Last week, I made my bi-monthly trek to my favorite mega-discount-big-box-supply store too, well, stock up on essentials and maybe pick up a few non-essentials as well. Just can’t get enough of the garbage can lid size cheesecake sampler!

While loading the two-gallon canister of peanut butter into my cart, just squeezing it between the 45-stick butter box and the 5-pound bag of coffee, I noticed that I had razor blades on my list. Quickly calculating the distance on my handheld GPS device I found I was closer to the personal hygiene section by about a quarter mile than I was to the meat section, which was the next item on my list. So, off I trekked.

Upon arriving in the section, after having devoured approximately 10-12 delicious samples on the way, I quickly found the razor blades in between the gallon size canisters of shaving crème and barrels of anti-bacterial soap. This time I noticed some thing very different about the blades.

Each packet of blades was encased in a solid plastic shell much like what DVD’s or CD’s are. But this was no skimpy plastic. I’m not sure a .45 magnum bullet fired at close range could have penetrated this plastic – if it really was plastic at all.

I thought, what the heck is going on here?

Then I noticed the price.

$40 for a pack of razor blades!

My first reaction was to check and see if these were the right blades and not some gold encased diamond encrusted fifty-year anniversary blade or some thing.

No, they were my blades all right. But the price sure was not the same.

Now I have always thought razor blades were horrifically high priced. And why not, the company that makes them…. HAS A MONOPOLY ON THEM!

Heck the razor manufacturer practically gives the razors away. Once you have the razor you are locked in to buying their blades. They own you.

You can’t change to another razor company because they have a monopoly on their product as well. I will admit the other manufacturer did have a lower price though – two cents less.

Ah monopolies. No competition. Charge as much as you want. No care or thought into service or treating customers right.

It’s the same for other items as well. Think about color printers. Right now they are cheap and getting cheaper but the price of print cartridges keeps going higher and higher. Once again, the manufacturer owns you once you buy that “reasonably priced” printer.

Like razor blades and print cartridges the auto manufacturers crave that same monopoly. That is why they continue their national campaign to gain such a “razor blade type” monopoly.

Some time during my over twenty years in the automotive business, I heard a saying that was attributed to Henry Ford the first. Old Henry supposedly said that, “ I would give my cars away if I knew that people would have to come back to me to get all their parts.”

Now I have never been able to nail down this quote to Mr. Ford himself but I have had plenty of dealer folks over the years tell me basically the same thing.  One dealer guy even told me they should put the service department and garage out front and put the show room in the back because service and parts is where we, “make it.” I always assumed “make it,” meant money.

Makes sense does it not? Once you are the only game in town you can charge any price you want for your product and no one can do anything about it.

Just like my $ 40 dollar razor blades encased in a hard nuclear proof plastic shell because they are being shoplifted at an alarming rate.

Auto parts and razor blades. One has a monopoly, the other wants one.

Lets make sure the car manufacturers never get it.