GNC going bankrupt, closing 1200 stores

[Elvia1023]

I do recall selling a B vitamin that people would mix with cocaine. People looking clearly like they didn't belong in GNC would come and buy the stuff from behind the counter all the time.

Also we sold drinks to pass drug tests with 100% money back garuntee. Now one ever came back to get a refund...so I used it to get my next job and it worked well.

Even just glucose powder was popular for that purpose. I used to manage a store in my 20's and one guy would come in and buy boxes of glucose powder. Maldorf is spot on about loyalty and I used to have so many loyal customers. I would have people come in just to chat. Plus all the older customers who had come in weekly for many years.

 

[pheenix]

One thing that has been lost for awhile and getting worse..

Customer loyalty. Used to be that people would shop at the same stores for years, basically until something went wrong that caused them to stop. Now these days customers will change where they buy things heavily biased on price. People in my parent's generation, 80 years old, have a lot of loyalty to the places they shop at. They get to know the people that work there and become somewhat like friends. I do that some ,but to a lesser extent. My kids look at me like im crazy when I start chatting with employees. My in-laws always buy their cars now at the same dealership. We on the other hand looked all over town and compared prices between dealerships and different makes. They just go out and buy Honda every time. I think young people today don't have nearly that kind of loyalty. Its probably a good thing for shoppers, but not so good for the seller!

Some people these days will shop at a brick and mortar, find what they want, and then go back home and buy it online from Amazon to save $10. It is what it is.

I have great loyalty to mom and pop stores. Not to cut throat fkn corporations. To me, all the online things is the Karma train making a stop.

 

[NGL34]

I was a store manager of a GNC in my very early 20s. Id say around 2007ish. The prices are set so high that it was only a matter of time.

I would have to discount items that would be getting within 6 months of going out of date. Id see much of the stock go down to 80% off the last month or so bc 3/4 of the stuff there is rarely or never purchased. Id then be able to pick up these items cheap or have to dispose of them. Many items we would have to send back but many we would "dispose of on site"

Needless to say I was very young so I got my fair share of free supplements. Something I definitely wouldnt do now, but when I was young I didnt see it as a problem.

I managed a store in my younger years and it was probably the single worst place to work for and get under paid. I got daily phone harassments calls from my regional manager because we weren't selling enough gold cards, gnc vitamins, fish oils and specialize gnc products. They wanted us to push sales down every customers throat. I felt like a use car sales man. And then had issues mainting employees because they quit bc they got tired of trying to make ridiculous sale quota for just about minimum wage pay. I had to cover all the holes and keep the store going 7 days a week. After getting fused out one day by my regional manager, I finally told him I had enough and I was done. He came to my store collected my key. He also brought one of his ass kissing other store managers over with him just in case he thought he might have a problem with me. What a jerk off. I ended up finishing my nursing degree and becoming an RN. Best decision ever. GNC was a joke and a dead end job.

 

[NGL34]

And those carbo cleaners and detox drinks are legit. I had a drug test once and had smoke some weed maybe a couple days prior and pass.with flying colors using one of those elixirs from the vitamin shoppe. I had no idea id be tested and ran to the local vitamin shoppe and slammed the drink on the drive to the testing center along with a ton of water and took the test and passed. If you look at the ingredients it just looks like Creatine, b vitamind and a couple of other simple ingredients and tons of high fructose corn syrup.