29 ms·

A small town that kept Walmart out now faces Amazon

113 points by artsandsci 9y ago

TYPE_FASTER 9y ago
> How might local businesses respond? 1. Convenience. I used to stop at a local toy store on the way to a birthday party, or the day before, to buy a wrapped present. They closed, so now I drive ~15min each way to the next closest toy store. 2. How do I know what local stores have unless I go there and ask? I'd like an app that would allow me to comparison shop across Amazon/Target/Walmart/local stores. Let me know if you want to work on that with me, sounds interesting. 3. Add value - online reviews are sometimes useful, honest expert advice is great.
- dalfonso 9y ago
  4. Price match. This can be a double-edged sword and it may be unsustainable but if I'm the shop owner I'd lose a bit of margin rather than the entire sale. As a customer, who wouldn't want the item now vs. waiting 1-5 days for it.
  - chii 9y ago
    a reason they can't price match is that their prices are already at razor thin margin, since their economy of scale doesn't kick in like the big co's.
- yazaddaruvala 9y ago
  Amazon does this convenience thing for restaurants, there is no reason why they couldn't do it for the local toy store. Email Jeff!
- r00fus 9y ago
  You know how Europe keeps its small businesses? Mixed-use development with large population densities in larger cities and strong centre-villes in smaller towns (some that aren't drivable). What the US calls "city planning" is a complete oxymoron.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
shmerl 9y ago
> She told me customers come in and browse, find something they like, and compare prices online when she’s standing right there. This is pretty unethical.
- moate 9y ago
  Not really. People have been "window shopping" or "just browsing" in retail locations since...well the dawn of retail locations. Now they're just able to be more efficient about it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - danso 9y ago
    I don't agree with GP that this is "unethical" on the consumer's part, but I disagree that the consequences of this behavior can be reduced to simply more efficient window shopping. Traditional window shopping involves price comparisons between competitors that are subject to the same physical costs and infrastructure.
    - around_here 9y ago
      And generally to some relatively small radius around the consumer's home location.
- ourmandave 9y ago
  Honestly. The correct way is to take pics with your cell. Then ask to use the bathroom (even though you're not buying anything) and comparison shop in privacy.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    One of the many reasons stores often prohibit taking pictures.
danso 9y ago
> Online retail—including selling through Amazon—has helped him keep the doors open. (He bemoans the fees he has to pay Amazon for the privilege, however.) He estimates that half of his revenue comes from online sales; the other half is a mix of in-store transactions and pop-up sales he does in busy locations like downtown Boston. “I go where the customers are,” he told me. But his Greenfield location produces only a small part of his revenues—if he makes $50 in a day in his store, it’s a good day, he said. $50 a day at a brick-and-mortar location? That sounds unsustainable, I wonder why even bother keeping it open? Does it help his branding/online reputation?
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  > $50 a day at a brick-and-mortar location? That sounds unsustainable, I wonder why even bother keeping it open? Well, in some cases, there is always money laundering to consider. Many physical retail locations with seemingly no customers in shady areas exist for nefarious reasons (not claiming its the case here, of course).
  - farazbabar 9y ago
    I don't get the downvotes for this comment. This is a real issue that I have first hand experience with. The poster even qualified the statement saying its probably not the case for this store but it is certainly true of a number of establishments - these operate in the second and third stages of money laundering also known as layering and integration.
- claudiulodro 9y ago
  It's probably also the warehouse for his inventory (or at least it should be)
  - trendia 9y ago
    There are some cities that consider warehouses "Industrial" zoning and retail as "Commercial". Keeping a storefront could help you stay in a commercially zoned area if you prefer it for some reason.
empath75 9y ago
Ultimately, if you're a business that isn't providing what people want at a price they're willing to pay, you're not going to stay in business. I don't know that there is anything to fix here, other than making sure that the people that depend on places like this for work get a soft landing and help finding new work.
- moate 9y ago
  IDK man. "Free market will decide" is great, but the issue is becoming that the free market has decided that low wage, non-skilled jobs are low hanging fruit to cut. Replace someone with a kiosk or a robot or just outsource the whole store to an online location and a warehouse/shipping department. The biggest issue with these sort of stories are that there are these Neo-Luddites who think that we can keep/make jobs in the face of online retailers killing many types of work. Giant corporations don't hire the same number of people that they used to, and the people they do hire don't tend to be low skill positions. Retail is dying by inches, but it's dying. People can make "customer service" a rallying cry, but "customer convenience" seems to be the actual metric that matters. We're getting rid of these jobs, and too often we're either not replacing them or we're dealing with people who were in JOB X for 10+ years and are unwilling/unable to change to a new field. I'm not saying any of this is "bad", just that "soft landing and help finding new work" is a cute dream, but not likely. This is what disruption does. It ruins the current paradigm.
