[lbo-talk] Save the Doodle!

Bill Quimby wquimby at ecr.net
Mon Feb 4 14:26:09 PST 2008


Re: the small mon and pop hardware stores, the following from the small store in Danville, Ohio - which has 1000 square feet of goods crammed into about 500. True story!

Me: "I'd like this 3-pair set of work gloves advertised in your flyer." Assistant: "Sure...they're right over here." (Slight pause.) Assistant, turning to the owner. "Say, the store price on these gloves is lower than the flyer price!" Owner: "Well, the Chinese can't think of everything!"

- Bill

tully wrote:
> On Sunday 03 February 2008, Doug Henwood wrote:
>> I live in the middle of an increible strip
>> of chain stores on Broadway in the 80s - there's a Victoria's
>> Secret in our building, a Godiva and Coach just around the
>> corner, a Talbot's and B&N down the street, and Duane Reade's
>> and CVS's all over. It is ugly and soulless.
>
> The strips are ugly and souless but so are the malls, where the
> stores rarely differ from one to the next or those on the other
> side of the nation. The newest way to package this homogenity
> is a combination of the two that tries to emulate quaint city
> streets, complete with faux coach lights. Such transparent
> glitzy facades are disgusting to me. Give me the run-down funky
> one-of-a-kind shop any day.
>
>> On the other
>> hand, B&N is a much better bookstore than the indie it put out
>> of business - Shakespeare & Co, where the staff was unhelpful
>> and often rude and the stock was a fraction of B&N's.
>
> I've heard this said before, but it has so rarely been my
> experience. Generally at the small mom & pop stores, I found
> the employees (often the owners themselves) to be experts with a
> genuine love of their trade, especially at the small downtown
> hardware stores where I'd walk in with some vaguely stated
> problem and walk out with solutions in parts and the knowledge
> to fix it. The knowledge of most employees at Home Depot and
> Lowe's is pathetic by comparison. At big box hardware stores,
> if I can find someone to help (a big if), I too often get blank
> looks, even when asking for something specific. Blaring so
> often over the PA system is "Help is needed in the X aisle"
> clearly demonstrating just how short staffed they are. On the
> other hand, going into the mom&pops seemed more like visiting
> friends or neighbors who were happy to see me and were genuinely
> pleased if I'd stay and chat awhile. Often small stores became
> local social centers. In most of the franchise stores, I am
> just a faceless number to be politely hustled in and out, often
> feeling like I'm imposing when I need to stop someone for help.
>
>> DR & CVS
>> are annoyingly ubiquitous, but the old local drug store had
>> next to no stock and prices were high; the chains are much
>> better.
>
> Again my mileage varied. I've found items in mom & pops that I'd
> never find in the franchise stores. The small stores are often
> specialists carrying much greater variety, while the big boxes
> try to be everything to everyone and have limited stock. The
> little Asian stores carry intriguing food I've never heard of
> before, and common stuff is often at prices better than the
> chains. While chains have the advantage of buying in bulk, they
> also must support large heirarchies of management, higher
> overheads, and often stockholders, so it's quite possible to
> find good prices and variety in the small stores who don't carry
> all that baggage. Compare a tiny Manhattan side street deli to
> what any top-end franchise supermarket anywhere might carry and
> there simply is no comparison.
>
> I may be wrong, but I think that it is quite rare at least on the
> east coast for chains to have unionized labor nowdays. Walmart
> certainly doesn't. Unions are steadily losing their influence
> in the few chains that still have them and unions are being
> actively busted now with no bones made about it. Unions are
> corrupt donjaknow. Some chains like CVS use contract labor thru
> temp agencies like Adecco in certain states.
>
> Because the big boxes are running the mom&pops out of business
> and mega-mergers continue to happen, we may see the time where
> no competition exists and these huge corporations can call all
> the shots on price, having the power to prevent any new
> competition. I greatly fear the power of big business and
> intentionally shop at mom&pops whenever I can as one form of
> activism against globalization.
>
> I believe the decentralization of power everywhere is needed,
> both in business and in gov't.
>
> --tully
>
>
>
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