Rant about shopping locally

[Platapus]

I want to shop locally. I really do. I like the idea of supporting small businesses and supporting people local to me.

But retail merchants are just not getting the 21st century shopping environment.

I needed to buy four items. I decided not to hop online, but to give the local merchants a good chance. These were four simple mass produced items of a specific type. Unfortunately, these four objects would not be carried by any one merchant so I was in for some traveling.

I decided to take a day of vacation from my job. I recognized that shopping locally is time consuming and would probably take all morning. On the weekends, I am far too busy with important stuff to be able to waste hours shopping.

Rant 1: Selection. It may be just my impression, but in the past few years, the selection of products in local stores seems limited. I don't buy exotic products. But I do have some basic requirements. If I am lucky, a local store may have 2 different products to choose from and often they are almost identical. If I shop online, I may have a choice of 20 pages of products to choose from.

Rant 2: Prices. I understand that running a local store is more expensive than running an Internet distribution system and I am willing to accept a higher price to support a local business. But at the same time, I am a capitalist. I want to buy the mostest while paying the leastest. My willingness to pay a higher price to a local merchant only goes so far. It is not like there is a difference in quality as the local merchant is selling the same item as I can get online, just not as many. I am certainly not willing to pay higher prices for a product that is almost what I am looking for. I would rather pay a lower price and get exactly what I am looking for.

Rant 3: Availability. I understand that a local merchant can't stock all of the stuff that a distribution center can stock. I am willing to work with the local merchant by placing an order so that the local merchant gets my business. However, when I ask how long will it take to fulfill my order, I was told today "it will take about a week to a week and a half for it to be delivered to the store for pick up.

(expletive deleted)

What? A week and a half, and that's delivery to the store? Are they (expletive deleted) insane?

I could go right home, hop on line and get the same product, at a lower price, delivered to my home in two days.

And this merchant feels that I should pay more for the product, wait a week to a week an a half, and then still have to come to the store to pick it up? Really? That's, their 21st century strategy?

I am sorry, I want to shop locally. I really do. But I am not about to sacrifice time and money just to help keep them in business.

Not for a business that is selling the same mass produced products.

If it costs more, there is less selection and ordering takes 3-4 times as long as ordering on line, what is the value added to the customer by shopping locally? Don't say customer service. That's a thing of the past unless you are buying really expensive stuff.

I was at this one local store and inquired about ordering a product. The customer service person told me that I needed to go home and access their company's website and then call them with the product identification. It would then take a week and a half and I would still need to go to the store to pick it up... oh by the way, payment in advance.

Customer service huh? Uh no. If I am walking out of your store and going on a webpage, it won't be your company's webpage. It will be the webpage of a company that can deliver more for less.

The only thing I am shopping locally these days are for products that are produced locally. For everything else that is produced in another country (and what isn't these days?), I am dealing with the company that can deliver the product at a lower price, with more selection, and deliver it faster.

That's capitalism.

I wasted an entire morning of my vacation time, burned a few dollars in gas. Fought the famous North Virginia traffic and came home empty handed. 0 for 4. Could not find a merchant who either had my simple items in stock or could order them in less than a week for a higher price. This is in North Virginia which is not exactly out in the sticks.

If I had ordered the products first thing in the morning, there was a possibility I could have had them delivered later the same day. Certainly delivered to my home by tomorrow.

I really want to shop locally. But I don't want to support an obsolete business model. My local loyalty only goes so far.

End of Rant.

[Jeff-Groves]

I don't think it's as much of a rant as it is a very good out line of why Local businesses fail in this day and age.

Consumers want and demand instant gratification. If your business can not step up?
Your business goes away and you close your doors and blame it on Amazon or whatever.

Sucks to be you, the business owner, with no intention of changing your business model to step into the 21st century.

Not in the retail business but I have worked near 8 years to bring the Company I work for into the New Age.
That has been very successful!

[Reece]

It's the same here in Australia, the only thing I go to town for is to purchase food from the supermarket.
I can get better quality sent to my door in less time from England, not joking, I go through the various stores and they cater 90% for women and the stuff men need from hardware stores etc is a lot more expensive than online. Usually I only purchase local for the sake of convenience.
I just purchased a leather jacket from the US a lot cheaper than here including freight.
It is sad to see a lot of stores closed down, especially in rural towns but I'm not surprised!!
As mentioned earlier, most of the stores cater for women, I can go into a shopping center and over half the shops sell clothing for women, dresses, shoes, hosiery, perfume etc, and half of those the same brands!!
It is almost impossible to find a hobby shop, electronic store etc catered for men, all we get is hardware stores!

[Rockstar]

I don't get it either. At the brick and mortar where I work we use every source available. We usually get our product delivered within 1 to 2 days from our own warehouse or normal chain of outside vendors. If it's something we normally don't carry Google baby and we get in the same time frame. Unless it's a custom piece there's no excuse not to have with a few days.

[STEED]

Most shops around my town are coffee shops now. I have never seen such a high number of coffee shops so close to each other and doing well, not one coffee shop has closed. The rest are made up of very expensive cloths shops and run of the mill boring shops. The high street in the UK is killing itself as it will not move forward with the times and take on the Internet.

[Reece]

One possible solution is to form a shop owners group/club where they can combine their money to buy large volume orders to get the goods a lot cheaper, then distribute to the members for resale at reasonable prices that might be able to compete with online sales. The biggest enemy of the retail stores is eBay.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Reece

The biggest enemy of the retail stores is eBay.