  - cat199 9y ago
    > the free market 'the free market' here is actually more like an oligopoly than a free market, yet is being legislated as if it is a free market.. that's the problem..
    - tstrimple 9y ago
      That's because there is no such thing as a "free market" outside of text books and libertarian fantasies.
      - 9y ago
amyjess 9y ago
In a lot of ways, they brought this on themselves. Small, local businesses don't have the selection or the prices that large national stores have. In the end, it's going to be Walmart or Amazon. Walmart will at least hire local people to staff the stores, and local stores might be able to survive as ultra-niche places that will carry all the oddball "long tail" stuff Walmart won't bother with. But if you don't let the population have a nearby store that has good prices, good customer service, and a good selection of the things the bulk of the population wants, they'll go online for it, they'll discover that Amazon actually does have everything (well, except for a Chromecast or a Nest), and the nearest fulfillment center will be too far away to hire anybody local (I say "will" rather than "may", because if they're keeping out Walmart, they'll keep out Amazon fulfillment centers too). And let's not just talk about the selection and the prices. Let's talk about customer service. Big companies prioritize the bottom line, so the last thing they want to do is turn away customers or risk a black eye on social media that can spur a boycott. Small businesses tend to take an attitude of "I'll run my business my way, even if it hurts the bottom line!". Case in point: Macy's has fired multiple employees for telling trans women that they're not allowed to use the ladies' fitting rooms. They have a corporate policy of non-discrimination, and employees who break that policy get canned. Why? Because turning away customers is bad for business, and the last thing they want is for "boycott Macy's for transphobia" to trend on Twitter. A small businesses may very well take the attitude of "I'm not treating you freaks like women, so get out!", they're willing to lose the business for the sake of their principles, and they're not going to face much backlash in a conservative small town. Or you see all the cake bakers who refuse to bake for LGBT people; you won't see that kind of discrimination at Kroger. I am 100% fine with these small businesses going away. They actively make life worse for marginalized people like the LGBT community (I'm a lesbian trans woman myself), so I'll do whatever it takes to accelerate that process and replace them with bigcorps. And let's not just talk about how small businesses are worse for the customer. Let's talk about how they treat their own employees. Laws requiring employers to provide insurance benefits to their employees don't kick in unless the employer is over a certain size. And it's precisely because of small businesses that the US doesn't have as many employee-friendly laws: it's the small businesses, not the big corporations, who are terrified of the government mandating that employers provide large amounts of vacation time or comprehensive health coverage. Big businesses are big enough to soak the cost; mom-and-pops aren't. And it's not just about benefits: think also what HR departments can do for you. If you work at Walmart, and your supervisor is sexually harassing you, you can file a complaint with HR. If you work at a local shop... your supervisor is probably the owner, so your choice is to either live with sexual harassment or find yourself unemployed. And there's evidence showing that the gender wage gap among pharmacists almost completely went away when pharmacies shifted away from mom-and-pops and towards big box stores that hire people to work shifts. Whenever I hear stories like this, I think of a handful of strips from Something Positive back in 2004: http://somethingpositive.net/sp09082004.shtml http://somethingpositive.net/sp09082004.shtml http://somethingpositive.net/sp09092004.shtml http://somethingpositive.net/sp09092004.shtml http://somethingpositive.net/sp09102004.shtml http://somethingpositive.net/sp09102004.shtml Small businesses are strictly worse than megacorps, and they're finally getting what's coming to them.
X-Istence 9y ago
I'd shop local more often, if only it weren't for the shopkeepers always intruding on my thoughts and thinking by asking if I need anything. Not having to interact with other humans beings is the best thing about online shopping.
- oij82asd38 9y ago
  "Tech nerd hates on "normies" with cliche rant. Film@11." And I'd heard the HN commentary was supposed to be better than those other social forums.
- 8_hours_ago 9y ago
  That's a benefit of shopping in a brick and mortar store! I used to always get annoyed and say "no thanks, I'm good" when the employee approached and asked that question, but then a friend told me that I should take their help. If you tell the employee what you are looking for, or that you don't know exactly what you are looking for, they will usually (about 75% in my experience) be very helpful. The employees tend to be very knowledgeable about what they are selling and have good advice about what to buy or what not to buy.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > The employees tend to be very knowledgeable about what they are selling That's often true of specialty stores, especially independent local ones. It's often not true of big chains and stores that don't have a narrow focus. It's also often the case that they will steer you based on their knowledge of their sales incentive structure, which is often much better than their knowledge of product.
    - tomtang0514 9y ago
      Yep, best example: car dealership.
  - nitemice 9y ago
