A Competitive Advantage

I never shared with my students one advantage
A small retailer had over the BIG store:
It was a truly existential difference
Enjoyed by the quick and bold.

Certainly the British would not emblazon
An arch over Wimbledon with the strategy.
“Knowledge destroyed is not easily replaced.
Remove the sales tag.”

JCPenny, added 1% for freight in figuring cost
On everything in the store.
Freight on a lamp might run 40%.
It did not matter, 1% was sacred.

That lamp in my store,
Across the street from Penny’s,
Where true cost, including freight, was recognized,
Sold for 19% more.

What to do, what to do?
Time to apply the age old
(Ta da!)
“Competitive Advantage”.

Walking through Penny’s lamp display
I simply removed the offending price tags.
Their store employees would
Avoid the unrewarding task of determining manufacturer or price.

Customers, if interested in buying the lamp,
Would have to shlep it to the nearest counter,
Only to find a sales person with no information.
Anticipating the fruitless task, the customer would leave.

This Competitive Advantage was 100% successful.
It had been espoused by a wise old man
Who had originated the brilliant strategy.
He was the owner of the company that made the lamps.