I came across a blog entry by someone else that I believe is just wrong headed and I wanted to answer it. This guy I'm contradicting may even be famous. From Seth Godin's Blog:

The Long Slide to Gone:

I drove past a hobby shop yesterday. It's hard to make out the awning, but it says, "Hobbies, Trains, R/C Models, Coffee, Lottery."

Bit by bit, on each declining day, it became easier to become more average, to add one more item, to sell a few more lottery tickets or another cup of coffee.

And then, the next thing you know, there's some dusty trains in the back and you're running a convenience store.

This place, just about every place, has a shot at greatness, at becoming a destination, a place with profits and happiness and growth. Along the way, it's easy to start compromising your marketing, because it seems like in that moment, it's expedient.

When this starts happening, the answer is not to do it more. Instead, it's worth a full stop. Is this what you set out to do? Is compromising everything going to get you to a place that was worth the journey? Wouldn't it be smarter to just stop selling trains and do something else (lottery tickets, even) but do it really really well.

We spend a lot of time talking about the ends and the means, but it's also worth considering whether the journey is worth the reward. If you have to compromise what you do just to keep doing it, what's the point?



O.K. I understand what he's getting at. But I also think it's what a big time 'motivational business speaker' would say who hasn't spent years in an actual shop. Nice ivory tower thinking. In fairness, I agree with much of what he's saying, and he'd probably agree with much of what I'm saying. But I think these types of pure destination stores are a hugely happy accidents. Most of us have to make some compromises. My saying so, doesn't make me the big hero. But then, I need to pay my rent.


My response:

I don't agree.

Stay pure....and go out of business. At least in a smaller town.

Diversify or die. Specialized wins in the short run, loses in the long run.

However you want to say it. I couldn't survive on comics and games when I started 24 years ago, and sports cards came along. Was I interested in sports?

Not so much, but I was interested in surviving.

That's never changed.

Diversity doesn't have to be a Frankenstein monster. It can be thematic, even if there are many kinds of product lines.

I currently carry used books and new books, games (board, rpg and card, and lately mainstream), toys and statues, comics and graphic novels, sports and non-sports cards, anime and manga. Not to mention posters, cards, t-shirts, fantasy and pop art books, and so on. All in one 1000 sq. ft. store. Adding new books and board games last year I was afraid would be a step too far. Instead, my sales seem to have increased and stabilized, my customer count has gone up.

I've even decided to add new and used dvd's and cd's.

I'm sure 'pure' comic stores think I've made too many compromises. I sure 'pure' game stores frown at the fact I don't have organized game space. I sure 'pure' book people struggle to overlook the comics in the back. I sure 'pure' sport card people wonder why I bother carrying Indiana Jones cards.

The problem with pure, is you can never be pure enough. Strangely, all the pure stores in the product lines I carry in Bend are out of business, except the bookstores... who have seen a major competitive surge, and could probably use a little compromise hedging about now.

But it's my store, and I see no reason why I can't try to sell it all. A long slide, indeed. A long slide into stability and profitability.

I think of myself as a pop-culture store. I don't draw artificial distinctions. If I carry books, I see no reason not to carry Where the Wild Things are in one part of the store, and Lost Girls in another part of the store. I can carry War and Peace and Calvin and Hobbes. I see no reason not to carry Fantagraphics and Oni and Top Shelf in one part of the store, and Marvel and DC in another. I see no reason not to carry both designer vinyl and Spider-man toys. No reason not to carry both Monopoly and D & D. Anything goes, as long as it's interesting and it might sell.

The only real deciding factor is can I stand to have it. I have drawn the line at video games and Warhammer....but I've been tempted many times.

I think it requires a design sense to make it work. The best results are if the game people think of you as a game store, the comic people a comic store, the book people as a book store. It means that you've succeeded in giving each product line it's due.

I would say, selling, say, shoes or bikes, or something would be a bit of a wrench; but as long as it interests me, it fits.

The type of store Seth describes -- the dream store -- needs factors that come along once in a blue moon. A population base, a lack of competition, a way to make a nice margin long enough to build up to your 'dream' level, a place where overhead matches your dreams. And even then, it's probably mostly a happy accident. Believe me, there are plenty of people who want to have a Powell's type store, but almost no one can get there. Instead, they compromise and start selling jigsaw puzzles if there is a demand and they think they can sell them.

I don't sit around and read all day. Or play games. Or play with toys.

I run a business.

Further Postscript: Rereading again, I have to agree that the place he uses as an example reeks of failure, or reaching for any damn thing that might work. I had a competitor very early in my career, who started off with comics -- after a few months he started carrying, knick-knacks, is the only way I can describe them; ceramic bears, and such crap.

Obvious desperation time.