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  • stdreb27

    TGT Addict
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    0   0   0
    Dec 12, 2011
    3,907
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    Corpus christi
    Sales tax is NOT why brick and mortar stores are receding.

    You can blame this and that, the other. And they’re all factors.

    But at the end of the day markets change.

    Planes took over to trains. We don’t need MCI’s long distance anymore.

    The one this a store front has going for it, is you’ve got the potential customer, face to face.
    And they’re dropping the ball. Mainly because it’s all but impossible to have good sales people at the wages the retailer can afford to pay, work the terrible hours they have to work. But crap even most doctors I’ve been to have terrible customer service. And they make good money.

    I used to live in corpus, that town doesn’t has a lot of mom & pops. It’s one of the most miserable retail experiences I’ve observed. It killed the romanticism of the mom & pop for me.

    I can count the companies that I think do a good job on customer service on 1 hand.
    Discount tire, Disney, chic-fil-a, and maybe buccees (IMO they’re maintenance, stockers and Janitors).
    Guns International
     

    benenglish

    Just Another Boomer
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    7   0   0
    Nov 22, 2011
    23,933
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    Spring
    ...it’s all but impossible to have good sales people at the wages the retailer can afford to pay, work the terrible hours they have to work. But crap even most doctors I’ve been to have terrible customer service. And they make good money.
    QFT.

    I used to give good customer service and <long illustrative story snipped> I know it was valued by my bosses. The pay was never commensurate with the service I gave, though. It was commensurate for the job I did if you read my job description but never for the level of service I provided.

    I think lots of employees just figure it's not worth it. I can't say, looking back, that I disagree with them.
     

    stdreb27

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    Dec 12, 2011
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    Corpus christi
    QFT.

    I used to give good customer service and <long illustrative story snipped> I know it was valued by my bosses. The pay was never commensurate with the service I gave, though. It was commensurate for the job I did if you read my job description but never for the level of service I provided.

    I think lots of employees just figure it's not worth it. I can't say, looking back, that I disagree with them.

    I paid for college working at Radioshack, right when they figured out they were screwed.

    I always had a line and repeat customers. The one thing they did right was pay based off sales. It was essentially commission based. Very convoluted and their employees didn’t understand it.

    They just could never line up their pay structure to reflect what their management was beating us over our heads to sell. For what it was I made great money. I was always one of the top 2-3 folks in the entire Houston market for a pay rate.

    It also was very clear to me that retail was NOT a long term career choice for me. I got sucked in for 3 years, but it was as a go between between the facilities people and the category management people.

    So I wasn’t in the retail operations cat herding as I called it.
     

    TheMailMan

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    4   0   0
    Dec 3, 2015
    3,428
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    North of Kaufman
    Way back in the early 90's I worked at a single location family owned marine store. I worked in the fishing department. I only worked there 18 months before I got a real job at the Postal Service. When I told them I was leaving the buyer begged the owner to match the hourly rate I would make at the Postal Service. Owner refused.

    Sales in the tackle department the next year were down 15%.

    I'd been selling tackle for around 12 years at that point. I knew my stuff. I knew the G. Loomis catalog forward and back. That store became the #1 seller of G. Loomis rods in about four months. After I left they dropped back to the middle of the pack.

    I won every sales/spiff contest during my time at the store. Shimano introduced the Calcutta reel during that time. They had a sales contest for a trip to the Super Bowl. The store I worked in won our region and was actually the #1 store for sales in the country. We sold 252 Calcutta reels in three months, at $250 a pop. I sold 157 of those reels. Almost every one of those reels left with a G. Loomis rod.

    I managed to do this by giving excellent customer service and knowing our products. We had business cards and I was handing out more than a box of cards a month. I was also the ONLY sales person to wear a shirt and tie every day. Some of the guys would come in to work in a tee shirt and shorts. Customers would come in and ask for me by name or want to talk to the guy who wore a tie.

    I treated EVERY customer like they were the most important customer. If you came in looking for a new rod and reel I would put a G. Loomis rod and a top of the line reel in your hands first thing. I'd take you out in the field next to the store and let you cast it. Customer service and knowledge. It was amazing how many guys walked into the store looking like they lived under a bridge who could afford to drop $500 on a rod and reel combo. But you had to SELL it to them. Explain why the NEEDED to spend that much.

