Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
I wouldn't blame businesses for giving customers what they want. The old Mom&Pop stores with friendly service died out not because of competition from the big box stores but because customers didn't care about the "added value" those Mom&Pop stores provided. If enough people had kept shopping at the small stores they would have survived, even thrived. The people vote with their feet, then as now.
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That's the myth, yeah. And there's an element of truth to it, but it's certainly not the entire story. Most of those Mom&Pop stores didn't actually have all that good of service. Those that did are gone in the sense of not being Mom&Pop stores any more, but rather, having grown in to small regional chains[1]. Price is a criteria, yeah, but if you get indifferent service no matter where you go, it's the only one that matters.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
Now Amazon has reduced costs even further and is driving the big box stores out. What makes them an even more dangerous competitor is that they have managed to combine great service and low prices. I really don't see a future for physical book stores, except for some special market niches.
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Amazon has service? Great or otherwise? I've never noticed it. They're a mail order house with more efficient communications, and mail order doesn't provide service that competes with face to face service - so long as they face to face service doesn't suck.
[1]I work for one, and have been with it as it has grown from a small regional chain to a medium sized mult-state regional chain, and what makes us unique is service, service, and service. People
will pay a little more for personal service, but only if they actually
get personal service. Very few retailers know how to do that any more (or, I suspect, ever really did).