Later today, I'm going to try to argue the efficacy of buying "Local." You know, not so much trying to twist your arm with sympathy, but really arguing that you might in the end be better off just buying it from a local store.
I suspect the whole "Buy Local" slogan is only marginally effective. I mean, it's better than nothing. I'm all for it. But I have a saying, "If you have to explain it, it's too late." You get the people who already instinctively understand or appreciate the value of it; you get the people who agree, but go ahead and buy from the Big Boys anyway whenever convenient, but who also might throw you a bone once in awhile whenever it's convenient ; and you get the vast majority who never think about it, and who don't really give a damn.
Right now, I'm going to, not so much argue that buying from the Mass Market is a good thing, but to acknowledge the reality of it's Dark Power.
Hot Dogs.
I love me a good hot dog. So I'm always willing to give a 'specialty' hot dog place a try.
But here's what I've found: I can get me a great hot dog, large and filling, at Costco for 1.50, with a drink.
Or I can get a 'specialty' hot dog for about 6.00 to 7.00, including drink. Usually the hot dog is slightly smaller, and less filling. It might have a bit more zing -- you know, it's German or Chicago or Spicy Italian. And -- well, I know there are all kinds of hot dogs, but, well, in the end a hot dog is a hot dog. In the end, I want to scarf up a nice hot dog, with relish and mustard and catsup.
And Costco does a good job of it. And it's very, very cheap..
What am I saying here? Am I a traitor to my entrepreneurial class?
Does it make any difference?
I do buy "Local" whenever possible, but it's often not possible.
I sort of quit arguing vehemently against the Big Boxes a few years ago. I mean, I'm still up for a good discussion, I still think I can make a good case for Local Retailers versus Big Box Empires.
But I just have to remember those damn Hot Dogs.
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About Me
- Duncan McGeary
- I'm Duncan McGeary, owner and/or operator for the last 39 years of Pegasus Books in Downtown Bend, Oregon. These days I'm writing books as well as selling them. I'm the comic book guy. But even more so, I'm a book book guy. Books of all kinds. Big books and little books, children's and adult, fiction and non-fiction, hardback and paperback and trade paperback and graphic novels. Books with more words than pictures and books with more pictures than words. They are all part of the book world to me, and I love being surrounded by them every day.
13 comments:
I buy local whenever I can, regardless of price (unless the local price is simply outrageous). The main deterrent to buying local, for me, is not price but lack of selection. There's an awful lot of stuff that just can't be found in the local shops in this backwater burg.
BTW you shouldn't be eating hot dogs, no matter what they cost or where they come from. Those damn things'll kill ya.
The lack of selection I talk about in the third entry later today.
Yeah, that's what I find. You have to buy mass market or often, online.
Try to find a good Chess set in Bend, for instance. I mean, I'm a game store, and I don't carry them.
They are PART of what once would have been a full-service game store, but which can't be done anymore as easily because of the number of best-selling games that have been siphoned away by the mass market.
What we're losing, all throughout this economy, are "Full Service" shops.
I mean, it's become a real Catch-22.
People want and demand 'full-service' specialty stores. But a 'full-service' specialty store only works if they can sell the full spectrum of product.
If I can bring up the old hoary 20/80 rule as a simplistic way to explain it: if the mass market takes away the best 20% of the product which makes 80% of the profit and sells it cheaper, then it becomes impossible for the full-service store to afford the slower selling 80%.
At the same time, because the mass market doesn't bother with the slower selling 80%, customers are making more and more demands of the specialty stores. And leaving them, because they don't have "selection."
Downward spiral.
I really don't have any answers. Especially since the internet has not taken on the job of selling the 80% slower stuff, so the 'full-service" store is put under even more pressure.
Excuse me, correction -- "the internet has NOW taken on the job".... (I said, not...)
So the mass market's 20% of the best-sellers means that the average customer is going to 80% of the time they're shopping find what they want at much cheaper prices.
But eventually, they want one of the 80% slower moving stuff that the mass market doesn't carry.
So they think: well, I'll just go to the full service game/toy/card/book/record/etc. store.
But they find that either that store isn't there anymore, or that they don't have what they're looking for.
They go home, check online, and sure enough, there it is.
So, the full-service shop is killed on one side by the cheap 20% bestsellers that the mass market has a lock on, and on the other side by the internet who has the 80% slower moving products they occasionally want.
Where does that leave us?
With some full-service shops in major metro areas, the exceptional shops, or the supported shops, with owners who are smarter, harder-working, and just plain lucky.
You also get the sort of hybrid shops, like me. I'm not a full service game or toy or book or card store, but I try to carry the 20% best-selling stuff, and hope that the occasional customer will pay full price.
I am still a full service comic shop, but...that's because the mass market has never been able to figure out how to do comics....yet.
(There isn't going to be a third entry today -- I put it in the second entry....)
"If I can bring up the old hoary 20/80 rule as a simplistic way to explain it: if the mass market takes away the best 20% of the product which makes 80% of the profit and sells it cheaper, then it becomes impossible for the full-service store to afford the slower selling 80%."
True, and not only for the smaller full-service stores. The NY Times had a story a couple of days ago about major retailers going to smaller stores and cutting out all except the best-selling merchandise. So the consumer's choices are being whittled down everywhere.
"Especially since the internet has now taken on the job of selling the 80% slower stuff"
That's lucky for some of us. For example, I buy almost all my shoes on line now because you just can't find a size 7 in a bricks-and-mortar store anymore. If it wasn't for the Internet I'd probably be walking around barefoot.
Best hot dogs in the world are out Kenny and Zukes, a deli in Portland. I think they make the dogs themselves. Does that count as local?
Mr. McGeary:
Your business brain is too big for a Bend blog. You wrote two posts and posted five comments on your own entry! Have you given any more thought to the book idea? Maybe get your wife's opinion and input on the matter? OK... I'll stop bugging you now.
I think that shall be the title to my next blog site:
"My Business Brain Is Too Big For A Bend Blog."
10 words, same length as this blog and everything.
And so true.
I don't know, Spockgirl..
I can write anything I please on this blog, and if I'm wrong, people can tell me I'm wrong. I'm as much up for discussion, as telling anyone else how it works.
Once it's put in a book, it's like I'm saying I know better.
People can judge here for themselves if I know better or I'm full of shit, or somewhere in-between and it's all free and open.
I've been tempted. I have stacks and stacks of business journals I was keeping before I started the blog.
But most of it is grousing and complaining to myself; or keeping minute details of my store; or just other useless diary type stuff.
I think I could do it, but would it really be useful to anyone other than another comic/card/book/game/toy store owner in the downtown of a small metro area
in a western state in the U.S.A.?
The other thing is -- I do in fact believe that a thriving store in the future will have to be much more technically adept than I am.
I could give some basic rules of thumb, but I think I'm doing that here.
Thank you for thinking it, though.
Thought you might get a kick out of that "business brain" line. Gotta like alliteration.
So I guess that I am not quite done on this matter. As I had commented before on your post "the Book Devil", I was not really thinking of a "How-to" small business book. As you own a book-store, you'll know what I mean when I say, it would be the type of book featured in the HUMOUR section, NOT the business section, but could be a cross-over into both for marketing purposes. I have too many ideas on this, so I better stop thinking about it, or if I get really bored, maybe I'll do an outline. (I'm not a writer or ad person, and technically at this point I'm not IN retail, I'm on the outskirts of retail, so I feel the pain, and I have a lot of time on my hands.)
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