    In my experience, employees seem to have an uncanny ability to annoy me when I just want to browse, and avoid me when I want their help. Out of the last 5 times I've gone into a store hoping to get some help and advice from an employee, I reckon 3/5 they have ignored me until I found what I was looking for, or concluded that they didn't have it and just left. I've even put my hand up in the middle of a store, like I was in school, waiting for assistance because ther were so few employees around, or because after asking me if I needed help as I walked in the door, they lost interest in me, and decided to have a chat with their colleagues.
dugmartin 9y ago
I live 10 miles from the town featured in this article and its publication has caused quite a few folks I know around here to renew their effort to buy local. To me though the frustrating thing is this line in the article: > I twice stopped by Wilson’s, the department store, to try to meet the manager, and saw no shoppers inside the store the entire time I was there. (Wilson’s did not respond to multiple interview requests for this story.) With a switch in marketing Wilson's could become a destination store as going in feels truly like going back in time. It's a real department store with separate registers in each department staffed by folks who know about what they are selling. Wilson's still puts huge full page ads in the local paper but I've never seen a single online or social marketing message from them. If/when they go out of business it is going to put a huge hole in the fabric of downtown Greenfield.
- jseliger 9y ago
  its publication has caused quite a few folks I know around here to renew their effort to buy local "Buying local" is the kind of thing everyone is in favor of and no one actually does. Well, okay, not "no one," but far fewer than favor it in theory. Like "giving up Facebook," "switching to Linux" and "always using a condom," the number of people who make the claim in order to signal something about themselves is much smaller than the number actually engaging a behavior. See further Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are ( https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Lies-Internet-About-Really/dp/0062390856?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Lies-Internet-About-Really/... ).
  - EggsOnToast 9y ago
    I always imagine an unspoken "at a certain price" when people say they believe in buying locally. I live a short distance from a grocery store in my neighborhood, but I rarely go there because I like to cook and their prices for meat and produce are always higher than the big chains. In the case of their meat the difference has sometimes been as much as $1.50/lb. which is huge if you're someone who prefers a frugal lifestyle. Edit: As for condoms, I think the situation is a little different. They ruin sex compared to going without a condom, marketing from Trojan be damned. I'm not trying to endorse the mindset, but there are many people who are primarily just trying to avoid getting someone/themselves pregnant so if someone's on the pill that's good enough for them.
rb808 9y ago
I wonder if internet shopping will one day help small towns rather than hurt them. One of the things that really sucks about living in small towns is that its difficult to buy the stuff you really want due to limited products available. When small town residents have access to unlimited ranges of goods and services at cheapest prices, its one less reason to travel to, or even move to the nearest city.
- oij82asd38 9y ago
  That problem was already solved by catalog and QVC. The problems in rural areas stem from lack of new job growth since 2008 implosion, and jobs with poor wages (and not enough of these even). Not gonna help people buy much online. Logistics around literal access aren't the issue. It's the same old tune: financial access. Putting a website up in place of a catalog doesn't solve that problem.
  - jimbokun 9y ago
    "That problem was already solved by catalog and QVC. " Yep, Sears catalog appeared in 1888. http://www.searsarchives.com/catalogs/chronology.htm http://www.searsarchives.com/catalogs/chronology.htm
  - TulliusCicero 9y ago
    > That problem was already solved by catalog and QVC. This is like saying that playing video games over the internet is nothing new, because hey, people already played games over distance in the form of chess by mail.
    - oi23wei535oj 9y ago
      Playing video games over the internet is nothing new, because hey, people been doing it for decades.
- mechhrt 9y ago
  Small towns rely on B&O tax revenue from small businesses though. So for the sake of streamlined access to cheap goods now there's no money to provide police protection, roads, parks, libraries, etc. that are paramounts of small-town life.
hosh 9y ago
There were articles related to this on how shopping and branding is shifting: (1) An article about an Independent Bike Vendor that shifted its business model to an Independent Bike Services. They make their money primarily from servicing bikes, making recommendations. Releasing pressure from having to make their most revenue from selling bikes allows them to make the best recommendation for the biker. Bikers who buy direct from manufacturers will still want an expert to service their bikes. (2) An article about Nike and some of the major brands shifting to a different business model where in-store shops are no longer distribution channels but rather marketing channels. These shops provide an in-person experience. They are paid by the overall revenue for the brand rather than what gets sold through the store. This aligns the incentive structure to what consumers are now doing: trying them on in a local store and then buying them online. Where do small business owners fall into this? I don't know. Bikers and commuters tend to have a lot of attachment and affection for their bikes, and are willing to pay for services. Clothing in a department store, perhaps, not so much. Books? Toys?

