I stopped in the CVS today to pick up some correcting fluid. You know, that magical substance created by a Monkee's mother. I'd looked for it before and not found it. And they still didn't have it. They had Wite-Out correcting tape, yes. But I don't really like that. You don't really know how much tape you'll end up using, and it can be both wasteful and ineffective. But because the only available alternative were white paint markers, which I already knew wouldn't suit my purposes, I wound up getting the correcting tape anyway.
This is not an isolated case. Manufacturers and retailers have made a habit of making products unavailable or difficult to find, even when there are many regular buyers. Is this to drive traffic to Amazon? Just to prove they can? Whatever the reason, it shows a willingness to jerk around their customer base.
2 comments:
We've had much the same problem not being able to find items that once were common. Wite-Out liquid used to be the only correcting product available but now it's difficult to locate. Ivory Liquid only comes in giant bottles now and I have no idea who thought that was a great improvement. We haven't been able to find Gold Bond Powder in months - it's only available in a spray bottle (!?). Another product that's become next to impossible to find are Life Saver candies and Luden's lozenges. I know they didn't close down the companies so where are the things that were once famous?
One thing I have noticed, though, is just how many different versions there are now of merchandise that used to be singular. Every make of Campbell's soup, for instance, comes in regular, low fat, or low salt varieties. It's also true that there are multiple assortments of cookies, crackers, cereals, tea, and coffee (oh my, far too many types and roasts to track). I won't even start on the personal products as the choice is too vast. Overall, though, I think a number of manufacturers have no idea what people want as proven recenly by the Bud Lite fiasco.
We noticed during the lockdown that some things never sold no matter how empty the shelves became. It appeared nobody ever needed $10. packages of home baked specialty crackers.
I haven't used Ivory Liquid in a while, but now that I think about it I'm not sure I've seen it in the store lately either. Odd that you can find it where you are, but only in super large bottles. I'm tempted to guess that they make all their sales to prisons and schools and other places that use large amounts in a short time, but the real reason probably clears the bar of being stupider than that.
A lot of these varieties of products are nigh indistinguishable form others, and may be practically impossible to tell from things that have been around for ever. But they seem to thin they're helping themselves. Anheuser-Busch doesn't seem to have a lot of conduct with its customers and their presence at the beach. Of course I find their product rather bland whoever's on TV pitching it.
$10 boxes of specialty crackers, huh? Doesn't sound like a great deal.
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