6.12. SR 10-18-1999 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Chapter 10 Page 16 of25 . responses which provide comments and suggestions on how to cope and prepare for the survival of the small retailer. The categories were grouped by state returns and indicated the types of product lines or services provided by the respondents. Chapter IV revealed the depths of fear and discouragement of the small retailers who were desperately concerned with their chances of survival in the face of mega-retail discount chain competition of other powerful retail chains. The narrative comments and quotes in Chapter IV have been compiled from retailers resportding to the 6,000 questionnaires sent by the author in 1994 to firms in Pennsylvania, California, New York, and Illinois. They represented all of the subjective responses to the completed questionnaires returned which were about 10% of the original addressees. . Part I of Chapter IV was a response to the excellent book authored by Taylor and Archer. Our staff recognizes this serious work as well meaning -- but finds the "Ten Suggested Strategies to Survive" almost impossible to implement at the current stage of frustration, retail failure and stagnation. These small firms simply do not have the financial resources, staff or leadership to snap back in the ways suggested by Taylor and Archer. Were there a reason to start a new business with more than adequate management experience and venture capital, their "Ten Strategies to Survive" would be both helpful and essential. It is possible that some individual retailers might survive in the face of "Big Boxes" by following Taylor and Archer's "Ten Commandments" or strategies. However, for the most part, the dying breed of "Main Street" merchants require external and enormous help from their local, state and federal governments as well as specialized agencies such as zoning boards, planning commissions and community development authorities who are prepared to provide incentives and subsidies to small retailers currently available to [he mega-retail discount chains who generally build their "Big Boxes" on tormer agricultural or industrial land. For example, a mega-retail discount chain store is given the right to retain sales taxes collected for a given number of years in order to help finance construction of and debt service for the "Big Box." As small retailers close, the sales taxes they formerly collected are.no longer available to local government. These entrepreneurial subsidies and dozens of other incentives as well as tax abatements are not generally available ~o the small retail merchant. Taylor and Archer are among those writers and journalists who attribute the failure of the traditional "Main Street" retailer to other causes than the price competition ofthe mega-retail discount chains. Taylor and Archer authored a provocative and interesting volume which appears well meaning in identifying ten survival strategies to enable the small retailer to compete more effectively with a giant Wal-Mart or other mega-chain retailers. Their book, published in 1994, Up Against The Wal-Marts (How Your Business Can Prosper in the Shadow of the Retail Giants, was first cited in Chapter IV. One cannot argue with time honored principles taught at the nation's illustrious business schools, i.e., Wharton, Harvard, Stanford - but these schools prescriptions are far away from the financial constraints of small businesses. Those principles being such as "satisfy your customers"; "study the success of others"; "gather and analyze management information regularly"; "sharpen your marketing skills"; "increase the customers perception of value"; "position your business uniquely"; "eliminate waste"; "find something to improve every day," for example, the Kaizen, Japanese method of incremental improvement; "embrace change with a positive attitude"; and pull the trigger and start the battle. " . The writer has visited many strip centers, "Main Streets" and malls, in number of states and has http://www.shilsreport.org/ chap 1 O.html 10/6/99