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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!reid
From: reid@decwrl.UUCP (Brian Reid)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Nut and Bolt shop
Message-ID: <5626@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-Feb-84 13:59:15 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.5626
Posted: Sun Feb 12 13:59:15 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Feb-84 01:27:04 EST
Organization: DEC Western Research Lab, Los Altos, CA
Lines: 17

The Nut and Bolt shop company is for real (actually, there are several
companies in this business but only one with that name, it is in the 
upper Midwest somewhere--Minnesota, Wisconsin, something like that).

Basically their gimmick is to have realized that the vast bulk of the cost
of a nut or bolt when you buy it in the store is the labor involved in
sorting and packaging it. The hardware itself is practically free. So they 
sell a bundled product, and save the labor costs of processing specific 
orders for 10 of these and 20 of those. 

I have bought at least one of everything they sell, and so has my brother
who lives on a farm in Maine. No complaints. Sure beats driving to the 
hardware store.

Brian Reid				reid@Shasta.ARPA
Stanford University			{decwrl,ucbvax,sun}!Shasta!reid
	(and DEC Western research)