Carol Schroeder, a shop owner that writes about retail, suggests in her weekly column that stores give up and let Amazon and other online entities eat their lunch. Upon reading this, I had to ask: "pardon me?"
Carol appears to be wearing a troglodyte's writer cap. Steer clear of her advice. Bridge encourages you to use the most efficient tools to get online, get found in Google, and sell.
Excerpt from Carol's column:
"...Most of us didn't go into retailing in order to handle faceless orders received by phone, or online. We became shopkeepers because we love interacting with customers, creating new displays, handling the merchandise and being a part of our local community. If being a mono channel outlet means that our sales will decline due to Internet competition, we will have to adjust our expectations — and budget — to accommodate that."
I emailed Carol and told her that I'd just add one sentence at the end of her paragraph:
"And most likely give up and go out of business."
I continued:
"You left off that key sentence. Fact: 100s of stores are closing because they don't want to do anything online—and because Amazon is doing something.
What you suggest above makes it sounds benign, like the store will make a few dollars less. If only. Being complacent and/or expecting a small adjustment in revenue is NOT going to keep your store's doors open.
2. Notice how you sent out your newsletter via email, and I read it on a web page. Email and the web have essentially killed off the entities that would print your advice newsletter 20 years ago.
Do you think that someone told the printers this back in 1995:
"If being a mono channel outlet means that our sales will decline due to Internet competition, we will have to adjust our expectations — and budget — to accommodate that."
Please go ask those printers that are out of business how it all worked out.
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To this email, I should've added:
Email providers like MailChimp and websites ate up many of the printers. Imagine if the printers had the foresight to create MailChimp or Facebook?
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Carol also says in her article:
"...there are really only two viable options: online and in-store sales. So you need to decide at some point if you want your store to be “bricks and clicks” or just plain old “bricks and mortar.” "
Bridge has watched 250 indie stores operate in both the digital and physical worlds and have both sides compliment each other. Sera Alioto, who owns Alioto's Gift Shop in Illinois, tells me often that her website is crucial to supporting her physical store.
Carol would benefit from watching our recent webinar about beating Amazon: