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Interestingly enough it seems that public mentions of this don't destroy business. Here is a Planet Money podcast from 2015 http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2

Interestingly enough it seems that public mentions of this don't destroy business. Here is a Planet Money podcast from 2015 http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/26/539552579/episode-629-buy-low-sell-prime http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/26/539552579/episo.... I thought at this time the days for arbitrage like this would be counted. Apparently not.

dangoor 9y ago
There was a line in the article like “anyone can do it if they put in the work”. It’s still work with some risk, so I don’t think articles like this hurt the biz too much.
SRasch 9y ago
I think the reason is that it's a local arbitrage, and it's limited in sypply. He is buying from his local stores, who probably have limited amount of such products on sale. So there's probably room for more doing the same strategy.
bayesian_horse 9y ago
The exploitation of the strategy can be limited by two factors: "labor" and "capital". It sounds like labor is the more limiting factor, though. Also, some of these prices aren't set at maximum profit per item, but there are other factors involved. For example clearing warehouses or attracting customers. In many cases, I suppose Walmart should be coming up with a way to sell direct to Amazon, but that may not be what they want, strategically speaking.
- seanalltogether 9y ago
  I wonder if Walmart simply can't afford to play arbitrage with clearance stock at the size of their organization. The amount of manpower and shipping time they would have to add to localized stock management might end up eating away at any additional profits. From their perspective Ryan is probably helping them out by emptying their clearance stock faster. If the local manager was smart he'd keep his number on speed dial.
  - koancone 9y ago
    My experience, from shopping in Walmart quite frequently, is that they are highly disorganized and un-nimble. I guess this affords the opportunity for persistent arbitrages. For example, my local Walmart supercenter routinely runs out of certain products (not usually the same products). Sometimes it feels like GUM (An iconic USSR department store in Moscow). I gone shopping and found them missing any kind nutcracker ( a basic utensil), grapefruit juice, landscaping mulch, etc (many more examples). At the beginning of August the garden center had already moved out all its mulch for the year and filled the shelves with de-icing salt lol. The people who run the place do not seem to understand opportunity costs: they lost a sale in me and I am pretty sure nearly no-one is buying de-icing salt at the beginning of August. This is a northern USA store but where I live the weather is in the 60-70 through October: grass still grows, gardens still can be mulched. The stores are overstaffed with floor people (seemingly wandering around Lord of the Flies style) but not only 3-4 of 20 checkout lanes are open at a given time. Nearly every single canned good is dented or has a dirty lid. Their self checkout POS run on Windows 7 (lol) and update firmware automatically when they reboot which is hardly ever but for a power outage. If there are intermittent power outages in a storm a POS could reboot on the first outage and be bricked on the second one while updating firmware. There are so many opportunities for improvement with Walmart but the capital cost of a competitor entering the industry is so high. I am not sure if Amazon can be a real competitor (I think they largely serve different sets of customers).

dangoor 9y ago

There was a line in the article like “anyone can do it if they put in the work”. It’s still work with some risk, so I don’t think articles like this hurt the biz too much.

SRasch 9y ago

I think the reason is that it's a local arbitrage, and it's limited in sypply. He is buying from his local stores, who probably have limited amount of such products on sale. So there's probably room for more doing the same strategy.

bayesian_horse 9y ago

The exploitation of the strategy can be limited by two factors: "labor" and "capital". It sounds like labor is the more limiting factor, though. Also, some of these prices aren't set at maximum profit per item, but there are other factors involved. For example clearing warehouses or attracting customers. In many cases, I suppose Walmart should be coming up with a way to sell direct to Amazon, but that may not be what they want, strategically speaking.

seanalltogether 9y ago
I wonder if Walmart simply can't afford to play arbitrage with clearance stock at the size of their organization. The amount of manpower and shipping time they would have to add to localized stock management might end up eating away at any additional profits. From their perspective Ryan is probably helping them out by emptying their clearance stock faster. If the local manager was smart he'd keep his number on speed dial.
- koancone 9y ago
  My experience, from shopping in Walmart quite frequently, is that they are highly disorganized and un-nimble. I guess this affords the opportunity for persistent arbitrages. For example, my local Walmart supercenter routinely runs out of certain products (not usually the same products). Sometimes it feels like GUM (An iconic USSR department store in Moscow). I gone shopping and found them missing any kind nutcracker ( a basic utensil), grapefruit juice, landscaping mulch, etc (many more examples). At the beginning of August the garden center had already moved out all its mulch for the year and filled the shelves with de-icing salt lol. The people who run the place do not seem to understand opportunity costs: they lost a sale in me and I am pretty sure nearly no-one is buying de-icing salt at the beginning of August. This is a northern USA store but where I live the weather is in the 60-70 through October: grass still grows, gardens still can be mulched. The stores are overstaffed with floor people (seemingly wandering around Lord of the Flies style) but not only 3-4 of 20 checkout lanes are open at a given time. Nearly every single canned good is dented or has a dirty lid. Their self checkout POS run on Windows 7 (lol) and update firmware automatically when they reboot which is hardly ever but for a power outage. If there are intermittent power outages in a storm a POS could reboot on the first outage and be bricked on the second one while updating firmware. There are so many opportunities for improvement with Walmart but the capital cost of a competitor entering the industry is so high. I am not sure if Amazon can be a real competitor (I think they largely serve different sets of customers).