I was reading about some local policy changes intended to make running a small business easier and that got me thinking. I go to restaurants and ethnic food stores which are usually small businesses, and maybe some of the gas stations I use are small businesses too. However, everything else I buy comes from big-box stores or the internet. These have replaced a lot of small businesses, but how is it that there are any little shops left at all? Sometimes I walk into a corner store because I don’t want to go all the way to the big box store or wait for delivery but the prices are so much higher (often by over a hundred percent) that I walk right out again unless I need something very urgently.
I’m not making a moral judgement here. I just don’t know how the economics work out.
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Carpenter, plumber, electricians and similar tradesmen about half of them work for or run a small to medium business where I live.
Dentists, hairdressers, lawyers also come to mind.
There are a lot of machine shops that are small businesses too.
For me it’s usually niche things and like you mentioned, ethnic foods and local restaurants. There is a tea and coffee shop near me that sells locally roasted coffee, and a plethora of loose leaf teas. The farmers market when open is a great for produce and some nick knacks. We have a co-op that has a little market in it where I’ve purchased yarn and knitting supplies.
I don’t explicitly try to shop small stores or local, but a lot of the big box options have highlighted in recent years just how shitty they are, and I avoid those places as much as I can. I am financially stable, so I do have the luxury of being able to choose where I buy groceries without breaking the bank, and that’s not lost on me. I haven’t been to Target since they caved on DEI, Walmart just a few times in the last couple of years since sometimes it’s the only option, Amazon maybe twice for the same reason as Walmart.
It’s not been the easiest transition and in some cases it’s more expensive, but I’ve also cut some things like buying PepsiCo products regularly and not replacing with an alternative.
The only small businesses I care of is when it comes to lawyers, psychologists, doctors, car repair shops and other professions similar to them.
Call me a capitalist or whatever, but almost any other small business I go to shop in, their prices are absurd and somehow worse than the big-chain stores is. Their staff could either be some of the nicest people you meet, operated by a family or they can be the opposite where the family don’t know what the hell they’re doing and they try ripping you off and getting involved in their drama.
From personal experience. I am willing to assign a higher value to products made by local and/or small businesses, even if it doesn’t otherwise make any practical sense. But it is a very conscientious moral judgement on my end, so I don’t expect most people to behave this way… and I have a limit too, +100% is probably too much.
Although I guess the benefit of being a “small” business is that you also don’t need as many customers… There are also some types of small businesses that are competitive: I suppose most ethnic food stores or your local market stall won’t struggle with competing on price.
how is it that there are any little shops left at all?
Maybe this depends on the area? I don’t know if it is just me, but it seems to me that these days small businesses do better in larger cities… maybe larger cities have more “ethical shoppers”
I prefer to support small businesses, but anytime I visit any in my area, they generally offer similar or the exact same products that I can order online for less.
I’m struggling enough right now, and every dollar counts. I’m rooting for the little guys, but I’m not willing to go broke to save them.
Why do you even visit them? I’d say if you use them for product discovery but then give all your sales to online merchants, you are an absolute enemy of small businesses, whatever you think you feel about them.
Oh look, there’s a new store. Let’s see what they’re about. Oh damn, I can’t afford to pay that much for that.
You just gotta be careful. Megacorps will drop prices to take advantage of the exact logic you’ve laid out. On an individual day you’re gonna save money on an individual purchase with them, sure.
But once the local place goes out of business, suddenly there isn’t anyone for them to undercut, so the prices creep back up.
Then you’re in the exact same situation as before, usually a bit worse. Except, before, the money you spent at the local business would mostly recirculate within your actual community. Now it’s being siphoned off into some yacht measuring contest. Local wages go down because people need to take jobs at the big companies, which then reinforces the “every dollar counts” problem, making it ever harder for your community to reverse course.
This gets worse and worse until the corpos eventually abandon your community. So you used to have a local grocer, then corpo drives them out of business, then corpo shutters the location for poor performance. Now you live in a food desert
The dream of all vampires is to keep you barely alive enough to be fed on. They go to extreme lengths to control the narrative around this so instead of seeing vampires actively trying to enthrall us we see them more as a friendly, convenient way to help make ends meet. But convincing us that shopping local is a burdensome act of charity is their first line of attack
Lots of professional services are run out of small businesses - doctor’s offices, law firms, plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics, etc.
