Givers and Takers

Today I was reading an article about Costco and there was something that really stood out to me.

To loosely quote from the January 2012 “Costco Connection” magazine.

Several years ago a for Costco clothing buyer was able to purchase a large quantity of high-end name-brand jeans at an extremely low price, and the pants showed up in the warehouses for $29.99. The same jeans were selling for $50 at department stores.

It turns out that the buyer was able to negotiate an even better deal on the next order, about $7 lee per pair. The idea of keeping the price at $29.99 was briefly floated – potentially brining in a handsome payoff, considering Costco could sell millions of pairs of jeans. But that notion was quickly and forcefully rejected-and the price dropped to $22.99 a pair, just a few dollars over cost.

In traditional retail the thinking is, “how can I increase the price? The customer is never going to know the difference.”

Costco’s approach has been “how can I get it from $10 to $9 and then to $8.”

Today on a Monday Mentor call through 48 Eagles community Vincent Pugliese talked about how he talked about giving and helping people. I’m not talking about doing things for free but sometimes it feels like the information industry focuses too much on trying to squeeze out the last dollar.

He talked about receiving emails and how that the first paragraph is all nice and then by the second paragraph it is an ask. Sometimes it just makes you want to unsubscribe and leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

I also think about a sermon SM Davis gave called Givers and Takers and Bob Goff’s book Love Does.

With as much email as I get I’ve started seeing the inbox as a privilege and not wanting to burn that down. If I ever create a newsletter I think I’m going to try and put the unsubscribe link at the top, make it simple and offer lots of value in each email and not send too much email.


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