People think businesses are around to maximize their profits. For some of them it’s true, but a lot of businesses act like they don’t like to make money. Or, once they start making a certain amount they stop worrying about making any more.

The shoe company Clarks is my first example. Wanted to get some Wallabee Clarks. Of course I can’t buy shoes retail, because they’re all cheaper online, but it’s always good to get them sized at a store. Nobody carries them, though one woman told me people ask for them all the time and last year they sold out. Go figure. Maybe they should carry them then.

Journeys has Clarks Padmores. They’re identical to the Wallabees except the sole is made of a different material. The salesman says Clarks run a little large, and I size them. I’m a 10. Now, you would think that the sizing between Wallabee’s and Padmore’s would be about the same as they’re almost the same shoe. Nope. I get the Wallabees in the mail and it’s like I’m wearing boats. I think the correct size for me would have been a 9.

Here’s the thing. I have over 15 pairs of shoes. They are all either size 10 or 10.5. To me, a half size range among all the manufacturers doesn’t seem at all unreasonable. And yet Clarks sells shoes that would be a 9 on me. A full size smaller than the lower end of my range. They clearly don’t like to make money. Why not conform to the American shoe size standard? Every other company manages to do so. They certainly don’t benefit in any way by inventing their own sizing system and pretending like it’s the same as everyone else’s. End result: Clarks pissed me off and I returned the shoes. Sale lost.

Obviously they don’t care about making money otherwise they’d make shoes the correct size like every other company does, but instead they choose not to and it only loses them money.

Example 2, Walmart:

Wanted to go to Walmart the other night. It’s around 10pm. Not every Walmart is open 24 hours, so I check online to see their hours, except…Walmart doesn’t list its hours online. Yup, largest retailer in the world doesn’t put up its store hours online. Just wow. Didn’t answer the phone either. So I went to Meijer’s instead, because I was sure they were open. Obviously Walmart is highly profitable and doing just fine, but why? Why would any retailer not put its hours online, especially the largest one in the world. It boggles my mind. Every other business does and it would certainly help them.

They just must not like to make money (or maybe too much money).

Microsoft is my final example. Recently Bing and Yahoo merged their pay-per-click businesses. I had a balance in my Yahoo account and it was supposed to be transferred to Bing. I checked a couple of times and my Yahoo account would show a balance of zero and my Bing account also had a balance of zero. I thought they must still be straightening things out. After a couple months I finally called. What the hell happened to my money? And the person in India or Bangladesh or wherever tells me to look in my billing history and have it show the past 90 days of history and it shows a $49 credit three months ago, so the money was transferred to my Bing account. And yet when I click on my account and go to balance it shows zero. Yup, I have money in my account but my balance is zero. Makes a lot of sense to me.

How can Microsoft be so stupid that it lists account balances as zero while simultaneously having money in the account? I have never encountered another business that uses this practice and frankly it’s stupid. Defeats the purpose of “balance.” And just maybe, I might have spent money on their service if my account didn’t have a zero balance the past couple months. I’m sure thousands of other people have experienced the same thing.

People think Google is so smart and that’s why they dominate their competition. I don’t think so. Their competition is just retarded.

And Microsoft doesn’t like to make money.

More and more I think Dan Kennedy is right that the bigger they are the dumber they are.

P.S. Just checked Walmart.com and as of 2/26/2011 they still don’t put up their store hours.