• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

I am a stupid enough to be a genius (LOL)

"Storefront on Amazon." :lol:
Yes. A store front on Amazon, normally called the seller, though not necessarily this specific type.
 
Yes. A store front on Amazon, normally called the seller, though not necessarily this specific type.

The company does have some consumer products on Amazon, Ebay, Etsy etc done by the IT team, with Amazon the highest volume. We don't like Amazon particularly for fees, policies and how they treat merchants - so the company charges higher prices on Amazon than anywhere else. Many to most products can not be sold on Amazon due to being restricted hazmat and other reasons. Some products we also have at Amazon Prime.

The company does not have an Amazon storefront and the majority of sales are off our websites, which also have the lowest prices, can provide far more info, do not have Amazon's no-contact policies plus people tend to buy more than 1 item off the websites. We are in Amazon's top category for the positive matrix on performance measures, the company owns the trademarks on most of the products, which allows top spot banner placement, being a "preferred merchant", and sales exceeds the one million annual gross sales. All that allowed all which more complex listing appearance templates and one extra search term as a "platinum" seller.

Many home-based merchants on marketing platforms like Amazon and Ebay are virtual marketeers including for some of our products. That means they' list other companies products at a significant markup. If anyone buys they then order from the actual real merchant and have that merchant/us ship it to their customer.

That's a pain and we're not very cooperate with that because it delays shipping and the bitching phone calls and emails come our way because they look up the company online. They also contact the company if they want to do a return for a refund, which we can't issue since we didn't sell it and they don't understand that. More common is they later see our listing - for a much lower price - and want us to refund the difference. If any are causing too many problems, we'll radically raise the price on the product on that marketing platform such as Amazon - which the virtual marketer doesn't know - meaning it is negative income as our price is lower than their escalated price. They can get crazy about it on the phone call - and our response is they put our trademark on their listings without authorization and that we are reporting them to Amazon for trademark infringement - so that virtual marketer lost money and their listings pulled down, if not banned. If a virtual marketer asks permission the answer is always no.

Amazon is a pain in the ass for merchants, but consumers love it for fast cheap shipping - which actual is paid for by taxpayers by subsidizing the post office, which loses $1.48 on every Amazon Prime shipment. The federal government covers the post office loses - meaning in effect we-the-people are just giving about $3 billion to Amazon a year for its extreme unfair (and illegal) shipping practice. Federal law requires the post office charge everyone the same rate for the same service, but Amazon it too big and political to have to follow laws. There are reasons Jeff Bezos in buying up newspapers and into media companies (and Google).

Example: Elizabeth Warren - soaring in the polls early on - said she would break up Amazon and Google. Immediately all the media and press were declaring "she's TOO RADICAL." Her contributions dried up and she crashed in the polls. She never mentioned Amazon or Google again, but it was too late.

Note how Sanders never actually mentioned any specific billionaires (other than Trump and Bloomberg), afraid of their wrath. The under current to Sander's campaign is that he can't actually do anything he promises because of Congress, "but he can move government more towards the left" - literally campaigning on "nothing I am promising is real or true" - without actually saying those words.
 
Last edited:
[SUP]The company does have some consumer products on Amazon, Ebay, Etsy etc done by the IT team, with Amazon the highest volume. We don't like Amazon particularly for fees, policies and how they treat merchants - so the company charges higher prices on Amazon than anywhere else. Many to most products can not be sold on Amazon due to being restricted hazmat and other reasons. Some products we also have at Amazon Prime.

The company does not have an Amazon storefront and the majority of sales are off our websites, which also have the lowest prices, can provide far more info, do not have Amazon's no-contact policies plus people tend to buy more than 1 item off the websites. We are in Amazon's top category for the positive matrix on performance measures, the company owns the trademarks on most of the products, which allows top spot banner placement, being a "preferred merchant", and sales exceeds the one million annual gross sales. All that allowed all which more complex listing appearance templates and one extra search term as a "platinum" seller.

