Not to preach, not to sermonize, not to tell anyone else what to do.
BUT...
Local merchants, not of the chain variety, and I ain't mentioning any names here, need to get their scat together.
There are several things I am looking to buy, some for Christmas, some soon after.
My wife Carol and I have spent years trying, oftentimes desperately and failing in the process, to do as much business as we can locally. We try. So help me, we try. At times, we go out of our way to buy "local."
A lot of you "locals" make it really tough to do so. Your choice, of course, you make your business decisions. Just remember that the consumer makes business decisions, too. One such decision might be to pass you by, to not even consider you when making a purchase.
One of the most egregious and impossible-to-understand things you're doing is NOT HAVING A WEB PRESENCE.
How you can not have a website as we get ready to swing into 2009 is beyond me.
Here, let me give you just one example of how you snooze and lose without a site - potential customers don't even know if you're still there, still in business.
Sure, pick up the phone and call, you say. Right, easy enough, you say. Sure, jump in the truck,
drive on over, see for yourself, you say.Sorry, it's not enough in this day and age. Looking up your number other than on-line and calling isn't an option for a lot of us consumers. We want to hit a search, find your site, get your hours, see what you might have in stock, then possibly do business with you.
It's not like I have a bag of money to throw at someone here, we're not talking thousands upon thousands. Hundreds upon hundreds? Yeah, that's more like it.
If your business is such that you can afford to throw away a sale, any sale really, then you're in good shape. Congratulations, you sure don't need me.
