this is something too valuable to have a price tag. And yet a company can’t afford not to have it.

The high quality of a company’s customer experience rarely has anything to do with the high price of their product.

Over the short run, however, the fundamentals are often overwhelmed by the deafening noise of speculation—the price at which the stock market values each dollar of earnings.

Free” is a special price, and there has been all sorts of psychological research showing that people don’t act rationally around it. We overestimate the value of free. We consume more of something than we should when it’s free. We pressure others to consume it. Free warps our normal sense of cost vs. benefit, and people end up trading their personal data for less than its worth.

Key Elements of Five Year Plan ’77 What follows did not happen overnight. Among the guidelines set in February 1977 (remember, Fair Trade on alcohol was not finally ended until 1978): Emphasize edibles vs. non-edibles. I figured that the supermarkets would raise their prices on foods to make up for the newly reduced margins on milk and alcohol. This would give us all the more room to underprice them. During the next five years we got rid of film, hosiery, light bulbs and hardware, greeting cards, batteries, magazines, all health and beauty aids except those with a “health food” twist. We began to cut back sharply on soaps and cleaners and paper goods. The only non-edibles we emphasized were “tabletop” items like wineglasses, cork pullers, and candles. It was quite clear that we should put more emphasis on food and less on alcohol and milk. Within edibles, drop all ordinary branded products like Best Foods, Folgers, or Weber’s bread. I felt that a dichotomy was developing between “groceries” and “food.” By “groceries,” I mean the highly advertised, highly packaged, “value added” products being emphasized by supermarkets, the kinds that brought slotting allowances and co-op advertising allowances. By embracing these “plastic” products, I felt the supermarkets were abandoning “food” and the product knowledge required to buy and sell it. But this position wasn’t entirely altruistic. The plan of February 20, 1977, declared, “Most independent supermarkets have been driven out of business, because they stupidly tried to compete with the big chains in plastic goods, in which the big chains excel.” Focus on discontinuity of supplies. Be willing to discontinue any product if we are unable to offer the right deal to the customer. Instead of national brands, focus on either Trader Joe’s label products or “no label” products like nuts and dried fruits. This was intended to enable the Trader Joe’s label to pick up momentum in the stores. And it worked.