virtualmom

People of Walmart

This site, People of Walmart, is getting a lot of attention.  Some call it humor, some call it making fun of the poor.  What do you think?

The Rich get PERKS!

Twenty two years ago I moved to New York City after graduating from University of Michigan. Since my husband to be grew up in a suburb of NYC, at the time I met some of his friends from high school and their families.
One family in particular was very wealthy. We have since lost touch with them but they were a lovely family. One thing that I have never forgotten about them was the way the mother shopped for her clothes. It impressed me very much. Again remember that I mentioned the family was very wealthy and because of this-they got 'perks'.
This mother and a group of her friends hired a personal shopper who took them into the showrooms of the biggest, brightest, and best fashion designers. The group of women ordered their clothing directly from the designers and bypassed the retail stores. Since the group of them combined their consumer dollars, they qualified for a wholesale order. Their total order equaled that of some small boutiques so the designers agreed to sell to them directly.
As an naive, young outsider from the midwest, I couldn't believe the luck of the rich!!! I would love to be able to buy directly from the source and save half of the cost!!!! HOW COME THE RICH GET TO SAVE MONEY??? They did not need to save money---it seemed backwards to me?
This thought has stayed with me over the years. On and off, from time to time, I have thought about how to make this business model work for us, the commoners. What I have come up and want to experiment with is a wholesale shopping community that together can generate volume buying power.
This is the story behind my idea!

Shopping Club

I have blogged before about not liking to pay retail(who does?) I have also blogged about starting a Wholesale Shopping Club. Here is what I propose: A bunch of us get together and form a shopping community. We will gather our resources and pool our consumer dollars so that we have the buying power of a small boutique so that we can buy directly from manufacturers. In doing so, we will effectively cut out the middleman/retailer and receive our goods at the wholesale price and save half of what we would pay at retail.
This is an OPEN INVITATION to anyone interested in attempting this co-op type of buying. Please email me at jstern64@gmail.com
I want to point out that this is all new to me; I do not know if we can pull this off. It is a concept that I want to TRY! Here are some facts you should know:
1) This is not a 'for profit' effort on my part. I will not be making any money. My intention is to save money in my purchasing. As the main consumer in my family unit, I know that we spend a lot of money, I have my credit card statements to prove it. I want to try to save money by cutting out the retailer but I can not do this on my own. I need to be part of a group so that we spend enough to make it worthwhile for the wholesaler. Please see my next post about how I got to this concept--something that has been in my mind for some 20 years now! You have heard 'a penny saved is a penny earned' --well then we all will be saving/making money in this venture.
2) I am assuming that the manufacturers will go along with this concept and sell to us--I do not know this to be true yet! I think some, especially the smaller manufacturers will be open to our group. But traditionally manufacturers rely on retailers to sell their goods, so some will not work with us. Some manufacturers will not like this idea because it will hurt the retailers(their bread and butter).
3) We, as a group, have to decide which manufacturers to approach. We have to have a consensus of what we all want to purchase. It could be difficult to find something we all want. For instance, I may want to buy shoes and someone else might not. Everyone may want to purchase handbags but not from the same designer! We will have to decide what we all want to buy in bulk together!!!

First though, we need to form a community. Together we may be able to start something!!!
A woman already contacted me and told me she is doing something similar with a group that buys pet supplies together in bulk at wholesale price--so people are doing it already!
Please get in touch if you want to know more or have any suggestions! Contact me at jstern64@gmail.com