Many home-based merchants on marketing platforms like Amazon and Ebay are virtual marketeers including for some of our products. That means they' list other companies products at a significant markup. If anyone buys they then order from the actual real merchant and have that merchant/us ship it to their customer.

That's a pain and we're not very cooperate with that because it delays shipping and the bitching phone calls and emails come our way because they look up the company online. They also contact the company if they want to do a return for a refund, which we can't issue since we didn't sell it and they don't understand that. More common is they later see our listing - for a much lower price - and want us to refund the difference. If any are causing too many problems, we'll radically raise the price on the product on that marketing platform such as Amazon - which the virtual marketer doesn't know - meaning it is negative income as our price is lower than their escalated price. They can get crazy about it on the phone call - and our response is they put our trademark on their listings without authorization and that we are reporting them to Amazon for trademark infringement - so that virtual marketer lost money and their listings pulled down, if not banned. If a virtual marketer asks permission the answer is always no.

Amazon is a pain in the ass for merchants, but consumers love it for fast cheap shipping - which actual is paid for by taxpayers by subsidizing the post office, which loses $1.48 on every Amazon Prime shipment. The federal government covers the post office loses - meaning in effect we-the-people are just giving about $3 billion to Amazon a year for its extreme unfair (and illegal) shipping practice. Federal law requires the post office charge everyone the same rate for the same service, but Amazon it too big and political to have to follow laws. There are reasons Jeff Bezos in buying up newspapers and into media companies (and Google).

Example: Elizabeth Warren - soaring in the polls early on - said she would break up Amazon and Google. Immediately all the media and press were declaring "she's TOO RADICAL." Her contributions dried up and she crashed in the polls. She never mentioned Amazon or Google again, but it was too late.

Note how Sanders never actually mentioned any specific billionaires (other than Trump and Bloomberg), afraid of their wrath. The under current to Sander's campaign is that he can't actually do anything he promises because of Congress, "but he can move government more towards the left" - literally campaigning on "nothing I am promising is real or true" - without actually saying those words.[/SUP]
Heavens to murgatroyd.

Did I ask for all that, or did I ask what you were selling?
 
We are going back online midweek due to the massive price gouging on completely fraudulent products going on. The company(ies) have battled online fraudsters for years - and we DO name them on our websites (with furious retaliations for it sometimes, though none have been stupid enough to carry out lawsuit threats as they would basically be putting themselves in prison. Instead, they do fake consumer complaints). Fraudulent products are more of a serious problem than price gouging.

Over the last week, being under the weather, I've done numerous tests and found a way to dramatically reduce production time and a second "refining" system is being assembled this week - and could add more quickly if need be with standard components. Each setup needs about 1,000 square feet with 2,000 sq ft more for final steps and storage. As a comment, while Amazon has put in place a moratorium on products being received at Amazon Prime by merchants until April 5th, Amazon notified us that we are exempt from that moratorium - for which we sent a token shipment Friday as a test. Amazon is a particularly NOT reliable company to deal with - extremely disorganized with the various departments not know what each other are doing.

We'll have a semi-truck load off to Amazon before the end of the week unless we decide Amazon is going to flake out on us (it's happened before). At the same time the websites are being revamped for reduced product selection to allow greater efficiency in filling orders.

That said, it is unknown whether shipping companies, the warehouses, suppliers etc are going to continue operating. While we saw this coming and are inventoried to the ceiling and every cargo container we have in terms of packaging and shipping materials, with the current panic even that could run out quickly. We already bought out some suppliers. I had ordered a thousand or so masks before this hit, so we're good on that for employees at least for a while. The other unknown is so far no one of the employees has gotten sick - and we are doing all we can for safeguards. But if this hits the workforce it becomes an entirely new ballgame.
 
Last edited:
Sorry for my frustrated messages about covid-19. I don't buy much of what is being told and I don't believe serious economic questions are being asked. But also on a personal level for the business.