I take it you haven't heard of the likes of Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, Target, Aliexpress, Costco, Kohls etc, to name just a few.

[STEED]

Another problem here is Business rates are a mess, the bigger the land mass the more they pay without taking into account their budgets/profits.

[Reece]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

I take it you haven't heard of the likes of Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, Target, Aliexpress, Costco, Kohls etc, to name just a few.

I know and have used some of them but 99% of my online purchases is done through eBay. I do have to say Jim that I get better value from the UK than the US or here in Australia. I purchase all my BMW motorcycle parts from Motobins, the price difference is astounding.

[Skybird]

Evolution is about adaptation to changing conditions in changing environments. Be successful, and live. Fail, and go extinct.

I have seen raises in prices claimed to be base don service -while service was not there or was bad. Also, I saw enormous price increases over several years.

When I have a good shop, I accept to pay a bit more there. I know it. But this plus that I will to pay, must have a counter value in service or quality, and it has limits. And I define what limits I accept, and what is off limit - not them and their needs and wishes.

City centres will suffer from the fall of local shops and big warehouses. Well, I have no answer to that. Thats how it goes.

I try to diversify my buyings, nevertheless. I do not always buy in the same place and supermarket. I refuse to buy everything from Amazon or othe rplatforms that already are de facto monopolists in many niches and branchges of their business. I try to avoid helping monopolism. I also dop not like to depend on just one pricder of things, and by that also allwojg n him to profile me better. I want to remain a random event in their schemes.

Buying "bio", "eco", "politically correct", "fair trade" etc, gets zero recognition from me. ZERO. Many according labels achieve right the opposite of what they intend, fair traded coffee for example is anything but about fair trade, it simply is stupid, it motivates farmers selling their better beans separately and for higher than the fair trade prices, and only delivering their inferior, bad beans (that are so bad that otherwise they cannot sell to anyone else) into the fair trade mechanism with its guaranteed minimum and bonus prices - that way consumers pay overpriced prices for uncompetitive, bad coffee, supporting a first class market manipulation scheme. Getting ripped off and being proud of it! Thats what they do not tell you on TV about fair trade coffee. It shoudl better be labelled as "stupid coffee". Oh, and the eU energy coksummation labels and CO2 emission numbers and stuff like that I also completely ignore - the latter always, the first almost always. I do not buy a refrigerator to save the world, I buy a refrigerator to save my food and cool it. If that can be done with a reaosnable abalncx ebetween price and power consumption, nice, but if there is some ideologically hypped low power rate advertised at too high price, I ignore it. Realistic pragmatism. The ideology part can be taken care of by those who feel concerned, I do not. I maybe did, long time ago, but I grew older since then - and apparently wiser.

[Eichhörnchen]

It's safer to shop from home... you don't have to go out onto the dangerous roads to get your stuff

[Skybird]

As a matter of fact it is safer indeed - regarding certain warranty conditions. If placing online orders you enjoy a widened legal protection where in a shop you would - regarding these aspects - be completely depending on voluntary accomodation by the shop owner or mother company. And I found that especially big chain shops are running a tight regime on this. Also you have a right to step back from any orde rplace donline for a certain ammount of time. In a shop you have none and again base on their goodwill.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Skybird

As a matter of fact it is safer indeed - regarding certain warranty conditions. If placing online orders you enjoy a widened legal protection where in a shop you would - regarding these aspects - be completely depending on voluntary accomodation by the shop owner or mother company. And I found that especially big chain shops are running a tight regime on this. Also you have a right to step back from any orde rplace donline for a certain ammount of time. In a shop you have none and again base on their goodwill.

I'd add to that, using a credit card gives further safeguards but in every instance possible.....PAY IT OFF IN FULL AFTER EVERY PURCHASE.

[Skybird]

Nah, in real world shops I only pay cash, never plastic. No cash accepted - no shopping done. Online I also never pay with credit card, only use - WHEN I MUST - a third party payment service, and just one not several.



I prefer not to use many different and ever changing shops online, so that my bank data does not fly around in every place and gets send back and forth with just any transaction. Amazon, Ebay, two other shops - thats all I filed my data in. And that already is too much, I fear.



As a matter of fact I once owned a credit card, than cancelled it due to non-use, then got another one for a very small bait-fee, and cancelled that, too. I hold no credit card anymore. I do not need my driving license in my wallet since I have no and never owned a car and do not drive (last time I did is 30 years ago), and carry my ID card only with me when I know I need it, which is on 364+ days a year I do not need it. When I lost my wallet twice in the past couple of years and honest finders called me due to a note in it, they both times were puzzled that there was no such stuff inside and they expressed their sorrow that it already was "stolen". It wasn't.


Health insurrance card I only carry with me when I visit a doctor and its a new quarter of the year (they ask for it every new quarter). I only have money as I need it inside my wallet, and a note with my contact data, and an emergency note with medical instructions. In Germany, people must have an ID card, but there is no obligation to always carry it with you.

[Platapus]

We do have an auto parts store in my area. If they don't have the item in stock (to me a practical impossibility), they will get it from their other stores or warehouse to their store in 30 minute. For those keeping score at home, that is about 0.003 weeks.

If you call the store ahead of time they will do either of two things.

If they have the item in stock, they will pull it off the shelves and have it waiting for you at the checkout counter

If they don't have the item in stock, they will get it within 30 minutes and also have it waiting for you at the check out counter.

It is like they are providing a "service" to a "customer" or something.

I don't buy auto parts on-line.