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.