Wordplay: Take It Easy
by Kevin Fahy
December Issue, 2010
Our house is in a development which is adjacent to a golf course. It’s a public course, so anyone can play there and just pay as they go, but for people who play there a lot it is cheaper and more convenient to buy a season pass.
I play golf twice a week in the warmer months of the year, but I don’t buy a season pass. Each year, I tell myself that I don’t really like the course near my house, have already played it way too many times, and should make an effort to play all the beautiful courses in this beautiful part of the country. Each year, I end up playing at the course near my house somewhere between 99 and 100 percent of the time.
H.L. Mencken supposedly said “nobody ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” I don’t think that’s true, and I don’t think we’re dumb, but I do think we’re lazy. I don’t play other golf courses because it’s too much trouble. I would have to call to reserve a tee time, and would have to drive 15 minutes each way.
Last week I went to a birthday party for a 2-year-old. From professional curiosity, I was very interested in watching little Natalie tear open her presents, as I wanted to see what sort of person bought what sort of gift and, if possible, where they had bought it.
I am sorry to report that I didn’t see any gifts from independent toy stores (although some were from “specialty” manufacturers). A young couple from a metropolitan area had shopped at a large-chain toy store, an older urban couple at an upscale department store, and a few busy professional types had ordered from prominent Internet merchants. Most of the guests came from our rural part of Upstate New York and shopped at Wal-Mart.
The common conception is that Wal-Mart built its empire on pricing, but I have always maintained that it was more about convenience: close to home, easy to park, everything under one roof. Need a socket wrench, a can of dog food, a lampshade and a pair of socks at 9 p.m.? No problem.
Our local Wal-Mart was remodeled into a “Supercenter” last spring, over the vigorous objections of a very vocal citizens group. Opposition to Wal-Mart has always seemed silly to me, as if people think they can reverse the evolution of retailing, or a perceived decline in American culture, by demonizing any given merchant.
The average hourly wage paid by Wal-Mart in New York State is $12.20, which is way above average. Even in pricey New York City, where Wal-Mart has no stores, the average retail wage is only $10, and the health insurance benefit is also substantially less than what is offered by Wal-Mart.
The other bugaboo, that Wal-Mart sells a lot of merchandise made in China, is truly laughable. They sell stuff made in China? Really? I’m shocked. Shocked.
It is no more sensible to hate Wal-Mart than it is to hate the Internet (which I do, by the way). They are what they are, and you can’t know what is going on in retail without paying attention to them.
Lately Wal-Mart has been going through something of an identity crisis. Sales at established U.S. stores have declined for five consecutive quarters, and it has come to question its strategy of bigger, nicer, more middleclass-friendly facilities. Company officials now acknowledge that they alienated many of the blue-collar customers who make up their core constituency. As CEO Mike Duke put it, “Sometimes we try things, and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.”
Consistent with that philosophy, they are now about to try something else. In October, head of U.S. store business Bill Simon told the Wall Street Journal that over the next few years he is planning to test-market 30 to 40 small, urban stores modeled on their Latin American bodegas. About one-quarter the size of rural big boxes, they will feature groceries and consumer staples.
Eventually, Simon envisions hundreds of these Small-Marts scattered throughout our major cities. There was no mention made of toys, but I assume the product mix would be adjusted to accommodate the season, and they could probably eke out a few of the 50,000 square feet in a little “neighborhood market.”
It sounds like management has come around to my way of thinking on the convenience factor, but it will take quite a while to get a boat that big turned around. In the meantime they will have to make due with the behemoth boxes, and those places will succeed to the extent that they make customers’ lives easier.
Last night I drove down to our new “Supercenter” and walked around the store for a while to see how it compared to the previous incarnation. What I noticed were brighter lights, shinier floors, wider aisles, groceries, and a sign on the front door that said, “Open 24 hours.”
Groceries may be a draw, but I can’t imagine what sort of clientele the store is going to attract at 4 o’clock in the morning in a town like this one. At 8 p.m. there were maybe six of us wandering around in a place about the size of Yankee Stadium.
Of course the Internet is open all night, and that may be the flank Wal-Mart is looking to protect. To counter Amazon and the other e-tailers who have moved into household staples, Wal-Mart has just launched a new service that allows customers to order online and pick up the merchandise at one of 800 stores on the same day. They are also expanding a test in which customers in cities can order on their computers and have the product delivered free to a nearby FedEx location.
How does all this affect you? Well, I’ve been thinking about that birthday party last week, and wondering how many of the attendees would be potential customers for a good, independent specialty toy store. The answer, I think, is all of them.
First, they would have to know that you exist. Second, it would have to be easy for them to shop with you, and I mean so easy it’s stupid. And third, there is no third.
Feedback
Who Said It
To Kevin:
Just received the December issue of edplay.
First, thank you for your fair assessment of Wal-Mart. Working at a railroad museum bookstore/gift shop, Wal-Mart is not a competitor. All too often, the “hate Wal-Mart” mindset runs rampant.
The Depot Bookstore, “almost everything train,” stocks books and DVDs about railroads with a focus on the Pacific Northwest region. We also have a fair assortment of kid-related or child-age train books and DVDs, including the ever-popular Little Engine that Could, Tootle and The Caboose Who Got Loose by Bill Peet.
We don’t cover all of the nation’s railroads past and present very well. We do feature and highlight the railroads that ran into the Seattle/Tacoma region. We “fudge,” as the Sante Fe (Atchison Topeka & Sante Fe Railroad) never came to Washington State, but we carry books about the Harvey Girls [made famous by the 1946 musical starring Judy Garland, Ray Bolger and Angela Lansbury]. Ditto books about dining cars on the B&O or the Southern Pacific.
Second, visit your favorite used bookstore. Pick up a book of quotations from the 1920s or ’30s. Too many of the newer quotation books are guilty of giving credit to a person who merely repeated the statement. You should discover the same person who mounted the sign in his exhibition hall saying, “This way to the Egress” and who allegedly said, “There is a sucker born every minute,” also made the observation about underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Yes, Phineas Taylor Barnum.
By the way, it was Josh Billings, a contemporary of Mark Twain, who said, “It ain’t that people are ignorant. It is just they know so many things that just aren’t so.” As a sometimes verbiage master, misattribution irritates. The “know so many things that just aren’t so” has been attributed to Will Rogers, Harry Truman and Ronald Regan just to name a few.
Third, yes there is a third, your comment about easy to shop is very, very valid. K-Mart, Wal-Mart, Fred Meyer, Costco, et al offer convenience and free parking! Seattle, Washington, just upped the parking fees to $4 per hour. And ended the Sunday and holiday free parking.
It isn’t easy being a small, independent retailer. But if it were easy the world wouldn’t need us to do it.
J.E. Sackey, Visitor Services
Northwest Railroad Museum
Snoqualmie, Washington
www.trainmuseum.org
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James:
Thank you for the thoughtful letter in response to my editorial. I had actually seen that quote attributed to Barnum, I think by Kurt Vonnegut, but when I Googled it I came up with Mencken. That sounded more plausible to me so I just went with it, but I will accept your correction.
I hope you have continued success with your store, easy though it is not, and keep reading our magazine.
Kevin Fahy
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