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Comment by palata | Hacker News Reader

Hmm... say you estimate that you will sell 1000 items of "normal size", you stock 1000 items, and hope that you sell all of them. You end up selling 900, you have a remaining 10%.

No say you estimate that you will sell 10 items of "less common size", you stock 10 items, and hope that you sell all of them. You end up selling 9, you have a remaining 10%.

How does that make a difference?

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It's more like if you find one mushroom in the forest, it doesn't make sense to bring it home, get the knife, clean it, get the pan, oil the pan, fry the mushroom, eat it, clean the knife, clean the pan, put things away. It's not worth the effort for just one mushroom. If there are many, a lot of these actions only need to be taken once.

Right. So what you're saying is that instead you should be allowed to go in the forest to get another 99 mushrooms, give them the same treatment, and then throw them away? And suddenly it's worth it for one mushroom if you threw away 99 other mushrooms in the process?

> Right. So what you're saying

If you start a sentence with "so what you are saying", and then say something obviously silly ...

The argument would be that it's a large burden to have to write a report if you forage 10 mushrooms and toss one away.

Low volumes, higher fixed costs.

Wait. I say "how does wasting 10% have more impact if you waste 10% of 10 or 10% of 1000?", and they answer "it's just not worth doing it for 1".

I just don't see how this is related to waste. Of course if it's not profitable when you sell 100% of what you produce, then it is not profitable (that's a tautology). My question is: why is it more profitable to sell the same amount but to waste more?

Turns out someone explained in another comment [1], and the "it's just not worth it for one mushroom" just does not explain it.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48962668

But that's about the cost of making them. That doesn't change between the destroy and not-destroy scenarios.

There is no global definition of "less common size". It varies greatly from one locale to another. At the same time, production has relatively high fixed costs and is centralized.

It would be very expensive for the global factory to customize the distribution of sizes manufactured for a retail store in Des Moines, Iowa. The order is tiny and it would require customized logistics, all of which greatly increases cost and complexity.

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