That is all too true. I've seen it in several businesses where indifferent service and high prices maintained a business until a better alternative showed up(Cheaper, better service, both).
The book business is a classic example. The big chains mostly killed off the small stores by providing a better shopping experience, especially since (apart from discount cards) prices are set by the publisher, not the stores. The GOOD small stores, like Bakka-Phoenix here in Toronto, survived. And even then, service can be an issue. -Adam graywolf wrote: > Well, from what I have seen, and it is not limited to camera stores > either, what happens is the old folks retire, and the kids are not > interested in the business (Why should they be, when they are now > doctors or lawyers?), so the store is sold to a chain such as Ritz. The > chain moves in and cherry picks the business. That means they only sell > the high profit quick turn over stuff. You see, unlike the previous > owners they are not interested in photography, they are interested in > making money. Service becomes nonexistent as the low wage employees > don't care about anything but payday. Then the chain closes the store > because it does not meet their profit center minimums. > > Notice that nowhere in that paragraph is anything about all the > customers buying from NYC causing the local store to die. In fact I have > a friend that runs a store here in town, his prices are often lower than > Wal-Marts on similar items, his turn over is in the twice a month range, > he is the only full time employee, and he owns the building. If he > retired and his kids did not want to run the business it would be dead > in a month. It is a profit center because he makes it so, without him it > would die very quickly. > > Most of the local stores that have closed blame Wal-Mart. Mostly, their > owners had better things to do than run the store themselves, which I > think has more to do with them not making money than Wal-Mart did. > > --graywolf > > > > Shel Belinkoff wrote: >> Why is that? Did you have local camera shops? Why did they disappear? >> >> Shel >> >> >> >>> [Original Message] >>> From: Bob Shell >>> The problem with this is that for a large number of us there are no >>> local camera shops anymore. >> >> > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
