Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

There is technology for bagel powered cars, but Detroit is not allowing its development.

Six bucks! That's pretty generous.

Did they actually give you the evil laugh? That's worth the tip all by itself.

Well, it'll work for a while, until the late-day customers figure it out.

My local Japanese market puts all the same day stuff on half-price for the last half hour they're open. They've had to set up a special queue for the half price shoppers. If you pick it up before the sale begins, you don't get the sale price. They don't sell too many trays of fresh mochi or tonkatsu lunch boxes in the half-hour or so before the sale starts.

And re: bagel-fed goats, perhaps this explains all the "everything bagel" seasoned goat cheese that's suddenly appeared in supermarkets...

"They don't sell too many trays of fresh mochi or tonkatsu lunch boxes in the half-hour or so before the sale starts."

Ah the discreteness problem. If they could just set up an electronic billboard updating prices in real time...

for the berkeleyans in the audience: which bagel store is this?

why don't they just close later?

Bagel Pudding... Tuscan bagel soup... Bagel Meatless meatballs (would be good with the onion/garlic bagels) in tomato sauce... Welcome the new owners to the bagel way of life.

Bagel pudding, made in a bundt cake pan might please a certain kind of customer... Other than that, these are only to be tried at home.

Something that innovative is sure to be good for business. It makes them remarkable and that is what it takes today to succeed. Seth Godin wrote a number of books on that sort of marketing. Purple Cow is my favorite. His blog is http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Half priced "day olds" the next day may solve the problem. Not as good as fresh, obviously, but 10 minutes in a 200 degree oven makes for very good.

otoh....who can take the carbs, anyhow.

By some strange coincidence that I'm sure happens only in blogtopia (y!sctp!), I had bagels pressed upon me yesterday as well. I went into a bagel store to buy a half dozen to take to work with me, and since it was after 4 PM they were very eager to rid themselves of their stock, so the counter girl said "It's $3.50 for 6 but only $4 for a dozen!" Well, being raised by cheap Jews what could I say but, hell yes!, the smell of a dozen garlic bagels is one that will linger in my kitchen for days, thanks ever so!" :)

Why seek solutions for something which evidently is wonderful customer service and wonderful word of mouth marketing?

Maybe it's the MBA flowing through my liberal veins but we try so hard to rub out the inefficiency of being decent or just plain "nice" from business, with the massive irony that it then takes a bunch of marketing consultants making money out of the CRM concept to tell us that giving away bagels is- hey, it's a good market, you know, you've got to get on that "free bagels" bus, guys.

Y'know... just give away the bagels! It makes everyone feel good. They cost next to nothing to make. The company's making enough during the day. Everyone loves the company, they come and and spend real dollars. Happy end to story.

Get a few more goats.

>Half priced "day olds" the next day

Yeah, really. I don't know the daily eating habits of the DeLong family, but I'm guessing if he's buying a dozen bagels in the late afternoon then the majority of them will be consumed on subsequent mornings. Which implies that they will be a minimum of a day old each.

So since the DeLongs will be eating non-fresh (but properly stored) bagels anyway, a reduced price offering would seem to be something a smart economist would jump on. He's transferred the depreciation of stored bagels to the store!!!

Boy, Econ 101 is fun in the rare case it actually applies to something, isn't it?

However, there is also the possibility that the Professors immediate family is filled with the same sort of malicious, short-sighted ingrates that I am cursed with. In which case his thrift will not be marveled at, but instead be greeted with intolerable choruses of the "Day Old" song from "Married With Children," a cost hard to quantify in economic terms but certainly very real.

Little bastards.

Thanks for the early morning laugh. The story reminded me of the time I traveled to KU with one of my students for his disertation. Great kid and he had a great family. The dad ran a small doughnut franchizing operation and he had cows that he fed the overdate doughnuts to. Enormous cows!
On economic topic: The dad ran the franchise operation on handshake only basis.

Find a local soup kitchen, senior home or pre-school breakfast program, those bagels should not be forced into unloving homes.

Brad sucks! Get off my Yahoo!

Bagels, in Berkeley?

You did not get bagels. You got round pieces of cooked dough with a hole in the middle. \

If only they can get always people to come in after closing, who are courteous enough to make sure they don't lose money on those bagels, their problem is solved. Either that or a bagel street auction.

C'mon, this is Berkeley; don't they have a way of recycling the old bagels? Probably would taste the same anyway.

Bobby: "Either that or a bagel street auction."

BAGEL STREET! A terrible thing happened to me on Bagel Street [sobs] I was walking along, minding my own business, and a safe fell off a 15 storey building on my head and killed me!

The bagel problem is similar to the “Newsboy Problem.” How many newspapers should the newsboy buy wholesale to sell retail. He loses the wholesale price on every unsold newspaper, but suffers an opportunity cost (and disappointed customers) if he buys too few.

