In article , Brenda Lewis
writes:
Some old downtowns have one
night a week that all stores are open and parking is free to encourage
business.
Yep. Our lunchtime downtown Farmer's Markets were so popular that someone had
the idea of offering a Thursday Night Market so those who work in what were
once suburbs could frequent the Farmer's Market. The stores along that street
were therefore open on Thursday nights, to catch the TNM crowd. Several of
them found that 80% of their week's sales were between 5 and 9 PM on Thursday.
And when TNM closed for the season, the storeowners nonetheless decided that
they would return to their previous 5 PM closing, because it was too much
trouble for them to be there that extra 4 hours a week.
Even proving to them with their own eyes that a few extra open hours made a
huge difference in their profits could not persuade them to stay open once the
TNM organizers no longer required it. They went right back to fussing that
extra hours meant extra pay for the workers and extra costs for lights and A/C.
And complaining that they were barely making a profit. And the next year
again during TNM season they did most of their business between 5 and 9 PM on
Thursday, and again, the very next week after the last TNM, they went back to
closing at 5 PM. I'm sorry, but it's hard to feel sorry for someone who sees
their profits increase dramatically and promptly stops doing what made them go
up.
If you can only afford to be open 7 hours a day, don't waste all of them on the
hours your employed customers are at work. Open at noon and close at 7 PM.
Between 10 AM and noon, I'm practically the only person in the store. After
the noon to 1:30 office worker lunch rush, I'm again practically the only
person in the store till the first of the government workers start getting out
at 4. Then the place is packed till they lock the doors at 5 ... preventing
those who work till 5 (i.e., the 2/3 who *don't* work for the government) from
buying anything there after work.
Then I come home to my neighborhood, where the stores also, for the most part,
close at 5 or 5:30, again preventing me from shopping there on weeknights. If
I need cough syrup, I'm not going to do without till Saturday ... I'm going to
go to the nearest store that's open weeknights.
100 years ago, most people were self-employed, which meant that they could hang
out a sign "back in 10 minutes" and zip into a nearby store before that store
closed. Now, most people punch a time clock, and can't do that. Store owners
need to change with the times, not complain because their customers no longer
live in the same century that their business practices were designed for.
If I can get the floss I need at WalMart today AND save a quarter on it, I'm
going to WalMart rather than waiting till Saturday to pay *twice* as much at
LNS. I need it now, not four days from now.
I've known too many family businesses (and been part of some of them) where it
was understood that the business had to accommodate its customers' schedule. My
extended family ran several bakeries ... people want to pick up pastries for
breakfast at 6 AM, not when it was convenient for the owner to get to the store
at 11 AM.
I understand that if I won't give the customers what they want when they want
it, they'll take their business to someone else who will. In my case, I'm not
losing sales to WalMart, or to any other major corporation -- I'm losing sales
to another one-person business. And once the client has found there's someone
who'll move heaven and earth for them, that client generally doesn't come back.
I try to be that person, even if it's inconvenient for me.
If 80% of your clientele wants you to keep your store open till 6 or 6:30 so
they can shop after work, you can just learn to eat dinner at 7:30. Or you can
guarantee yourself that that 80% of your clientele is going to start going to
the store that's open when they want to shop. It doesn't necessarily have to
be WalMart, it could be the small store the next town over whose owner is
willing to put his customers' needs ahead of his own.
--
Finished 12/14/03 -- Mermaid (Dimensions)
WIP: Angel of Autumn, Calif Sampler, Holiday Snowglobe, Guide the Hands (2d
one)
Paralegal - Writer - Editor - Researcher
http://hometown.aol.com/kmc528/KMC.html