From the HWP board at The Yahoo Zoo:
Define "channel stuffing"?
by: glorfindel_the_warrior 02/23/02 11:41 am
Msg: 94468 of 94480
Hello,
I found this interesting tidbit in the Wall Street Journal (bottom of Let Lies Fly By ALAN ABELSON, February 25, 2002). Being an engineer, the term "channel stuffing" has ominous overtones, but the exact meaning and implications elude me. Can some kindly marketing and/or finance type elucidate?
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Remember that old joke about the backwoods wife who comes out of her cabin to see her husband locked in a knock-down, drag-out fight with a bear? She watches for a spell as the two go at each other hot and heavy, then settles into her rocker and shouts encouragingly, "Lay on husbin, lay on bar."
Well, we kind of feel the same way watching the battle between Hewlett-Packard's management and the Hewlett and Packard heirs over the proposed merger with Compaq Computer. Although frankly, we've a sneaking sympathy for the dissidents, those huge ads that both sides have been taking out to plead their respective cases are a much appreciated source of revenue.
The indominable Fred Hickey, in the latest edition of the High-Tech Strategist, offered an interesting sidelight on the struggle. He noticed that fourth-quarter inventories of PC Connections, a computer reseller, had risen sharply over those at the end of the third quarter, quite the reverse of the usual seasonal pattern.
In response to inquiry, PC Connections management disclosed that the bulge in inventories was a result of what Fred describes as "channel stuffing." And he goes on to identify the stuffers as H-P and Compaq.
Only a cynic would suggest that such determined movement of merchandise onto resellers' shelves at year's end had anything to do with the proxy fight. |