I used to shop at a meat market in Oakland that sold cooked chickens. On workdays I could only get there about an hour before closing, and all the chickens were usually gone. I asked the owner why he didn’t cook more and he said he didn’t want to have any go to waste. His attitude is common among merchants in the Bay Area. Restaurants here seem to frequently run out of food. I had one run out of bread, another run out of ice tea. In all the years I lived in New York City, I never had a restaurant run out of anything on the menu, let alone bread. The merchants in Berkeley seem to have an especially bad attitude towards their customers. They act as if they are doing you a big favor by selling you something. If one of the merchant’s employees is rude to you and you complain, the owner usually sides with the employee. The worst was when I went into an automobile dealership and (politely) asked about discounts. The dealer said, “get out.” Of course this is in keeping with the general climate of rudeness one finds all over Berkeley.

No kosher bagels in Berkeley, Matthew? There's a business opportunity for somebody if that's true.

they don't give the bagels to the goats for free because they don't want them to become obese, but the Berkely professors and students...

There's nothing wrong with their approach to the leftover-bagels problem, of course, but the aforementioned half-price (or even cheaper) day-olds solution is pretty common.

And what about bagel chips? Didn't bagel chips (which aren't too labor-intensive if you have a suitable commercial slicer on the premises) originate as another solution to the leftover-bagels problem? Even after you factor in the additional labor and the time it takes to crisp them in the oven and bag them, the higher per-bagel price that bagel chips fetch is pretty impressive.

They should do what my local bagelteria does - whatever is left at the end of the day is sleeved by the half-dozen and frozen. They sell the sleeves for $1.25, or 3 for $2.50. 3 dozen bagels for $5. A good deal for cheap-o's like me, and a good deal for them, making some money on what would otherwise be tossed.

Two words: "Bagel Chips"

Let me third the recommendation for bagel chips to soak up excess bagelry. It could also help them sell more cream cheeses... Mmm.

Free bagels are now dead- Brad has remedied the asymmetric information by telling the grad students who read his blog about the *possiblitiy* of free bagels. They consequently googled his potential route home, checked for business license turnover by hacking local government records, and have now decended en mass to absorb free calories.

Goats??

Don't you have any pigeons in Berkeley?

Come to New York, take as many as you want.

I think this man is being very shrewd. Not only does he deal with a problem that is inherent with the inevitable overage, he helps generate good word of mouth for his shop. As to those that catch on and start coming in afterwards to get their bagals for free, they are also taking the chance that the kind they want will be sold out for the day. However, the fact that this new owner is running his business in a manner that is almost certain to get him good word of mouth as illustrated by this blog entry of Brad's demonstrates yet again that seemingly simplistic approaches can have much more impact than initially thought. He developes good will and hopefully increases his business as well as retaining the customer base that had patronized the place prior to his takening ownerships of it. This simple act which costs him nothing other than those bagals he would have been left over with and transforming it into a means of strong name recognition for his new (new as his, in this case) business, and it can fairly be seen as kindhearted way of operating and most people I know prefer to give business to those they like, and most people like kindheartedness. Very good approach I think. Beats the discounted ones for the extra little bit, since I think the goodwill and reputation for it will tend to be worth more than the extra dollar or two.

I really am glad to see something like this posted, such a positive thing to have to comment on. Not to mention the good turn Mr. DeLong is doing for the store by writing it helps further that positive reinforcement I mentioned above. For very little loss/risk, he can create a great deal of different net benefits for his business. Very sensible, IMHO.

Kingpin donuts down at the Asian Food Ghetto solved this problem long ago. At varying times during the day they have plastic baggies full of day old donuts on sale for $1.50. Either 2 of the larger speciality donuts, like fritters, or 4-6 of the regular donuts. This generates sales as the bag of day olds are sold out soon after being put out on display, and the varying times of sales also kept poor saps like me constantly heading over to Kingpin trying to score the oh so sweet deal, and walking away with a fresh donut each time in disappointment

This kind of thing happened all the time when I lived on Central Street in Evanston, IL. My commute took me past some shops just around closing time, so sometimes I'd make it in early and pay full price, sometimes it was the last half hour and half price, sometimes just after closing and free. Pizza shop, bread store, local grocery, etc.

All the shops seemed to be doing just fine. Too much effort and timing to abuse the system.

The best deal was two-for-one conucopias made of braided bread for $35 just before closing on Thanksgiving-eve. What abundance!

Actually, there are a few places that have real bagels out here. Not NYC quality in any way, but my local shop, House of Bagels, does have real boiled bagels. In fact, I can get a bagel and lox (with a very generous amount of lox) for $4. Yum.

I'm also told that Izzy's in Palo Alto is the one place in the entire bay area where you can get real New York bagels. I need to make a pilgrimage there.

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