On 3-Aug-2010, "nom=de=plume" wrote:

prices reflected cost of production, Walmart's prices would be 1/3 of
what
they are now, but the waddling masses happily pay slightly less than
other
marketing companies charge while acquiring really shoddy merchandise.
Ignorance can be cured; stupidity cannot.

Cost is never related to price, ever.

WHAT?? Completely wrong. Consumer prices MUST reflect some of the cost of
production. If they didn't, a company could not stay in business. If it
costs 10 to make something and "consumer price" is 5, you can't sell at 5
for very long. If cost is 5 and market price is greater, then the two are
less related but are still relevant.

I have NO IDEA what you mean by "other marketing companies," at least in
this context, since Wal-Mart isn't in the marketing business. They're in
the
retail sales business.

Glad to help, and partially, you are correct. If it costs "10" to produce a
product and the market (you) is only willing to pay "5," costs have to be
reduced or the product goes away (or is farmed out to red China)

My point (fact) is that price is unrelated to cost. Of course you cannot
sell under cost, but the price of anything is what the buyers are willing to
pay. Always. When a company goes into business with an idea of a product,
they first consider what it could be sold for, then figure out how they can
produce the product for less than that to make production worthwhile. If the
cost rises for any reason (or decreases), the price does not change. If the
price CAN be raised, it was underpriced to begin with.

One of the most stupid things you here on "news" (outside of political lies)
is when a new safety feature is announced that "the government" might
mandate. A TV nitwit will state "but that will raise the price of a new car
$600.00." That's completely false. If it is possible to raise the price, it
would happen regardless of whether the new trinket were installed or not.
Every product is priced to a point as high as possible but just under where
people would stop buying.

Walmart is a retailer, but first a marketing company. Most companies are,
certainly all retailers. They produce nothing. They decide to sell
something, decide on the publics willingness to buy the product and what
they can get for it, then buy the production and sell it to the masses.
That's what marketing is. Selling is convincing someone to buy the product.
Walmart hardly does that, advertising that their prices are low (not
compared to value) is marketing and about al they do. Advertising is
promotions, and part of marketing. Marketing is deciding what is sold and
how to get it to the market.

Walmart has no staff that "sells" anything; the majority of their employees
are lucky they don't have their pants on backwards.