    Finding that level of customer service now is almost impossible. When I worked behind the gun counter I knew exactly what I had in stock, I knew reloading forwards and back.

    Basically I lived, breathed, and ate my job.

    When I had to retire from the Postal Service my customers threw me a party. There were over 500 who showed up. Again, I gave the best customer service I could to each and every customer every day.

    I'll gladly pay extra for good customer service. Just show me where it's at. Don't be the mouth breathing basement dwelling idiot at Academy who told me that he reloads the 10mm to more than .41 Magnum power. Don't be the guy who walks past me at the gun counter three times without ever acknowledging that I'm standing there.

    If I ask if you can order a specific gun don't try to sell me something else just because you happen to have it in stock.

    Years back in 2002 I was in the market for a new truck. I went to a large Ford dealer and walked around the lot for 30 minutes while the salesmen stood inside the glass watching me. Sure, it was cold, wet, and windy that day, but ya got to meet the customer. Figuring that they didn't want to sell a truck that day I then went to a Dodge dealer. 15 seconds after I stepped on the lot a salesman was there and asked if I wanted a hot cup of coffee. Later that day I took my new Dodge by the Ford lot to show them they had lost a sale.

    1. Always greet the customer.
    2. Listen to what they say.
    3. Put the product in their hands.
     

    Ole Cowboy

    TGT Addict
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    0   0   0
    May 23, 2013
    4,061
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    17 Oaks Ranch
    OLE COWBOY: I'm 100% capitalist. I don't believe in "fair" in that sense. But we do have fairness of sorts. It was unfair that the government said this business can fail but this one is "too big to fail". That's not capitalism. Monopolies are broken up all the time in the interest of fairness but pure capitalism would let them exist. I think "fair" and "capitalism" can coexist in the meaning of "everyone has to collect/pay sales tax". That's fair and still aligned with capitalism. Level playing field, not equalized results. Kind of the concept of "equal opportunity" versus "equal outcome". Sure, you could say "well, you should just create a better online store and compete". Okay, but then the tax disparity is creating, and crushing, markets. That's not free markets at work but government policies dictating the markets. It's kind of like the concept of tariffs being contrary to free markets and capitalism. I essentially have a 7.25% tariff placed on me simply for selling locally. That's not capitalism.

    I agree with you on "price, quality, and service". But you should have to pay something for all three. All three cost money. I can be the low price if I don't have to service you (online sales) or build it cheap. I can give you top quality, but it'll cost you. I can have amazing service, but that might cost (manpower, education, master skill set, time, etc). The problem is when the customer comes in and wants the premium service at the lowest prices. Read my example of the AR handler above.

    Loved the GM story. It's rare to be able to be the best service and the best price, although those two are not mutually exclusive. I have had to evolve a bit and not beat myself up on not getting every sale. I am probably "too nice" to too many customers (once I left early to help our feed store customer for 3 hours catch her horses that got out; she now shops at Tractor Supply...gee, thanks). But sometimes you never know so I'm nice to everyone. Had a 18 year old kid come in. Very polite. Asked a bunch of questions about silencers. Had his friend and friend's girl with him. Three kids fascinated by the silencers. I talked with them. Entertained them. They were exceptionally polite. Turns out the kid is actually 28 but looks 18. He buys 7 silencers at a price of $7,000. Who knew. But if I had sized him up and acted like the typical LGS (per benenglish), I'd never have got the sale. So I tend to fume a little too much about every sale lost to the online world or every "tire kicker". I think the internet tax parity will help local businesses. Maybe the increased revenue will make them friendlier. Don't know. Never hurts to be nice. I always tell my employees that. Kindness is free. Unfortunately, payroll costs money. So nice needs to convert to sales at some point. Even the museum charges you to look at their stuff. As a side note, it's also interesting how we look at money. People will spend 5 hours price shopping something or trying to do a group buy to split up hazmat charges and in the end save about $20. That's $4/hr savings. I've finally grown out of that. I find myself more often just buying things when and where I need them. I used to spend 30 minutes trying to see if Lowe's washers were 2c cheaper than Tractor Supply. Ya, that kind of stupid. My sanity and my time are worth more than $4/hr. (as I spend an hour typing on a forum...but this is my mental decompression time...better than watching tv). I don't let my mechanic do stuff for free. I just tell him "do whatever you need to do" and I insist on paying for it. I like that kind of relationship. I feel better about it. I eat at my friends expensive restaurant and don't accept anything for free (unless they want me to try a new item to get my feedback). They need to make money too. Sometimes the relationship has value beyond price. And it helps with the sense of community, too. Granted, I can't eat online or get my truck fixed online. Well, you get the idea.

