I realize that if you own a company that serves the entire country, sometimes you will run into issues of products not working in certain areas, but maybe a little research could avoid this.

I went to Old Navy weekend before last. It was the hottest weekend in a long time. I needed a new pair of shorts. However, Old Navy has shipped and put out it's fall clothing line, and they didn't have one pair shorts that wasn't a size 31 and on the clearance rack. If i would have needed some performance fleece sweatpants for those cool lower 90's days of Louisiana's autumn i would have been in luck. When it's 105 and I am looking at hoodies instead of tshirts, someone in the marketing department should be decapitated.

Another fine example is McAllisters Deli. They have good sandwiches and baked potatoes, but I cannot eat there anymore. I made the mistake of ordering a cup of gumbo there one time. It came out and it was red....and had jalapeños in it. In all my years of gumbo eating, I had never seen a red gumbo, even in gumbo that had stewed tomatoes in it, it was always a varying shade of brown. Then I had to recall the ingredients. I have seen chicken, sausage, duck, venison, okra, onions, alligator, and garlic. Never a single jalapeno. Maybe on a nacho, Never in a gumbo. When I asked about it, I was told, "That's how they ship it to us from the home company in Minnesota."

I am not saying you need to conduct surveys on customer taste and product usage, I am saying just look at a map. Maybe the South doesn't need everything the East does, and maybe gumbo should never come from north of Alexandria.