Small Businesses Try Big New Strategies
The website Little Independent in Chicago describes itself as an an online marketplace for sale items from independent retail stores. I came across it in an article in The New York Times Sunday about what chances, if any, the “little guy” stands against big retailers like Amazon and Walmart. Lesley Tweedie, the co-owner of Roscoe Village Bikes in Chicago, introduced Little Independent. “There’s been a response from people who value a different style of shopping,” she said.
According to the American Independent Business Alliance, independent stores have tried other ideas. Third Street Books in McMinnville, Ore., rewards people for closing their Amazon accounts with 15% off one purchase and a $5 gift certificate for another day. Learning Express in Hillsborough, N.J., initiated “Cell Phone Saturday,” offering a 10% discount on any one item, “sending coupons via email and making it available via an in-store QR code for any price-scanning consumers.” Tweedie started a “Buy It Where You Try It” campaign on Twitter and Facebook to counteract shoppers trying something in her store and then openly asking if they can find it on Amazon. “I think that some people never really thought about the ethics,” she said.
It’s questionable if just being ethical and supporting the community can lure consumers in a big way. SIPA members sell information, so the local angle does not play as much—unless the information is specific to an area. But going against larger entities certainly does. We know that those entities will not cover a topic as well as a SIPA member does, but they may give it away free—even worse than the Amazon problem small retailers have—or they just may have more resources.
According to the Times, Amazon said that they are trying to help small online businesses “by allowing them to sell on Amazon, through its Marketplace program, and take advantage of Amazon’s large customer base, technology and marketing. Sellers pay a percentage of revenue in return. ‘For a lot of these small and medium businesses, this isn’t something they would be able to scale up and provide themselves,’ said Peter Faricy, general manager of Amazon Seller Services. He added that third-party sellers’ items were included in promotions like Price Check.”
Another strategy for small businesses would be to carry exclusive items that a big seller can’t. The Times article cited Powell’s Books, which “offers a subscription service through which it chooses a new book and includes an extra item like a related book or candy—personalized touches that it says big sites can’t match.” How would that translate for a SIPA member? Are any of you doing this already?
So how best can a small retailer take advantage of being small? Does customer assistance have to be more personal? Are your editors writing blogs that let your customers feel as if they are getting to know them better? And it also gives them a recognizable place to direct questions and comments. For small retailers, the prices being offered by the big-box stores may just be too low to compete with. The article points to a 19 percent jump for big online retailers in revenue over the holidays versus 2010, while at smaller online retailers growth was just 7 percent. Not a good sign.
For small publishers, price may be less of a factor than giving consumers the information they want any way they want it any time they want it. “A large number of Americans have a general suspicion of bigness in the economic world—they equate bigness with power, monopoly,” said Michael Walden, a professor who studies regional economics at North Carolina State University. So to be small and omnipresent may be ideal.
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Sometimes, with issues like the ones above,
It’s good to get a European perspective.
You can do that at:
SIPA Munich 2012, March 28-30
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in a format they demand … at a price they will pay.
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