Talking with independent and small business retailers and attending conference sessions at the 101st National Retail Federation Convention and Expo here in New York has reinforced to me that the core challenges of small and independent retailers are universal.
Today I have been focused on sessions for independent retailers and here are points they make which resonate with me and what I often hear from small business owners including newsagents back in Australia.
- Customers think that small businesses are more expensive than big businesses … but we are not.
- Customers more often go to small businesses when they want service … because big businesses fail in this area.
- Small business owners often complain about employees … but rarely act on this.
- Small business owners too often think that they cannot compete with big business.
There have been many other excellent points. These are they keys I want to share for the moment.
The challenge we face is to believe in ourselves enough to live to our fullest potential. This is tough, really tough … to live this every day through long hours and often in situations where we feel downtrodden and irrelevant.
I think that a key for newsagents is for us to break free of suppliers. I don’t mean that to be critical of suppliers, no there are newsagency suppliers I respect, appreciate and willingly support. There are other suppliers who leech off us, use us and abuse us. There are suppliers who dominate our businesses beyond the return they help us achieve from doing business with them.
We need to unchain our businesses from these paternalistic relationships and partner with suppliers who have a mutual commitment with us to genuine shared success.
This is our biggest challenge as a channel. It will come. Either suppliers will ditch us or we will ditch them. Folks this will certainly happen. It is a matter of time. I am certain because of changes in technology and changes in how consumers interact with core products in our channel.
Our challenge and our opportunity is to control our businesses and how they engage with, embrace and seek out the changes which will come from a business model which is free from regulation.
Let’s look at one small area of magazine supply and return data. The paternalistic nature of the treatment of newsagents feeds lack of compliance and engagement. I have no doubt about that. I have seen models here in the US which put the customer, us in this instance, in control and this drives compliance in a way which is valued by suppliers.
While it is a bit of a challenge in today’s newsagency world, imagine a newsagency channel without any supplier rules, a channel where we choose what we sell. A channel where our businesses are genuinely our businesses and under our complete control. I think that is where we are headed. It is a world where smart business people will thrive.
Let me get back to the topic, small business challenges are universal. We need to seize every opportunity to show that our prices are competitive, our customer service is better and our employees are better than big business.