Fab shops & low volume manufacturing, tool & die, construction, cosmetology, IT services, consulting, accounting firms, non-profits…
True, but be careful, many of those you list appear to be small business because the big corporate owners have decided to have different name out front which makes it look like small business but they are not. You can tell because they are trying to sell you “services” that you don’t need.
I mean, “small business” can still get pretty big. You can bring in $40M with 1500 employees and still be clarified as “small”.
You can tell because they are trying to sell you “services” that you don’t need.
Show me a business that doesn’t. 😛
There’s plenty of gray area - franchises can be privately owned despite hosting a big brand logo, retailers can have boutique letterheads despite all being part of some corporate megalith (Laundry’s loves doing this shit), an office can be part of a group, a consultant can only have one or two clients and effectively operate as an off-book extension of the parent company, yadda yadda yadda.
But for the most part, the guy running the auto shop on the run down lot at the corner is independent. And you’ll know it when they go bankrupt in the next downturn, then get replaced by a Starbucks.
Microbreweries, restaurants, candy shops, bakeries, local hardware store.
I use them frequently. Up until 2 years ago, I lived in a town where I could’ve walked to all those spots(not candy store).
This, although I wish my town still had a local bakery and a hardware store.
Grocery store, brewery, meadery, winery, restaurants, cafes, game stores (video- and board-), book stores… any time I can I’ll shop the small store.
The biggest thing I’ve learned though is that some stores are shitty places or run by shitty people even if they are small.
I shop from small businesses when it’s more convenient (which is actually more common than you’d think when you don’t have a car).
Mini markets are closer than supermarkets and stay open longer so I’ll often get groceries from there even if it’s more expensive.
When looking for a specific piece of equipment there are some things that can’t be delivered or they’d take an eternity to arrive so I find which stores sell it and go to the physical store, which is usually a smaller local place.
I don’t know if thrift shops count as small businesses but they’re also more convenient than going to big clothes shops.
And I guess most restaurants are local businesses too.
Mostly, I don’t shop. So, when I do, I can choose according to ideals. Most of my searches are at thrift first, and the second hand. I never consider credit. And, I always shop for discounts.
Beyond that I look for a local with a healthy business and prices that don’t seem absurd.
There are a few local businesses that make no sense. I don’t understand how they can keep their doors open with the prices they charge. I avoid those, and stick with locals who work hard.
I shop at small businesses if its an option. I prefer my money supporting the community than someone’s fourth yacht.
That being said there is a particular type of small business whose customers are largely old retired people. They’re usually open 8-5, have higher than normal prices, and are in no rush as they usually like to chat - Which their customer base likes.
There are other types of course but sometimes you got to do hunting because they likely don’t have big advertising bucks.
Its very very difficult for small businesses to compete with big box stores. They can’t out price Walmart or outship Amazon. So they usually try to find a niche to focus on… Or wither on the vine.
Restaurants (including franchises of chains) are indeed a major segment of small businesses. Looking more broadly, any industry which: 1) offers a service/product/utility, and 2) has proven to not have a tendency to inflate beyond its fundamental target audience, those are likely to be small businesses. Those are the parameters which stave off any sort of corporate takeovers and consolidations, because they won’t invest in a small business if the prospect of infinite growth isn’t there. So the business stays small. And small is often perfectly fine.
That is to say, restaurants (humans can only eat so much food), bicycle stores (humans can only ride so much per day), and local produce shops (even in the Central Valley of California, there’s only so much produce to sell, and humans can’t eat infinite quantities) have these qualities.
But compare those to a restaurant supply warehouse or music equipment store, since those items can be shipped and need no customization by the end user. Consolidation and corporate meddling is possible and probable.
Then you have industries which are often local and small but are prone to financial hazards, such as real estate agents and used car lenders. Because they get paid as a percentage of the transaction size, if the price of houses or cars go up in an unchecked fashion, the profit margins also increase linearly, which makes them more tempting for corporate involvement.
There are corporate-owned national chains of real estate agents, self storage, department stores, and payday loan offices in the USA. But I’m not aware of a national chain for bicycle or bicycle accessories. Even regional chains for bicycles are few and far between. Some consolidation has happened there, but by most definitions, a bicycle shop is very much a small business.