113 points by artsandsci 9y ago

> How might local businesses respond? 1. Convenience. I used to stop at a local toy store on the way to a birthday party, or the day before, to buy a wrapped present. They closed, so now I drive ~15min each way to the next closest toy store. 2. How do I know what local stores have unless I go there and ask? I'd like an app that would allow me to comparison shop across Amazon/Target/Walmart/local stores. Let me know if you want to work on that with me, sounds interesting. 3. Add value - online reviews are sometimes useful, honest expert advice is great.

dalfonso 9y ago
4. Price match. This can be a double-edged sword and it may be unsustainable but if I'm the shop owner I'd lose a bit of margin rather than the entire sale. As a customer, who wouldn't want the item now vs. waiting 1-5 days for it.
- chii 9y ago
  a reason they can't price match is that their prices are already at razor thin margin, since their economy of scale doesn't kick in like the big co's.
yazaddaruvala 9y ago
Amazon does this convenience thing for restaurants, there is no reason why they couldn't do it for the local toy store. Email Jeff!
r00fus 9y ago
You know how Europe keeps its small businesses? Mixed-use development with large population densities in larger cities and strong centre-villes in smaller towns (some that aren't drivable). What the US calls "city planning" is a complete oxymoron.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

shmerl 9y ago

> She told me customers come in and browse, find something they like, and compare prices online when she’s standing right there. This is pretty unethical.

moate 9y ago
Not really. People have been "window shopping" or "just browsing" in retail locations since...well the dawn of retail locations. Now they're just able to be more efficient about it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- danso 9y ago
  I don't agree with GP that this is "unethical" on the consumer's part, but I disagree that the consequences of this behavior can be reduced to simply more efficient window shopping. Traditional window shopping involves price comparisons between competitors that are subject to the same physical costs and infrastructure.
  - around_here 9y ago
    And generally to some relatively small radius around the consumer's home location.
ourmandave 9y ago
Honestly. The correct way is to take pics with your cell. Then ask to use the bathroom (even though you're not buying anything) and comparison shop in privacy.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  One of the many reasons stores often prohibit taking pictures.

