Who Is Responsible For The Demise Of Small Business?

The thing is more of us older and senior people still judge a store by the service they provide. If that is the case, how come we have allowed our friends and families with businesses to be taken over by large corporations? These friends, family, and neighbours were the ones who gave us service, they lived in our neighbourhoods, knew our names, and made sure we received excellent service. These real people didn't have cookie cutter scripted interaction with us, but genuinely interested in their customers. They appreciated our business enough not to annoy us at the end, you know with point cards or up-sells. When we bought something they took us to the cash, put it through themselves no waiting in lines, and sincerely thanked us for the business.

Back in the day a shoes store was a shoe store, not a grocery, drug store, and hardware in one. It was about smaller specialty stores. The people in them knew their products better, so of course they were able to provide service. In the box stores if you're lucky to find someone, they can read the labels as well as you. If something was not on the shelf it was no big deal to go see if any were available in the back. Box stores expect us to come into their 5 football field size stores, find our own stuff, receive no service, pay and be happy their price was lower. The problem is we've become cheap, and still expect the same service for a pair of shoes that cost $20, as one that is $150. We can't have it all, made our bed and now need to sleep in it.

Next time you walk into a box store start getting grumpy about service, lashing out at the one poor associate who makes minimum wage, who is overwhelmed, not trained properly, barely surviving back off. At one time we lived in a democrat society, where a majority ruled, and our governments had no choice but to listen to what we wanted. Obviously we had no concern that large businesses were starting to squeeze out small and medium size ones, and changing our tune from quality products to cheap inexpensive. Free trade was great right, so many people lost jobs in the manufacturing industry, but getting bad quality shoes for $20 was real savings! No problem that unemployment is high, no real worthwhile job creation, the economy is in toilette, and the backbone of any countries economy has always been the small and medium size business. Instead we focus on the environment saving trees instead of people, and complain there is no service when walking into box store that purchase goods from other places. We are not even supporting our own people, and demand service really!

It's time to go back to basics, first people need to be fairly paid, bring back the small and medium size business concept, and have a better economy. Once that is accomplished we can afford to pay for the quality, and the service will be there. The small and medium business even if they had the same products and pricing winning by who has better service! If you're looking for exceptional service perhaps the first place to demand it is from our Governments. Then we can move forward walk into a small neighbourhood business, able to support them, and in return like before obtaining the service we as customers deserve. Box stores herd us in like sheep, and most people can't afford to go somewhere else. The ones most responsible for the demise of small business is us the older and senior people who didn't care about the future! By Arnold Nadler