Budnjax Loc: NE Florida

Reminds me of Sears, remember them? Years ago I would always go to Sears to buy TVs since they had helpful and knowledgeable sales people, on commission, who would work to sell you what you needed and give you a good price, too. Last time I saw a Sears ad for a TV I was interested in I attempted to call the store and ask about it. No such luck...my call was intercepted by a "sales helper" somewhere far from here who advised me that I could not talk with anyone in the store, but that she could help me just as well. So I asked her a few simple questions about their ad and of course, she knew nothing. Last time I attempted to buy anything from Sears. Now I see they are closing 235 stores, with more to come. Not surprising at all!

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Continuing to agree to disagree, I personally don't call a 5 or 10 store chain with a District Manager a Mom & Pop operation. You are deluding yourself and have lost track of reality if you think so. That's a multi-store "multi-million dollars in sales" corporation, not Mr. Local Photographer and his wife running a brick and mortar store on Main Street of Anytown, USA with a couple local photographer friends working for them part time. I worked in a $3M per year local Mom & Pop store where it was an actual Mom running the office and Pop running the front end with 12 employees. They got almost fatally damaged by one big box chain that fortunately declared bankruptcy, then did get wiped out by another big box chain 5 years later.

Yes, I've heard the "provide services the box stores can't" old saw a thousand times. And the other one, which is, "carry a wide selection of accessories because they have a higher profit margin and can be sold at closer to full retail than big ticket items..." which is also a farce.

My industry was music performance instruments. One decent midrange guitar used to bring $250 to $400 profit - about 25% - before box stores came along. Box stores started selling at 5 - 10% above THEIR cost. Small Mom & Pop's wholesale on a Gibson Epiphone guitar, for example - is 50% of suggested retail. Buy a dozen and you might get 50+5%. Box stores or chains of 10+ stores with larger buying power wholesale: 50+20+10% and even better special bulk truckload offers that Mom & Pop couldn't ever afford.

So, Guitar Center buys a $1000 guitar for $360 with free shipping and Mom & Pop pays $500 for the same unit plus $30 shipping to get it. Guitar Center advertises the unit for $449 or $499 and includes a $30 soft case, a set of $10 strings, a $40 tuner, and a $10 cable. Mom & Pop wholesale is higher than GC is selling it to the public for with added accessories thrown in.

Guitar Center can afford to have 500+ guitars on the wall to bedazzle visitors with glitter and let every yahoo in the world come in and beat on them daily while having new backups in the back room. Mom & Pop are better off to close their store and become an affiliate site of Guitar Center online to at least make a 5 to 7% affiliate commission.

Now for the frosting on the rotten cake. Gibson forces all dealers to order/buy $100,000 (it might be more now) worth of real Gibson guitars in January to remain a dealer. It doesn't matter if you have $100,000 worth on the walls already, you MUST buy $100,000 more or lose the dealership. If you want the Gibson Epiphone import line you have to spend $40,000 at the beginning of the year or lose it. If you want both lines you put out $140,000 or you can't have them both. What Mom & Pop single store can do that? Practically none. Same with Fender.

These companies are purposely killing off Mom & Pop dealerships so big box stores can dominate all markets and display large quantities of Gibson, Epiphone, and Fender. Lesser known companies, hoping to take advantage of that, offer Mom & Pop their off-brands with no buy in - or a very small buy-in of a half dozen units. So Mom & Pop have beautiful and well made Samick guitars from Korea (who actually make some of the Epiphones for Gibson that aren't Chinese) but they don't say Gibson or Epiphone on them. The kid forces his Soccer Mom to patronize GC to get a "real" one because his friends wouldn't respect a Samick, although it's actually built better and sounds better. Mom & Pop store loses again.

$250 profit is taken away from Mom & Pop. Then they can't even replace it with $125 profit on an off-brand. Now they decide to offer "what Guitar Center can't" to fight it out to "compete." Wrong...

Many GC stores don't give lessons. M&P make $4 per lesson for studio rental so they have to hope a kid takes 55 weekly lessons to retrieve the $250 profit they lost on one sale. Most drop out in 6 months or less though. Or they could sell the kid 750 guitar picks in a year (about 60 picks a month) at 3 for $1 which is absurd. Maybe put strings on the Guitar Center guitar for the kid at $10 per change although the kid won't buy new strings after using the ones that came with the guitar because he's too broke and the mother doesn't care. They can't sell the kid a strap or tuner either because he got those free. Pop can hope and pray that the kid will step on his guitar cable and break it just before coming to a lesson.

At my store and at my brother's store, parents of students would actually come in and sit reading or watching TV during lessons, then drive 20 miles away to Guitar Center to buy the kid a new guitar or drum set. Possibly even buying the same drum set that was in the store when they were waiting for the kid's lesson to be done.

I've had people buy a violin on eBay, bring it to me to assemble, and when I said it would cost $15 for an hour of assembly time (very cheap) on the piece of crap they bought for $35 with $25 shipping and handling, they're mad at me. On my wall was a name-brand violin that was better quality with a very good hard case for $69 completely assembled, tuned, and warrantied.

People go to the box store, or online predator store, to buy but go to the local Mom & Pop store to talk and learn about what they want first, show it proudly at M&P's store after purchase, and expect free support even though buying elsewhere. They aren't your friend when buying but expect you to be their non-profitable friend before and afterward as you stand there with a smile letting the overhead eat you up and all big ticket item sales going to box stores, multi-store large chains, and the Internet.

I wouldn't ever own a retail store again, in any field of endeavor, if it was the last thing in the world I could do.

Jessie Loc: SW Texas

Saw the same in San Angelo texas! Wouldn't want one just taken off display.

dcampbell52 Loc: Clearwater Fl

On that part, I completely agree with you. Retail, now is terrible. I do get irritated with people bashing Walmart as the treat evil and then touting Target or Kmart as being good. Walmart under Sam and Helen Walton, was pretty good. Sure, you had districts and regions that were subject to the personalities of the Regional or District Manager and often times had toe be reigned in my Corporate, but more often than not, the company strove to do the right thing and the customer almost always got more than they bargained for. After Helen and Sam passed, the Walton family had their own business interests (one was a Wall Street Investment lawyer, a couple of doctors, etc.) and didn't take a direct hand in running the company. Walmart, now, is more concerned with squeezing the last 1/2 cent of profit out of a sale than the employees or the customers. But, they fit right in with Best Buy, Target, and the other major corporations. I am glad to be out of retail, and doing photography and working for myself. At least, when something goes bad, my hands aren't tied to try to set it right and if something goes right, I don't have a regional guy out there to mess it up and steer it wrong... lol

sirlensalot Loc: Arizona

It's the combination of factors, most already mentioned. Customer confidence in product reliability these days seems to be based on posted reviews by sellers. Who really knows how many are written by someone associated with the manufacturer? There are fewer places to rely on in store sales staff for product knowledge no matter the product. When customers do find such a business, they use the businesses only for that purpose, then buy online. When the last of those businesses are gone, we are left with internet, big box stores, and warehouse sellers. With almost everything associated with photography built in Asia and to a much lesser degree Europe, they remain as eager to sell to us as we are to buy. I find it interesting that for a country known for technology and innovation, we seemed to have have raised the white flag when it comes to so many products, photography included.