Survivial In The "Post-WalMart" Era?

The retail pundits have coined a new phrase.  We are now living in what they're referring to as the "post-WalMart era".  Why are they calling it that, you might wonder, as  I did. After conducting a bit of research about the subject, I discovered that WalMart just reported its seventh straight quarter of declining sales in their U.S. stores.  Same store sales for 2010 were down .8%.  Although .8% isn't a terrible number, it's the cumulative effects of seven consecutive reported losses that gives us clear signal that's all is not well with the retail giant.

Their decline has cleared the field for many other retailers, such as TJ Maxx, Target, Kohl's and Dollar Tree.  If you notice, all those names don't include any independent retailers, only corporate-owned big box stores.    How will the "decline" of WalMart affect us independents in the immediate and near future?  In my humble (or not) opinion, it won't have much of an effect on us at all.  Each one of the stores mentioned specializes in discounted merchandise.  Independent retailers don't.  As I just explained to a customer not 3 minutes ago, when she questioned our $8.99 per ream price for printer paper, we don't get the same buying price as Staples does.  We don't get corporate kickbacks or any cooperative benefits for buying products or advertising.  We don't have the benefit of large tax loopholes we can rely on to defray our costs.  What we do have going for us is the very real and tangible benefits to your community's fiscal health.  We do have the ability to help answer your questions when you have one and we have the ability to make the decision to help our local non-profits, should we be asked to.  No one at any of those corporate stores mentioned above has that ability at store level.  But does that make us a more popular destination than they are?  I'm afraid not.

The huge amount of money behind their advertisements practically guarantees them a large market share.  Independents generally don't have any way to match that budget, and most can't get anywhere near it.  The best that some of us can do in the way of marketing is on the Internet, via vehicles such as Facebook, where very often the only cost is the time & effort put into it.  If you work it right, have engaging content and make it a destination by offering something your followers deem valuable, you can gather people that may hear what you have to say.  Then, there's always the chance that they won't hear you and there's always the fact that a good percentage of  people don't use the internet.

That's what we're faced with here in Altadena.  There are many people who either don't have access to a computer or just plain refuse to have anything to do with them.  That's when word-of-mouth advertising comes in.  We try to rely on positive word-of-mouth to fill the gaps in what our internet-based marketing does, but what do you do when that can't be trusted?  Isn't that a scary situation? 

Yesterday, I had a phone call from an elderly customer, asking if we were closing.  "No", I replied, "we don't close until 6:30 p.m., ma'am". "No, no, I mean are you CLOSING....you know, going out of business?"  Oh.  That question again.  I hadn't heard it for over a year now, so it really threw me.  "I'm sorry, ma'am, but where did you hear that?" I asked.  "Oh, just around", she replies.  "We're not going out of business, ma'am, and I'd really like to know where you heard that bit of information".  "Just through the grapevine", was the elusive answer.  Sigh.  The grapevine has been quiet, like I said, for over a year now.....I thought.  Apparently I was wrong.

People don't really think when they repeat information they're not absolutely sure of.  I know I've done it in the past, but now I stop and think who I could be hurting by passing along erroneous information.  If we all just stopped a minute and thought about it, I'm sure the majority of us would stop as well.  Or better yet, if the information you're not sure about is about a place, or person, go see them.  Go there and see if it's true before passing it along and spreading rumors that might actually harm them.  People might not feel as strongly about my businesses as I do, but we all need to realize, especially in these tough economic times, that there are employees here who depend on their salaries.  Bad word-of-mouth and rumors only discourages patronage, and if we don't have enough customers buying things from us, we can't pay them.  We're not privately funded.  So please, faceless woman on the phone, or anyone else reading this, don't feed the rumor mill.  We're open, we're in business.....come in and see us!

Have a wonderful week ahead, my friends.....Passover and Easter blessings to you, and we'll be taking Easter Sunday off.  We'll talk again the week following!

Lori & Scott