    Capitalism is the ONLY organic system of economics and its the only one that works. That said the Govt does have a role to play. They govt has to insure that the playing field but business remains COMPETITIVE. Number 1 in that role is to NEVER allow any business to get "to big to fail". Towards the end of GWBush we have a financial crises and the govt fixed the problem by pumping almost $10 TRILLION dollars into the economy keeping businesses afloat. This is one of the worst mistakes economically in America history, they should have been allowed to FAIL. Had they done so we would not have gone over $10T in debt.

    The Govt FAILED at is sole mission of insuring a competitive marketplace. Failure in a Capitalist state is good, its how the market-space cleanses itself of inefficiency, the lack of innovation and poor management practices.

    The goal is not to make a level playing field but rather to foster the competitive atmosphere and to never allow a company "to get to big to fail".

    Obama pumped $10 TRILLION into our economy over 8 years of his rein. And that economy was one of the worst we have had in our history, by any measure!

    What if for 1 year under Obama he had not collected a dime of personal or corporate income taxes, which would have only cost the govt about $3.5 Trillion, far less than $10T.

    Surprised the few have asked this question: What and Where did that $10 Trillion go, I got none of it and neither did any of us. So where did it go? The answer is easy...


    Small businesses comprise what share of the U.S. economy?

    Small businesses make up:
    99.7 percent of U.S. employer firms,

    64 percent of net new private-sector jobs,

    49.2 percent of private-sector employment,

    42.9 percent of private-sector payroll,

    46 percent of private-sector output,

    43 percent of high-tech employment,

    98 percent of firms exporting goods,
    and
    33 percent of exporting value.

    Source: U.S. Census Bureau, SUSB, CPS; International Trade Administration; Bureau of Labor Statistics, BED; Advocacy-funded research, Small Business GDP: Update 2002- 2010, www.sba.gov/advocacy/7540/42371
     

    Darkpriest667

    Actually Attends
    Lifetime Member
    Rating - 100%
    9   0   0
    Jan 13, 2017
    4,489
    96
    Jarrell TX, United States
    Way back in the early 90's I worked at a single location family owned marine store. I worked in the fishing department. I only worked there 18 months before I got a real job at the Postal Service. When I told them I was leaving the buyer begged the owner to match the hourly rate I would make at the Postal Service. Owner refused.

    Sales in the tackle department the next year were down 15%.

    I'd been selling tackle for around 12 years at that point. I knew my stuff. I knew the G. Loomis catalog forward and back. That store became the #1 seller of G. Loomis rods in about four months. After I left they dropped back to the middle of the pack.

    I won every sales/spiff contest during my time at the store. Shimano introduced the Calcutta reel during that time. They had a sales contest for a trip to the Super Bowl. The store I worked in won our region and was actually the #1 store for sales in the country. We sold 252 Calcutta reels in three months, at $250 a pop. I sold 157 of those reels. Almost every one of those reels left with a G. Loomis rod.

    I managed to do this by giving excellent customer service and knowing our products. We had business cards and I was handing out more than a box of cards a month. I was also the ONLY sales person to wear a shirt and tie every day. Some of the guys would come in to work in a tee shirt and shorts. Customers would come in and ask for me by name or want to talk to the guy who wore a tie.

    I treated EVERY customer like they were the most important customer. If you came in looking for a new rod and reel I would put a G. Loomis rod and a top of the line reel in your hands first thing. I'd take you out in the field next to the store and let you cast it. Customer service and knowledge. It was amazing how many guys walked into the store looking like they lived under a bridge who could afford to drop $500 on a rod and reel combo. But you had to SELL it to them. Explain why the NEEDED to spend that much.

    Finding that level of customer service now is almost impossible. When I worked behind the gun counter I knew exactly what I had in stock, I knew reloading forwards and back.

    Basically I lived, breathed, and ate my job.

    When I had to retire from the Postal Service my customers threw me a party. There were over 500 who showed up. Again, I gave the best customer service I could to each and every customer every day.

