Well don't come crying to us when you can no longer stop on your way home from work to buy groceries, a box of nails, beer or whatever else you enjoy shopping for locally. I don't agree with buy, try and return mentaliity be it cameras, clothing or books.
I don't agree with try-and-return mentality either. I just truthfully pointed out that online stores with great return policies experience people "trying before they buy" just like B&M stores do.
Borders did move with the times, online sales, ebooks, ebook readers, liberal return policies, but the browse and not buy, I'll get it cheaper elsewhere folks drove them out of business.
Sounds like Borders needed to get with the times long before they tried to, especially with all of their stores out there sucking them dry. You can't sit and watch progress, then decide at the last minute that you want to get with the program after years of old business practices.
I have patronized my local B&M photo store and saw them move with the times to the point of doing online photo processing from digital files emailed to them and offering an inhouse photo studio that could be rented by the hour. they routinely offered to try and match online prices and to order whatever you wanted, without penalty if after trying it you changed your mind. When they closed, so did a good quality local processing lab.
In areas that I've lived, you can't run a business doing "online photo processing from digital files" (most people couldn't care less about that offering nor studio rentals) + offering a small selection of cheap camera equipment. You have to offer what people want to buy at a competitive price and high profit stuff that people are willing to buy at your price point which must be comparable, or reasonable in the minds of the buyer.
Online photo processing from digital files isn't exactly "moving with the times", that's merely an ancillary offering that most people shooting digital will never use.
How many camera stores in your area offer 24/7 ordering and competitive prices that are w/in a few bucks of B&H or cheaper? Don't say cheaper can't be done, because I've found Cameta Camera to be cheaper than B&H on many occasions; they have a great return policy, offer a nice selection of products that the avid hobbyist or professional might be interested in buying. Non in my area.
When Border's closed my daughter, her husband aqnd her best friend were all phased out of jobs.
I'm truly sorry to hear that, along with others that are out of work.
This entire trend is too close to what happens to local economies when jobs go overseas, or south of the border. My home state of Rhode Island went into a deep economic decline when NAFTA happened. Suddenly the entire jewelry industry, RI's largest economic factor at the time, cllosed their factories and moved operations to Mexico.
Hmmm.. WHY did they go overseas specifically? That's the answer...it's not just NAFTA that's at play here. NAFTA is often a scape goat for tax-the-hell-out-of-our-local businesses right here at home for years. I firmly believe that I should be able to run my business how I want to without the U.S., State Gov., or a Union telling me that I have to pay someone $20hr to sweep the floor. There's so much business expense and strangling going on in this country between the Fed and local govts, that it's not even funny. Take that element out of the equation, and you'll see a significant number of businesses back on U.S. soil. When I lived in New Orleans you'd see the UPS truck on Canal street with a wad of parking tickets under the windshield wiper- We all know that the UPS truck isn't stopping for tea, and will be underway in a matter of minutes, but the city saw fit to fine the stew out of the truck(s) for "parking" on the side of the street as if the UPS guy was suppose to pick the truck up, fold it, and put it in his pocket for each delivery on the busy street. That's one example, but
administrative costs are easily negated by
moving a business away from the governments (local/fed) that financially **** them, who typically squander a large % of the taxes collected... but that's another thread right?
So enjoy moving with the times and living your online world the next time you want to buy tires for your car and can't find them locally
Where have you been for the last 25 years? I started buying Z-rated tires over the telephone back in the 80's (back when I drove faster than I should), because there wasn't a market "locally" worth keeping them in stock. What you're whining about is the same thing people were whining about during the 60's, 70's, 80's, 90's... when cars were being painted with machines. Machines started sorting mail, tomatoes, freight; replacing farm hands and other manual labor. You're singing the same song that's been sung for decades.
Guess we should tell our Fed Gov., to move backwards and hire thousands of people to manually print, sort, stock, and distribute publications as opposed to saving paper and resources and having people pull PDFs from a single web site right?
Offer me something in your store that I find "special"... something that moves me and entices me to buy. A lot of stores do that! ... but a book store offering the same edu. book that I can get on my iPad for far less from a dedicated site with little overhead doesn't cut it.
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Teila K. Day
store in Zanesville, OH and expect to survive on sales, rentals, and studio space. By the same token, you can't operate a camera store that offers only L'cheapo stuff and expect to be able to pay $6,500 monthly rent on a building, taxes, payroll, insurance, etc... it just doesn't make sense unless you have a constant flow of casual shooters buying from your store.
