General discussion, page-373

You might expect that to be the case, @nosurprises, but IIRC in one of the webinars when they addressed this issue they said that the problem with the low margin business was more to do with the bespoke solutions they were offering clients at the time. They couldn't get quantity discounts on the chemicals because they weren't ordering enough at a time (each client was getting a specialised product).

Their solution to the problem has been to change from offering customised formulas for clients, to a platform model where it's more like they are selling a catalogue of chemical products. This is less hands on with each client, and also allows buying of input chemicals in bulk.

Personally, I find this a far more satisfying explanation of the situation. I believe your hypothetical does not reflect what has transpired. You might want to add a IMHO...

IMHO