Man, I drive down Main Street in our dusty little county seat on a Saturday, and it’s a ghost town. During the week it’s fairly lively, but on the weekend its dead. Tumbleweeds have more movement. Parking certainly isn’t a problem, but then why would you be parking? There isn’t a store open after 12 noon, and there were only three that bothered to open at all. It’s sad, but it’s also expected.
It’s no secret, I managed a big box before I got laid off. That’s what got this page started in the first place. And though it wasn’t in this town, we were often vilified for “Killing Main Street.” It is one of the biggest bullshit stories you’ve ever heard and people eat that crap like it was coconut cream. No doubt, Big Box Retail presents a challenge for small business and for cities and towns that have lived on that apple pie way of thinking since their founding. Don’t get me wrong, I worked for Big Box, but I root for the small box. I’m as freaking Americana as they come. I grew up on Leave it to Beaver, Hazel, My Three Sons, and Father Knows Best. All that sixties/seventies nuclear family stuff is in my blood.
Big Box has some incredible advantages over a small downtown store. Money is among the greatest advantage. An individual corporate retail location doesn’t have to worry about closing up just because a month or two out of the year came up short. The lights will stay on. Another advantage is buying power. Multi-hundred thousand square foot warehouses filled to the brim with pallets and pallets, steel bin after steel bin, of anything anyone could want, bought in such bulk that they pay pennies on the dollar compared to the local hardware or grocery shop is a huge effing advantage.
Benefits. Yeah, there’s another one, and another place where Big Retail can take advantage of size and volume. Group insurance rates, even self-insurance, are much cheaper per employee than what Mom & Pop can do. But really, other than a few things here or there, that’s where it ends.
The problem with Small Business is most business owners don’t really want to be in business. They want to be the boss. They want to make decisions. They want to have the perks that come with being independent and calling their own shots, but they don’t want the sacrifice that comes with being in business. We recently had a county fair. I drove down Main Street right in the midst of it, and there wasn’t a store open. They all wanted to be at the fair with their families. At a time when the market pool was being expanded by seven or eight times normal, they were closed for business. That’s like telling people, “Please Go Shop At Walmart.”
Another issue is that they are stuck in time; a time which is not their time.
Leave It To Beaver (LITB) ran from October 4, 1957 until June 20, 1963, so I only saw it in reruns. The show followed the Cleaver Family — Ward… his wife, June… their oldest son, Wally… and especially the antics of Theodor “Beaver” Cleaver. Maybe you’ve seen it. Maybe you didn’t bother There were several shows like LITB at the time. Another was My Three Sons (MTS), which had a longer run from 1960 thru 1972. Where as LITB was centered around a normal nuclear family, MTS featured a family which was a little more out of the norm. Steven Douglas (played by Fred MacMurray) is a widower and an aeronautical engineer who is raising three sons. To help his do this, his older brother Charlie helps out. One thing both shows had in common: while the bread winner worked, someone was at home taking care of the family. June Cleaver kept house while Ward went off to work. And in MTS, Uncle Charlie took care of the place while Mr. Douglas worked. In both cases, whether Mrs. Cleaver or Uncle Charlie, there was someone going off during the day to do all the grocery, hardware, insurance, and flower shopping, among other duties.
My point is, it made sense that since in a traditional and even a slightly off kilter family of the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s businesses could expect to do most of their business between 9am-5pm, Monday thru Friday. After all, June and Charlie could both take care of everything during those times and those days. But, something happened somewhere in the late seventies. Divorce became more common. Raising children as a single parent, became more common. The middle class shrank. The need for both parents to work became more common. But Small Business? Well, aside from those few who could really read the tea leaves, were committed to the needs of their customers, or were willing to adapt as time changed, small business tried to live like the world was spinning the same way it had before Ward and June called it quits.
When I was in retail, I often came across Anti-Corporate Retail individuals who spewed that BS about how discount stores and corporate retail killed Main Street. When I heard that crap, I gave them this answer:
Three things killed Main Street:
- The change in the Nuclear Family
We’ve already talked about the change in the nuclear family. Today we have more single parents, more working parents, and more households who’s only time to shop are outside of the work areas. Yet, Main Streets all over the country fold up at 5pm and close on Saturday and Sunday. I don’t get how a small business can’t see that if it wants to serve its customers, it has to be open when they are able to shop. Big Box does that. First they stayed open until six or seven. Then they went until 10pm. As they found need, many went to twenty-four hours. They adapted to the changes in society, small business does not. Though I concede that some small business owners are receptive to the needs of customers and are wise enough to make their business available, many — if not most — are under the belief that they can do all the business they need during normal business hours and take evenings and weekends off. They don’t really want to be in business, they want to generate income during the times they don’t want to do something else.