danso 9y ago

> Online retail—including selling through Amazon—has helped him keep the doors open. (He bemoans the fees he has to pay Amazon for the privilege, however.) He estimates that half of his revenue comes from online sales; the other half is a mix of in-store transactions and pop-up sales he does in busy locations like downtown Boston. “I go where the customers are,” he told me. But his Greenfield location produces only a small part of his revenues—if he makes $50 in a day in his store, it’s a good day, he said. $50 a day at a brick-and-mortar location? That sounds unsustainable, I wonder why even bother keeping it open? Does it help his branding/online reputation?

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
> $50 a day at a brick-and-mortar location? That sounds unsustainable, I wonder why even bother keeping it open? Well, in some cases, there is always money laundering to consider. Many physical retail locations with seemingly no customers in shady areas exist for nefarious reasons (not claiming its the case here, of course).
- farazbabar 9y ago
  I don't get the downvotes for this comment. This is a real issue that I have first hand experience with. The poster even qualified the statement saying its probably not the case for this store but it is certainly true of a number of establishments - these operate in the second and third stages of money laundering also known as layering and integration.
claudiulodro 9y ago
It's probably also the warehouse for his inventory (or at least it should be)
- trendia 9y ago
  There are some cities that consider warehouses "Industrial" zoning and retail as "Commercial". Keeping a storefront could help you stay in a commercially zoned area if you prefer it for some reason.

empath75 9y ago

Ultimately, if you're a business that isn't providing what people want at a price they're willing to pay, you're not going to stay in business. I don't know that there is anything to fix here, other than making sure that the people that depend on places like this for work get a soft landing and help finding new work.

moate 9y ago
IDK man. "Free market will decide" is great, but the issue is becoming that the free market has decided that low wage, non-skilled jobs are low hanging fruit to cut. Replace someone with a kiosk or a robot or just outsource the whole store to an online location and a warehouse/shipping department. The biggest issue with these sort of stories are that there are these Neo-Luddites who think that we can keep/make jobs in the face of online retailers killing many types of work. Giant corporations don't hire the same number of people that they used to, and the people they do hire don't tend to be low skill positions. Retail is dying by inches, but it's dying. People can make "customer service" a rallying cry, but "customer convenience" seems to be the actual metric that matters. We're getting rid of these jobs, and too often we're either not replacing them or we're dealing with people who were in JOB X for 10+ years and are unwilling/unable to change to a new field. I'm not saying any of this is "bad", just that "soft landing and help finding new work" is a cute dream, but not likely. This is what disruption does. It ruins the current paradigm.
- cat199 9y ago
  > the free market 'the free market' here is actually more like an oligopoly than a free market, yet is being legislated as if it is a free market.. that's the problem..
  - tstrimple 9y ago
    That's because there is no such thing as a "free market" outside of text books and libertarian fantasies.
    - 9y ago

