When I worked at a grocery store, we had very cheap paper towels to absorb messes, and had to use a ton of them to actually clean up a mess. This is the part I never understood, you cheap out on the paper, now I have to use way more. Likely a multiple higher than how much cheaper it is. It's only cheaper to buy, it's very shortsighted.

Eventually they wised up and got us real, good paper towels. We used way, way less, and interestingly we only had good paper towels from that point forward.

Edit: Can't forget to mention the extra labor costs with more time spent cleaning up a mess!