The best thing we learned about business is to "know a little about a lot." Trying to take in everything is just too time consuming. We learned you will never be able to know more about the product or its importance than the consumer already knows. Remember wanting that special toy when you were a kid. You knew all there was to know about that toy, if it was real or fake, where to get the real one cheapest. The same concept applies here.

The Matrix:

Not just a movie, but a grid of distribution. How products are mass produced in major manufacturers. The manufacturer designs a prototype. The media then releases news of their product due for release flooding the stock market; the manufacturers start to rake in the profits before the first one has even been built or sold. Manufacturers then accept bids from major packaging companies.

Packaging plants then package the product, figuring out how they can best fit it into a box with its 3,000 screws parts and instructions. Then they build a machine to package the product on an assembly line, which saves them money on labor. Place the MSRP on the product; weigh it and size it, fit as many as they can in a cube sized shipping storage unit or truck with pallets and shrink-wrapping. Distribution warehouses then stock the products and sell them to licensed dealers, vendors, resellers and retail stores. Distributors also arrange for the logistic transportation of that product across the entire United States or world for that matter. From approximately only six (6) locations in the entire nation the best dispersing method is chosen.

The "end user", might be a business in the commercial industry, mid to small business industry or the individual home "end user" industry. Once the product is bought by the "end user", it is now used goods, bought by wholesale as used equipment, auctioned or sold at a yard-sale, for a fraction of what it cost or trash. Whatever product you may use, or whatever category your business fits into, you are unfortunately a part of the same food chain.

The Truth About Consumers:

All consumers "end users" buy individual products for either commercial business, small business or the individual home "end user". By comparison shopping, the "end user" searches for a store or business to get the better price. What the "end user" does not know about the industry is that an easy 30% mark-up is on any given product they may purchase at any given store. Stores may fluctuate 5%, depending on volume and time on the floor at which time they offer a huge sale. The consumers fight to save maybe $5.00 on a $1,000.00 item. They probably used more gas and electricity, driving and surfing the net to save that $5.00, then to have paid for it in the first place. Then add shipping, handling and tax on your already taxed dollar. After you pay for that great deal, wait for your rebate to come in the mail after filling out these four (4) different receipts for rebates with your personal information that they will probably say they keep confidential and sell off to a company for your name phone and shipping information. Better yet, they tell you in a letter that while transporting all those CONFIDENTIAL documents the diskette somehow possibly was lost when it fell out of a bag between the storage facility and being transported to another location. Your money then sits in a bank, making them a mint in compounded interest rates for sixty (60) days before they return the rebate.

Wait just before the sixty (60) day period for them to return your money and they send you another letter stating you have ten (10) days to send them the original UPC code from the box that you already cut and sent. Sounds crazy, watch how the rich get richer and the poor stay poor, multiply that for however many millions of IPODS were sold last year, which by the way is the #2 most searched for item on the Internet according to November 2006 statistics from MySimon.com

Think about paper clips, if you bought only one (1) box what would it cost? You go to the local shopping mall and buy from the local stationary shop a box of paper clips, you thought were a great price at $2.00 for a box of 100 clips. To find out it may have only cost $.35 to package, ship and place that item on the shelf.

Now think about that as your project is due for review tomorrow. You impulsively buy the clips figuring who cares, it's only some change. You buy the paper clips on your credit card at 9.9% APR. At the end of the month you wonder why you can not get ahead.

Consumers are getting smarter and more informed about the products they purchase.

The most effective way we found to profit from our consumers was to have a flattened market approach. Putting your business in the center of the circle and sell to all three (3) "vertical industries" instead of one (1) at the cheapest rate price regardless of industry. Using a flat percentage rate for pricing to cover expenses, bank fees and a small profit.

Keeping shipping expenses separate from the product price and not charging anything extra to inflate shipping costs is a growing trend. Shipping is usually about the same cost regardless of company. Savvy shoppers will know the difference. This flattens the "vertical market" into a circle and puts your business in the center; your business will have the opportunity to make a ton of money. This saves you from having to screen each and every product you sell "like a jeweler" to get as much as you can for that product, trying to think of a good price and staying cheap by comparison. That whole process takes time that you could of sold thousands. Your automation process and accounting is so much simpler. Currently we do not have to charge sales tax on items that are shipped out of state. That in itself is a blessing in disguise for now as I hear that might change soon to a uniform sales tax for all states. This in my opinion would not hurt sales anyway.