Reply #7: Whether I think it's a good plan depends on the details.

[Igel]

It's one thing for Kroeger to do it. They have a very large, sophisticated POS system with, no doubt, a fair amount of interoperability between their different operations.

They fix it in their software, they update their database, it's done not for one store, or even a few hundred stores, but for all their stores. Their cost is more in absolute terms, but when spread out over the number of stores it drops to very low levels.

Then I consider the local store where they have a poorly maintained database because the local store is all there is in the "chain", or there's a small operation with 2-3 stores. They have a much smaller cost to implement this, but it gets spread out over far, far fewer stores. It costs them more. It makes them less competitive.

Granted, large stores are likely to like it. Large companies like all kinds of things that are harder for small companies; international companies like having the US covert to standards or procedures used in other countries because they *already* had to do it, so the change both saves them money *and* costs their purely domestic competitors beaucoup de bills.