Due to the craziness of the blogosphere and the panic, we were so overwhelmed in 1 day that we shut down (removed) all websites and all listings on all online market places. It took going to double shifts including weekends (otherwise a Mon-Fri 8 hour days business) for 10 days just to fill the orders.

Other than sending some inventory to Amazon Prime - because they do all the fulfillment taking that monkey off our back, we have only put 1 of near a dozen website collections back up - and after removing over half of product offering. The other websites are still off line nor marketing in any market places. Within a day, we are again buried in orders and so many panic calls we aren't even answering the phone.

Here's what's going on - while remaining abstract. Ever notice how many cleansers claim they kill "99.9%" of germs? What about that other 0.1%? What are those micro bugs? Why aren't they killed? Is it just a company safeguard qualifier?

In fact there are super bugs (as I call them) that are extremely difficult to kill. Alcohol and bleach (poison), boiling (physical heat) nor hydrogen peroxide (chemically burning), won't reliably kill them. It is why surgical instruments are thrown away after each use. Even hitting them with every form of killing micro-organisms will not 100% for certain sterilize them - the risk just too high even if 99.9999% certain.

We have (manufacture) a substance that can kill some of those super bugs - yet otherwise in non-toxic. I won't go into detail, but best understood it kills them by cutting them due to the nature of the structure, but won't cut or harm ordinary cells or other micro-organisms.

There are little understood super bugs that can are so small they can not be seen but with electron microscopes. They can withstand huge levels of radiation and heat, almost impossible to destroy. Some theorize they are the original source of life - space based. It is claimed fossilized micro-organisms have been found on Mars and in asteroids that have hit earth. This also is one of the reasons NASA so intensely sterlizing anything they return from space. One substance they use is what we sell - though NASA makes their own of course and there is no role we had or have in any of that. That all a different topic.

That product line (an obscure niche market) and some chemical stuff we sell will kill covid-19. But it's like hunting squirrels with a bazooka rather than a .22. Unnecessarily costly and unnecessary overkill. Alcohol and bleach will kill covi19 just fine - provided at a high enough concentration level. Worse, the self declared alternative health idiots in the blogosphere claim it will prevent and/or cure covid-19, when it is nothing but a sterilizer that won't otherwise prevent or cure anything. In fact, we never claim our products will do anything. We just state what it is accurately. We will never answer any questions about what anything we sell does - other than provide basic safe usage and storage info if relevant.

For the panic combined with horrific false and disinformation, we're buried. Profitable? Sure. We don't need or want it - a decision made a few years ago and the company(ies) a deliberate shallow of its former size and scope - non-stop growing exponentially until we said "no more! Shut it down!" We aren't Scrooge. Enough is enough - and then becomes life consuming too much.

The panic is frustrating. Retailers and repackagers are begging us for semi-bulk inventory. Consumers are begging and ranting as if they will die unless they get our product tomorrow - when they absolutely don't need it at all. There are plenty of cheap, typical alternatives. But high proof grain alcohol at the liquor store if sanitizers aren't on the stores shelves. Any alcohol over 60 proof works. Bleach will work just fine. (But ammonia based cleansers will not - just an FYI).

It is because of the panic we're buried, which also makes it extremely difficult to supply those organizations that actually do need and use our products - such as food processors of certain types. For example, we supply many chicken factories (where they are born on and die on a conveyor belt - realities no consumer wants to know for the brutality of it). Same for egg factories. We supply many horse and sheep/goat ranches too. Water supply operations that can't use typical water safety chemicals etc.

Yet there is no real way to separate between legitimate need and panic buyers. VERY frustrating.
 
The practice of absolutely refusing to state what anything we sell will do - other than basic safety info - avoids a mass of government regulations and civil liabilities. Even our safety information is overkill. We often get calls and emails of "tell me how to use ______" after they bought it.

