The Retail trade.....
If at all possible I like to support our local small businesses who are in competition with the megastores that proliferate in the retail landscape today. I think that, especially in a smaller city such as ours, it is hard for the locally owned stores to compete against the Wal-Marts, Home Depots and the Lowes of the world.
We have been planning to redo some of the flooring in the estate in advance of the upcoming nuptials, so when I saw an ad last week from a local flooring company saying that, "The holiday season is the best time to get the best prices and quickest service for all your flooring needs".....I thought, that suits our plans just fine! So off to the local merchant I went and saw some samples that would work in our home. I told the salesman that I'd fetch the bride-to-be back and we'd make a decision. This was on Tuesday. We are working with a very quick timeframe but with Thanksgiving the earliest we could return to the store was Friday, which we did. Only to find a sign that read, "Closed for the holidays, back on Monday"! Back on Monday? Don't they know that "Black Friday" following Thanksgiving is the biggest carpet and tile purchasing day of the year.
So, off to Lowe's, the megastore competition, we went where we found a very suitable carpet for 1/3rd the price of the local store [with free pad], a tile that we liked, and Jon, a salesman who worked his tail off for us. Upon hearing of our time dilemma, he suggested the carpet that we ended up buying as it was in stock and could be installed quickly. This was on Friday, and today the carpet and tile installers have already been out to measure for the job. As I was waiting for the tile man to arrive, the phone rang. It was Jon checking with me to make sure his tradesmen had been there. Now that's service!
The point of this short story is that, at least to me, service is still king, whether you are a local company or the national megastore. When you're competing for business, closing your store for five days just doesn't cut it. Quite honestly, I'm not much of a shopper arounder, and if the local store had been open on Friday, I would have probably bought their carpet and tile if they had treated me like Jon did. I wish the local merchants would learn this lesson, either that or stop complaining about the national chains. This lack of consumer awareness is a bad habit in this town.
For my large format digital image printing I have been using a big firm in Dallas to which I FTP my images. I have been trying to use a local imaging firm here for several years. I have suggested that they set up an FTP portal on their server. Not a hard thing to do, but it has not been done yet. And last year in December I finally loaded some smaller images on disks to give them a chance to print these. When I arrived at the store the sign read....."Closed two weeks for Christmas". Two stinkin' weeks? I haven't been back since.
Dispatches from Iraq update: war news must be slow in Qatar where Galloway is today. The only communique I received from Joe were two jokes, which cannot be reprinted here. More later.....
If at all possible I like to support our local small businesses who are in competition with the megastores that proliferate in the retail landscape today. I think that, especially in a smaller city such as ours, it is hard for the locally owned stores to compete against the Wal-Marts, Home Depots and the Lowes of the world.
We have been planning to redo some of the flooring in the estate in advance of the upcoming nuptials, so when I saw an ad last week from a local flooring company saying that, "The holiday season is the best time to get the best prices and quickest service for all your flooring needs".....I thought, that suits our plans just fine! So off to the local merchant I went and saw some samples that would work in our home. I told the salesman that I'd fetch the bride-to-be back and we'd make a decision. This was on Tuesday. We are working with a very quick timeframe but with Thanksgiving the earliest we could return to the store was Friday, which we did. Only to find a sign that read, "Closed for the holidays, back on Monday"! Back on Monday? Don't they know that "Black Friday" following Thanksgiving is the biggest carpet and tile purchasing day of the year.
So, off to Lowe's, the megastore competition, we went where we found a very suitable carpet for 1/3rd the price of the local store [with free pad], a tile that we liked, and Jon, a salesman who worked his tail off for us. Upon hearing of our time dilemma, he suggested the carpet that we ended up buying as it was in stock and could be installed quickly. This was on Friday, and today the carpet and tile installers have already been out to measure for the job. As I was waiting for the tile man to arrive, the phone rang. It was Jon checking with me to make sure his tradesmen had been there. Now that's service!
The point of this short story is that, at least to me, service is still king, whether you are a local company or the national megastore. When you're competing for business, closing your store for five days just doesn't cut it. Quite honestly, I'm not much of a shopper arounder, and if the local store had been open on Friday, I would have probably bought their carpet and tile if they had treated me like Jon did. I wish the local merchants would learn this lesson, either that or stop complaining about the national chains. This lack of consumer awareness is a bad habit in this town.
For my large format digital image printing I have been using a big firm in Dallas to which I FTP my images. I have been trying to use a local imaging firm here for several years. I have suggested that they set up an FTP portal on their server. Not a hard thing to do, but it has not been done yet. And last year in December I finally loaded some smaller images on disks to give them a chance to print these. When I arrived at the store the sign read....."Closed two weeks for Christmas". Two stinkin' weeks? I haven't been back since.
Dispatches from Iraq update: war news must be slow in Qatar where Galloway is today. The only communique I received from Joe were two jokes, which cannot be reprinted here. More later.....
