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Vitality One Business At A Time
I've tried to stay out of the heated discussion of the Community Vitality Act ("CVA"), the ordinance proposed to restrict chain and/or formula businesses. Many of its Boulder Independent Business Alliance proponents are friends of mine; they patronize my business, I theirs.
However, not being good at staying out of things... there are a few ideas not mentioned thus far in the debate which need to be introduced.
One is the internet. The Daily Camera last month ran two solid pages of letters arguing the CVA, and not one included the words "internet" or "web."
If you are a small business and worried about competition from big business, the presence of more Banana Republics or Cheesecake Factories should be the least of your worries. Web marketing and access are now ubiquitous, especially in tech-savvy Boulder.
In addition to the normal advantages of bigness -- capital, buying power, low margins, discounting for market share, advertising, occasional governmental incentives -- the web now supplies just about everything a Boulderite would like to buy... tax free. A massage, a car wash, and lunch are safe from web depredation, but not much else.
The second element missing from the CVA debate is a discussion of the strengths inherent in smallness -- strengths so powerful that no small, specialty retailer, restauranteur, or service provider should fear big, chain, formula, or web competitors.
Small business strengths?
First, speed. A small businessperson need not consult with six layers of management, a board of directors, accountants, and investment bankers before deciding to sell trendy new blue socks instead of black ones.
Second, freedom from ego. No specialty businessperson has to obey somebody three layers up "Because I said so: it's my plan, so follow it."
Third, adaptability. Any small business is closer to its customers' needs than a sales manager in North Carolina. If the goods you bought aren't selling, mark 'em down, blow 'em out; re-figure what the customer wants to buy, and sell that.
To get the most from these advantages, the small-business merchant must pay attention. If we fail to act quickly, or forget to keep our own egos under control, or become too comfortable to search for innovation, we cancel our advantages altogether.
As long as I'm annoying friends, let's name some names.
Before falling in among financial philistines, from 1973-1978 I was the Merchandise Manager for Holubar Mountaineering, a Boulder-native specialty retail chain and catalog house which manufactured possibly the best down-insulated clothing ever made. Holubar was bought by Johnson Wax, a well-intended and well-managed giant whose last small-business instincts expired in the 1800's.
Five years of all the benefits of bigness, and Holubar was no more.
In a similar vein, the Saab used to be Colorado's up-scale winter-friendly favorite. No longer: the 1990s' nifty, agile Volvos have replaced the frumpmobile of Volvos past, and also replaced the Saab. What happened? General Motors bought Saab.
No giant bought the dear, departed New York Delicatessen. It failed all by itself, forgetting to offer a new product or concept from the moment it hung the Levy's Jewish Rye poster (rye-loving Native American in tall black hat) twenty-five years ago. I miss the leather shop across the Mall from the Deli, though it carried the same wallets, belts, moccasins, boots, and jackets since tie-dye was big.
A certain downtown Boulder bookstore might well replace its current special order system: "It will take four to six weeks to get it from the publisher... and you have to take the book." Consider this replacement in the basement: a bright kid with a computer (red-headed Stuart from Ameritrade?) ready to help customers to order any book not in the store stock... from Amazon.
"But then they'll buy from Amazon...!"
Don't fear the web; satisfy the customer. If your customers are bright enough to buy books, then they already know there is an internet and an Amazon. They also like to go to bookstores to buy books -- good bookstores, not just discounters.
At a minimum I and all the other aging 'Boomers will often buy in the store, gratefully, because we have to hold the book to see if the print is big enough.
Excellent, thriving merchants? How about Peppercorn? It's products are hardly unique, but the merchandising is magnificent. Or The Chocolate Factory, doing one thing very well. Also, check out the superb (prior!) operators of Haagen Dazs, now moved around the corner as founders of Barbed Wire Cowboy. And, Art Source International, embracing the web in splendid click n' brick style.
Mortgages? My racket is no protected class. Colorado is a happy hunting ground, one of the few states requiring no license or capital to be a lender, whether big, small, local, national, brick, click, phone, franchise, affinity group, or relocation company.
Successful work as a specialty merchant brings many rewards, some of them monetary. However, it's not supposed to be easy -- let alone protected.
If it was easy, everyone would do it.
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