So you're saying he's a dumb sucker one way or the other. Ideas = inventories, wherever they may come from, and I only wish I could personally talk to every person on Earth. Or at least pay them to lay down tells in my own private central database! I thought you were suggesting Peet's makes money all the time on unique chain information - which may be the case - but you were just saying he's a liar.


I still say the number-one factor people use to determine what is "cheap" or not is the historical price. If flowers have been at 10 forever, and today some guy tells you they are going to rise 10 more points from here, most people will be eager to act on the tip if they are at 8 from 7, but not so eager at 12 from 11.


So sure, I would totally go for your clever elucidation that this guy thought he was being smart with some unrevealed scheme, and is now just making a reasonable-sounding excuse. Except, that I have heard his official explanation over and over, from a million people, in a million situations. People actually believe that stuff!


Moreover, it is often not even individual people thinking, but somehow an orgnaizational structure which accelerates purchases as prices drop. Meaning, for it do be a drop to price X today, there was generally a bounce from price X at soem point in the past. So today's survivors may be yesterday's dip buyers.


eLROY


P.S. A funny story, about how I first really came to understand Turtling in the the mid 90's. Every couple months we would restock on olive oil. Usually, I'd start keeping an eye out for a promotion, or loss leader at a boutique, as soon as the bottles started getting low. But one day, an unusual discount turned up out of the blue, when I didn't even need oil, so I bought an extra bottle. Then maybe two weeks later, there was another sale somewhere else, even lower, so I bought another, maybe two more. Then the price kept going even lower, and stuck, only I didn't buy any more oil for like a year, even as my use increased! So I had to laugh, what must my curve look like to the seller, when I demand 1 unit at 15, 2 units at 12, 3 units at 9, and zero units at 8??