amyjess 9y ago

In a lot of ways, they brought this on themselves. Small, local businesses don't have the selection or the prices that large national stores have. In the end, it's going to be Walmart or Amazon. Walmart will at least hire local people to staff the stores, and local stores might be able to survive as ultra-niche places that will carry all the oddball "long tail" stuff Walmart won't bother with. But if you don't let the population have a nearby store that has good prices, good customer service, and a good selection of the things the bulk of the population wants, they'll go online for it, they'll discover that Amazon actually does have everything (well, except for a Chromecast or a Nest), and the nearest fulfillment center will be too far away to hire anybody local (I say "will" rather than "may", because if they're keeping out Walmart, they'll keep out Amazon fulfillment centers too). And let's not just talk about the selection and the prices. Let's talk about customer service. Big companies prioritize the bottom line, so the last thing they want to do is turn away customers or risk a black eye on social media that can spur a boycott. Small businesses tend to take an attitude of "I'll run my business my way, even if it hurts the bottom line!". Case in point: Macy's has fired multiple employees for telling trans women that they're not allowed to use the ladies' fitting rooms. They have a corporate policy of non-discrimination, and employees who break that policy get canned. Why? Because turning away customers is bad for business, and the last thing they want is for "boycott Macy's for transphobia" to trend on Twitter. A small businesses may very well take the attitude of "I'm not treating you freaks like women, so get out!", they're willing to lose the business for the sake of their principles, and they're not going to face much backlash in a conservative small town. Or you see all the cake bakers who refuse to bake for LGBT people; you won't see that kind of discrimination at Kroger. I am 100% fine with these small businesses going away. They actively make life worse for marginalized people like the LGBT community (I'm a lesbian trans woman myself), so I'll do whatever it takes to accelerate that process and replace them with bigcorps. And let's not just talk about how small businesses are worse for the customer. Let's talk about how they treat their own employees. Laws requiring employers to provide insurance benefits to their employees don't kick in unless the employer is over a certain size. And it's precisely because of small businesses that the US doesn't have as many employee-friendly laws: it's the small businesses, not the big corporations, who are terrified of the government mandating that employers provide large amounts of vacation time or comprehensive health coverage. Big businesses are big enough to soak the cost; mom-and-pops aren't. And it's not just about benefits: think also what HR departments can do for you. If you work at Walmart, and your supervisor is sexually harassing you, you can file a complaint with HR. If you work at a local shop... your supervisor is probably the owner, so your choice is to either live with sexual harassment or find yourself unemployed. And there's evidence showing that the gender wage gap among pharmacists almost completely went away when pharmacies shifted away from mom-and-pops and towards big box stores that hire people to work shifts. Whenever I hear stories like this, I think of a handful of strips from Something Positive back in 2004: http://somethingpositive.net/sp09082004.shtml http://somethingpositive.net/sp09082004.shtml http://somethingpositive.net/sp09092004.shtml http://somethingpositive.net/sp09092004.shtml http://somethingpositive.net/sp09102004.shtml http://somethingpositive.net/sp09102004.shtml Small businesses are strictly worse than megacorps, and they're finally getting what's coming to them.

X-Istence 9y ago

I'd shop local more often, if only it weren't for the shopkeepers always intruding on my thoughts and thinking by asking if I need anything. Not having to interact with other humans beings is the best thing about online shopping.

oij82asd38 9y ago
"Tech nerd hates on "normies" with cliche rant. Film@11." And I'd heard the HN commentary was supposed to be better than those other social forums.
8_hours_ago 9y ago
That's a benefit of shopping in a brick and mortar store! I used to always get annoyed and say "no thanks, I'm good" when the employee approached and asked that question, but then a friend told me that I should take their help. If you tell the employee what you are looking for, or that you don't know exactly what you are looking for, they will usually (about 75% in my experience) be very helpful. The employees tend to be very knowledgeable about what they are selling and have good advice about what to buy or what not to buy.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > The employees tend to be very knowledgeable about what they are selling That's often true of specialty stores, especially independent local ones. It's often not true of big chains and stores that don't have a narrow focus. It's also often the case that they will steer you based on their knowledge of their sales incentive structure, which is often much better than their knowledge of product.
  - tomtang0514 9y ago
    Yep, best example: car dealership.
- nitemice 9y ago
  In my experience, employees seem to have an uncanny ability to annoy me when I just want to browse, and avoid me when I want their help. Out of the last 5 times I've gone into a store hoping to get some help and advice from an employee, I reckon 3/5 they have ignored me until I found what I was looking for, or concluded that they didn't have it and just left. I've even put my hand up in the middle of a store, like I was in school, waiting for assistance because ther were so few employees around, or because after asking me if I needed help as I walked in the door, they lost interest in me, and decided to have a chat with their colleagues.