- Parallel Parking
Parallel Parking… Parking Meters… Limited parking along store fronts… finding a spot open in front of the store you want to shop — those things kill business downtown. Lots of Downtown areas in the bigger cities have gone through revitalization. One of the things that has been done in those areas has been adding parking garages, parking lots, and public transportation to downtown. Why? Because they realized that these issues were what caused downtown to die. You only have a certain number of parking spots along a store front. If Big Box used only its store front for parking, there is no way they could do the volume they do. But they don’t. Discount and Corporate retail realized their customers needed room to park if they wanted to do big business. Why did Malls become popular? Because you could go to a lot of stores in one place and find parking. Downtown in a small town is no different. Opening part of the block for parking improves the business in downtown.
- The inability to adapt.
The inability of any individual or business to adapt to the change in their environment, their circle, pool, or customer base, to technology, or to the processes of business is almost certain failure. Change can be good or bad, but being able to adapt to it is almost always good. Change can be a real advantage for a small business. Making a dramatic change for Walmart is like steering the Titanic away from the iceberg with an oar. I remember when fidget spinners became popular. Everyone wanted one. My big box store started looking for them among our approved vendors (because a big box can’t just buy from anyone, corporate has to approve). By the time we found them, ordered them, and started selling them… the fad was over. Small business in town raked in the bucks by being able to move quickly, and they have the ability to snag that stuff up. They can see a trend and jump on it. The same goes with finding a niche. There are plenty of ways a small business can go head to head with a big box retailer, but a niche is key.
Of the potential advantages small business has, Customer Service is at the top of the list.
One issue we’ve talked about many times before is the checkout experience. While self-checkouts are a great convenience for big box, forcing their customers to use them by not opening enough traditional checkout lines just pisses them off. More and more, big retail is fooling itself into believing that they are meeting customer needs by limiting customer choice. Small business can address that. I wear cowboy boots. I’m more of a traditional kind of guy. Though I don’t like the pointy kind of boot, I do like a round toe. A few years ago, flat-toed boots became popular with the younger crowd, largely spurred by country western singers and rodeo performers. So, like any good business boot manufacturers adapted and started making flat-toed boots. Each year they added more styles, while cutting back on the other styles. Now, you can pretty much only find flat-toed cowboy boots. In fact, if you look at the works of custom boot makers, you’ll see that most of their clients are not looking for flat toes. Most of the people I know who are over forty prefer round toes, but finding those boots has become a real treasure hunt. By putting all their eggs into one basket, the large boot makers are cutting out customers. And they justify it by saying that’s what our customers want, but they aren’t giving customers a choice.
It’s easy to say that’s what my customer wants when the customer has to buy because that’s all that’s there. It is the same philosophy they use to justify self-checkouts. They say more and more people are using self-checkouts, but that’s only because they have removed the other choice. If executives turned on the checkout cameras and saw the number of people waiting in one line to check out with a real cashier instead of listening to their underlings tell them what they want to hear, they would know that MOST customers want someone to checkout that huge basket of groceries for them. Small business can do that. They can listen to the customer. They can find a niche. Maybe its higher quality merchandise. Maybe it is better service. Maybe it is repair, installation, or warranty. Maybe it is the latest fad, style, or adaptation.
Most times when faced with Big Box competition, small business waves the white flag — gives up — and complains that they just can’t compete. Yet, if that competitor was another small business across the street selling the same merchandise, they would look for a way to compete – price, style, selection, service, quality – whatever it may be they would find a way to stay in business if they really wanted to be in business. Small business is work. From sun up to sun down kind of work. Seven days a week kind of work. Can you take time for yourself and your family? Sure, but don’t close up shop to do it. Build a network of employees to keep it going when you do take off. If your business has to close up because you aren’t there, you aren’t running a business. You are just managing your own time.
Rolling up the mat at 5pm, closing on the weekends, taking holidays off, sticking with the same, old tired routines, being resistant to change, ignoring the changes in society or even in customer tastes — those are not the decisions of a business owner who wants to stay in business. Those are the reasons tumbleweeds get more action on Main Street than the retailers in our small towns.