Only buying things that are the lowest price has many consequences and not all of them are beneficial to you. Sometimes it’s just that the thing you are buying for the lowest price is crappy and poor quality. But now we are coming to realize that one of those consequences might be the destruction of the world. Figure out how to price that consequence into your economic model, and choose accordingly.
Apparently not destroying the world is more valuable to some people than others. Personally, I would pay at least 1000% more to not destroy the world, because not destroying the world is really important to me. Maybe it’s not as important to other people, I don’t know. The wonderful thing about the world we are destroying is that everyone gets to make their own decisions.
I’m just glad you get good enough reception to post from that incredibly tall horse you’re on.
Perhaps I was laying it on a little thick for you, but sometimes you’ve really got to sledgehammer the point home, to ensure the people in the back can hear. My point has been made, nobody is obligated to take it personally, you are welcome to ignore it or do with it whatever you please. That said, if your instinct is to take it as a personal attack directed at you, maybe the point actually is directed at you after all. I tend to trust people’s own judgements on this.
Hitting the combo by laying on a smug and sarcastic non apology. Hit me with the, “It’s not my fault that people think I’m being an asshole, they just don’t understand sarcasm” so I can get bingo on my random internet douchebag card.
I try to shop more local small shops these days. But youre right, Amazon has killed off most of them.
Depends on what it is. Like for pizza, I do go to the big chains sometimes but I prefer the local pizza places more. But the prices are insane!
Pizza place down the road wants $30 for a simple large pepperoni pizza. But Dominos will only charge me around $12 for the same size pizza with more toppings.
A local Mexican restaurant does pizzas and I’ve been going there more because their pizzas are the absolute best I’ve ever tasted and they’re cheap at around $10 for a large. You simply cannot beat it any way you try.
But it’s hard because of this. Either local places are too expensive or just aren’t as convenient. I hate to say it, but it’s convenient to go into a place like Walmart and get both groceries and electronics and furniture all in the same trip, not to mention the cheaper prices. But there’s also other factors too like peace of mind. I bought some clothes from Target recently in another city and took them back for a refund to my local Target and had no grief. Also, if I don’t have the receipt, they have the ability to look up my card and find my purchase and refund. I also have peace of mind knowing they have blanket policies they follow. 90 days means 90 days for all their stores.
Whereas a local place may tell you 7 days, but is it really? Some places can be more lenient and go beyond the 7 days and some will pretend they never made such a promise. Such is the case for this place down the road from me that is a small, locally owned outlet place that resells stuff and they tell you 7 days and tell other people a different policy and then sometimes don’t honor it at all. Even if one of the Targets denies my return, I’ll go across town and try another Target and maybe get an employee who just doesn’t give a shit and get my stuff done. Happened to me with a bank and a manager who was doing some illegal shit and not letting me withdraw my money. I reported her and the bank and they did get investigated and eventually apologized to me for the manager, but that was months later. And the point was that I went across town and did my legal transaction without issues there. A local bank with one branch could have denied me and I’d have been out and waiting on the government or a lawyer to strongarm them into doing what they legally are supposed to do.
And another thing I realized years ago is that I as a minority may have issues in small towns where they don’t like people who look like me. Local restaurant legally can’t not serve me because they’re racist pricks but may do something like jack up the prices on me or be rude to me to discourage me from staying. But try that in a chain like Dennys and corporate will knock that shit off quick. They don’t want lawsuits and the negative publicity that comes with it all and will fire those racist pricks from representing their brand. I have peace of mind knowing that I can go into a Walmart and less likely to deal with discrimination. Though….the recent news about large chains wanting to make “personalized”/surge pricing is one of those downsides that a local place will likely never be able to do because they don’t have the technology for it or the manpower to maintain such a system.
Conclusion for me has been that I’m grateful both exist. But online retailers like Amazon I think are a bigger threat we should be worried about. Your local government can do something about both local and big businesses but can’t do much about online retailers fucking you over. And online retailers are causing brick and mortar to close at larger rates than ever before. It’s depressing seeing so many businesses, both small and big, close down and shopping malls become ghost towns.
