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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There are a lot of farms around here, and thus a lot of farmer’s markets. There’s a lot of craft breweries, and the downtown core has recently been gentrified so there are a ton of small businesses there. A witchy store, a book store, a jewellery store, a collectibles store, a coffee roastery, a barber shop, a piercing/tattoo parlour, and don’t get me started on the restaurants.
There’s been a lot of investment in the area to make it walkable, and I’ve seen a huge uptick in tourists since it looks so appealing now.
I’ll grab some beers from the minimarkt at most. Everything else comes from the supermarket. And I often pass those tiny stores that never seem to have any customers – e.g. a shop just for socks? – and I always wonder how they can exist. There must be some kind of tax breaks or tax evasion going on.
I do wonder about stores like that. According to a friend of mine who worked on the household staff of a very rich family, they did buy extremely expensive stuff in boutique stores even when much cheaper alternatives were almost as good (or even equally good, I suspect) but how many rich people like that are there? That same friend told me that at least some of those stores are vanity projects for that same sort of rich person - they want to own the sort of store they think is cool or cute, and they don’t actually need it to turn a profit.
Yeah I suppose those boutique shops are more for rich people but there’s shops with cheap stuff too, often kind of hidden and unwelcoming. I used to live across from one for a while before I even realized it was a shop, and it was still open. Just saw the guy closing up but never saw a customer. I had a look out of curiosity and it was just some old guy selling bottles of washing liquid and everything was covered in a layer of dust like it hadn’t been touched in years. He looked happy to see a customer so I felt sorry for him to just walk out again.
I live in a city that offers nearly any type of service/shop local to me so nowadays I’ll likely use them here unless what I’m searching for is overly specific.
My mom recently took me to a store selling minerals and fossils, which while not my scene, is quite an interesting place to just walk through.
Realistically I should probably get some of my food from a farming coop but my volume is so low and the supermarket is right in front of my door, to make that the main exception.
Prices sometimes are higher but typically not egregiously so, and for some things i find it within myself to pay that higher price.
Neighbour,
The small neighbourhood bookstore, hardware store, or food store may not be as cheap as a big brand, but the staff usually know what they’re talking about (nice in a bookstore, important in a hardware store when you have no idea on how to fix a leak). Moreover, they’re here, and don’t need 3 days of delivery.
Finally, shops nearby are part of what makes a neighbourhood nice, some people know it, and will spend the extra cash to not complaint about their dead/empty neighbourghood
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.
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.
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
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.
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”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