Answering usage questions is a liability minefield and our view is if you don't know how to use something, don't buy it - and you probably don't need it. Nor is there any assurance people will follow your instructions (most won't) and can misquote you if something goes wrong. Seems rather obvious. "Free speech" protection does not apply to products you sell. Rather, you only provide every possible warning you can think of - and leave it at that. Every products liability attorney will confirm this.
 
Not to start a new thread on this, this mad scientist struck again - another explosion. But outside. Blew in the outside steel door, crumpled in the outside steel wall, and shook the whole big building. Scattered everything outside. All in a day's work. If I don't' destroy, burn, sink, wreck or blow up something at least once a month it wouldn't be right. Once again, all is right in the world - but I have a real mess to clean and fix up this weekend.

It can be just a little dangerous sometimes to be too close to me. LOL
 
This was minor, only a 55 gallon stainless steel drum.

drum-small.jpg
What is interesting is the IMPLOSION vacuum effect. Hadn't see this before. Previously all force damage was outward.

"Failure to communicate instructions well." I said to empty the drum before filling it halfway with a different chemical. It was only dumped out, but a few ounces left by not washing it out. This was the result of the reaction. The drum was about 10 yards away in one direction - with the top blown off and 50 feet in another direction. The structural damage to the building is real but minor. Basically the heavy door framework, double sided steel door and attached metal building supports all bent pretty bad because there were heavy deadbolts that went into the heavy metal building frame on both sides. The drum was about 6 feet away and 6 feet to the outside of that door - so it was about a 45 degree angle side blast. The metal steel side material is fairly blown in too, but held. So a lot of metal to beat back into shape, a new door, some new lights etc. Everything outside was scatters, blown over and a lot of that damaged or destroyed.

No big deal. Something had told me to do this one outside. It is a unique chemical process only our company does. Wonder why that is, huh? Concerning though - as this is the only explosion where others were present - fortunately it was outside and everyone inside. Maybe this is what I get for not doing it all myself - so no miscommunication and only myself at risk.

What is interesting is that it so heated up before blowing that weaken the lower half with the chemical - and then when it blew the top off completely and the side you can't see ripping open, the upward force of the liquid was so great that it sucked IN the metal via a vacuum effect - while you think it would all have blown outward. The power of a vacuum force. Notice both the 3/4th and 2 inch bung openings - and there were no bungs in it - so even with that much of openings to bleed off pressure it still exceeded the capacity of the steel to hold and it is a thick-wall drum. But again, the heat would have weakened the metal.

As I've mentioned, we have some bad ass stuff. Mixing it is a whole different ballgame. About 6 ounces of this and 30ish gallons of that equals this result. A 50/50 mix of those two chemicals and a whole drum full would have about the same force as 200 pounds of nitroglycerine. We have a lot of both. A whole lot. Many many tons. So far, we've only lost the rear roof, the back half of interior lights, and some blown vats, drums and pipes and now this damage - if not counting the near total lose of our last warehouse - but that wasn't my fault. It was China's fault (Chinese made A/C backfed into the breaker box burning up the back half warehouse.) Curiously, the chemicals in that part of that warehouse - that included the same as these two - acted like a fire extinguisher in a weird way, saving the front half of the warehouse and the office area. Chemicals are interesting in many ways. Some pack huge amounts of energy.

We are registered and I'm the registered/licensed safety officer. Obviously I'm right on top of things. Safety is my middle name. LOL
LOL
 
Last edited:
Not to be dramatic, industrial accidents can happen. That said, there has never been a chemical injury nor an employee injury - other than myself when a ladder flipped out from under me (only a dislocated shoulder). Safety is not just making certain everything goes perfect because a plan based on perfection will fail. Rather, it is to make certain when all does not go perfectly no one is hurt. Equipment, buildings, tolls, lights - all that can be easily replaced. In that it is just a cost of operation.
 
Back
Top Bottom