The company I used to work for had a wholesale part and a retail side. I used to work at both dependent on where I was needed. The wholesale side had an import and distribution deal for some flooring products and was based nextdoor to one of the biggest wholesalers in the country. We had a deal to supply them with the flooring and some other bits and bobs. Being a huge customer we'd unload the container and drop it straight into their goods in.
They also supplied and delivered to our retail side (a far wider selection of stuff than we wholesaled)
Being a wholesaler they worked on tight margins.
As a huge customer we got 25% discount on most lines (everyone got something) and they introduced a cashback thing where you'd get 1% or so of your total spend back at the end of the year.
After a while we figured that they was screwing down so tightly on the margins that after our discount they'd be selling it to us for a few pennies less than we'd sold it to them for. They'd then split it down, handle it and deliver it for no extra charge meaning we didn't have to use our own vans or contractors then give us 1% at the end of the year.
That went on for years with them seemingly not realising but the volumes dropped off as the market was saturated. Clearly nobody was keeping an eye on the margins after discounts were applied and nobody questioned why we was buying our own stock back. Though I doubt the pickers and floor staff had a clue where it came from.
The loss was pennies per pack, but for us the boon was the free handling and delivery.
Years later I was working in the retail side. We had a pretty good relationship with most of our neighbouring businesses each developing our own nieche. Then a smart arse know it all turned up and opened a discount shop, he wanted to sell everything from fruit and veg to furniture and would copy every offer but at a few pence less. Being multi outlet with decent buying power and having a wide range of products we could just match him but for some of the small shops he cause real issues as he's just take the really profitable bits. The green grocers made a living from fruit and veg but garden plants etc paid for the cars and holiday and the sons uni and so on.
He had rubbed me up the wrong way a few times just going it of his way to cause friction and he'd then decided to take me on with flower pots and door mats. Now flower pots he could have, they was bulky low value low margin pains I my posterior. So we had a bit of a race to the bottom and I left him to it.
At the time we'd done a wholesale deal and a deal across our shops for door mats. We knew we'd got a good price with a massive saving on list prices. We'd worked with them for years but they'd just modernised their range and seeing huge growth. I was astounded at the margins I could put on door mats and they were flying cheaper than that garden centres and sheds.
The suppliers rep pulled a bit of a sly trick and after dropping off our new racks and pos went and sold Nobby up the road a raft of the same.
When his stock arrived he had a huge sign up saying he was cheaper. I phoned the rep and called him out in his sly trick and called his boss. It just wasn't cricket. Rep boss told me that there was no way Nobby had received a discount. So i just stuck them offer at wholesale price, essentially what he'd paid. But still a small margin for us.
Well blow me if he didn't turn up in the shop the following afternoon and start shouting and effing and jeffing threatening to beat me up. Clearly didn't like his own medicine. Word quickly spread he was in my shop ranting and a few other shopkeepers rapidly arrived in my shop and he was given advice by all I think a few customers had a pop too.
A day or two later I turned up and found my locks had been glued. I called that a win. He wound his neck in at that point and we coexisted from the until he got in some mither and went bust. But for that day on I carried a blow lamp and pliers in the boot of the car. (With a superglued lock you hold the key in the pliers head it to being red hot in the blow lamp and insert it in the lock keep repeating thing not to be overcome by the fumes and the lock will release once the glue has melted /burned off.
I miss them days. But 12years in I still have nightmares about balancing tills, safes, stocktakes and getting orders in on time. I don't think I realised how stressful it was working 7am til 8pm 6 days a week. Didn't leave much cycling time either.