dugmartin 9y ago

I live 10 miles from the town featured in this article and its publication has caused quite a few folks I know around here to renew their effort to buy local. To me though the frustrating thing is this line in the article: > I twice stopped by Wilson’s, the department store, to try to meet the manager, and saw no shoppers inside the store the entire time I was there. (Wilson’s did not respond to multiple interview requests for this story.) With a switch in marketing Wilson's could become a destination store as going in feels truly like going back in time. It's a real department store with separate registers in each department staffed by folks who know about what they are selling. Wilson's still puts huge full page ads in the local paper but I've never seen a single online or social marketing message from them. If/when they go out of business it is going to put a huge hole in the fabric of downtown Greenfield.

jseliger 9y ago
its publication has caused quite a few folks I know around here to renew their effort to buy local "Buying local" is the kind of thing everyone is in favor of and no one actually does. Well, okay, not "no one," but far fewer than favor it in theory. Like "giving up Facebook," "switching to Linux" and "always using a condom," the number of people who make the claim in order to signal something about themselves is much smaller than the number actually engaging a behavior. See further Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are ( https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Lies-Internet-About-Really/dp/0062390856?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957 https://www.amazon.com/Everybody-Lies-Internet-About-Really/... ).
- EggsOnToast 9y ago
  I always imagine an unspoken "at a certain price" when people say they believe in buying locally. I live a short distance from a grocery store in my neighborhood, but I rarely go there because I like to cook and their prices for meat and produce are always higher than the big chains. In the case of their meat the difference has sometimes been as much as $1.50/lb. which is huge if you're someone who prefers a frugal lifestyle. Edit: As for condoms, I think the situation is a little different. They ruin sex compared to going without a condom, marketing from Trojan be damned. I'm not trying to endorse the mindset, but there are many people who are primarily just trying to avoid getting someone/themselves pregnant so if someone's on the pill that's good enough for them.

rb808 9y ago

I wonder if internet shopping will one day help small towns rather than hurt them. One of the things that really sucks about living in small towns is that its difficult to buy the stuff you really want due to limited products available. When small town residents have access to unlimited ranges of goods and services at cheapest prices, its one less reason to travel to, or even move to the nearest city.

oij82asd38 9y ago
That problem was already solved by catalog and QVC. The problems in rural areas stem from lack of new job growth since 2008 implosion, and jobs with poor wages (and not enough of these even). Not gonna help people buy much online. Logistics around literal access aren't the issue. It's the same old tune: financial access. Putting a website up in place of a catalog doesn't solve that problem.
- jimbokun 9y ago
  "That problem was already solved by catalog and QVC. " Yep, Sears catalog appeared in 1888. http://www.searsarchives.com/catalogs/chronology.htm http://www.searsarchives.com/catalogs/chronology.htm
- TulliusCicero 9y ago
  > That problem was already solved by catalog and QVC. This is like saying that playing video games over the internet is nothing new, because hey, people already played games over distance in the form of chess by mail.
  - oi23wei535oj 9y ago
    Playing video games over the internet is nothing new, because hey, people been doing it for decades.
mechhrt 9y ago
Small towns rely on B&O tax revenue from small businesses though. So for the sake of streamlined access to cheap goods now there's no money to provide police protection, roads, parks, libraries, etc. that are paramounts of small-town life.

hosh 9y ago

There were articles related to this on how shopping and branding is shifting: (1) An article about an Independent Bike Vendor that shifted its business model to an Independent Bike Services. They make their money primarily from servicing bikes, making recommendations. Releasing pressure from having to make their most revenue from selling bikes allows them to make the best recommendation for the biker. Bikers who buy direct from manufacturers will still want an expert to service their bikes. (2) An article about Nike and some of the major brands shifting to a different business model where in-store shops are no longer distribution channels but rather marketing channels. These shops provide an in-person experience. They are paid by the overall revenue for the brand rather than what gets sold through the store. This aligns the incentive structure to what consumers are now doing: trying them on in a local store and then buying them online. Where do small business owners fall into this? I don't know. Bikers and commuters tend to have a lot of attachment and affection for their bikes, and are willing to pay for services. Clothing in a department store, perhaps, not so much. Books? Toys?