    I'll gladly pay extra for good customer service. Just show me where it's at. Don't be the mouth breathing basement dwelling idiot at Academy who told me that he reloads the 10mm to more than .41 Magnum power. Don't be the guy who walks past me at the gun counter three times without ever acknowledging that I'm standing there.

    If I ask if you can order a specific gun don't try to sell me something else just because you happen to have it in stock.

    Years back in 2002 I was in the market for a new truck. I went to a large Ford dealer and walked around the lot for 30 minutes while the salesmen stood inside the glass watching me. Sure, it was cold, wet, and windy that day, but ya got to meet the customer. Figuring that they didn't want to sell a truck that day I then went to a Dodge dealer. 15 seconds after I stepped on the lot a salesman was there and asked if I wanted a hot cup of coffee. Later that day I took my new Dodge by the Ford lot to show them they had lost a sale.

    1. Always greet the customer.
    2. Listen to what they say.
    3. Put the product in their hands.

    Spot on. Most of the time you aren't selling the product you're selling yourself. When I was 17 I had to get emancipated to become the youngest manager Arby's ever had (can't sign legal documents if you aren't emancipated.) For the next 18 months I raised store sales by 25% per quarter.. consecutively.. Which is a hell of a lot. 476% if you do the math by the way.. That means by the time I quit (they never would give me or any employee I had a raise except some woman that was mentally disabled they gave raises to every 3 months like clockwork) the store was making 5x as much as it was when I walked in, but they wouldn't pay the people to keep it running that way.


    Capitalism is the ONLY organic system of economics and its the only one that works. That said the Govt does have a role to play. They govt has to insure that the playing field but business remains COMPETITIVE. Number 1 in that role is to NEVER allow any business to get "to big to fail". Towards the end of GWBush we have a financial crises and the govt fixed the problem by pumping almost $10 TRILLION dollars into the economy keeping businesses afloat. This is one of the worst mistakes economically in America history, they should have been allowed to FAIL. Had they done so we would not have gone over $10T in debt.

    The Govt FAILED at is sole mission of insuring a competitive marketplace. Failure in a Capitalist state is good, its how the market-space cleanses itself of inefficiency, the lack of innovation and poor management practices.

    The goal is not to make a level playing field but rather to foster the competitive atmosphere and to never allow a company "to get to big to fail".

    Obama pumped $10 TRILLION into our economy over 8 years of his rein. And that economy was one of the worst we have had in our history, by any measure!

    What if for 1 year under Obama he had not collected a dime of personal or corporate income taxes, which would have only cost the govt about $3.5 Trillion, far less than $10T.

    Surprised the few have asked this question: What and Where did that $10 Trillion go, I got none of it and neither did any of us. So where did it go? The answer is easy...


    Small businesses comprise what share of the U.S. economy?

    Small businesses make up:
    99.7 percent of U.S. employer firms,

    64 percent of net new private-sector jobs,

    49.2 percent of private-sector employment,

    42.9 percent of private-sector payroll,

    46 percent of private-sector output,

    43 percent of high-tech employment,

    98 percent of firms exporting goods,
    and
    33 percent of exporting value.

    Source: U.S. Census Bureau, SUSB, CPS; International Trade Administration; Bureau of Labor Statistics, BED; Advocacy-funded research, Small Business GDP: Update 2002- 2010, www.sba.gov/advocacy/7540/42371

    The government's job in the free market is to make sure it remains free of monopolies and oligopolies. That's literally it's only job. It should never interfere. What happened in 09 is ridiculous and ATT is up to it's old games again.
     

    A & P

    Active Member
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    0   0   0
    Aug 4, 2014
    367
    26
    Tomball/Magnolia
    Sales tax is NOT why brick and mortar stores are receding.

    But crap even most doctors I’ve been to have terrible customer service. And they make good money.

    Distinct difference: You can't get "doctored" online. So they kind of have you. You can shop around, but it'll all be local.

    Thanks Benenglish for the link to what avvid does. As for his ham radio thing failing because of the tax burden, hang in there AV! There will be some simple, cheap service that will do it for you. If you add a tiny cost to the customer, it'll offset your burden. And if you're truly one of the only people doing it, then the customer will just have to pay your slight increase. I use Quickbooks for payroll. It takes me a few minutes and a few clicks and I've then filed and tracked all the nuanced payroll taxes. It takes me just a few more minutes to print W2s at the end of the year. It takes me longer to find my special W2 paper than it does to print and file. I'm sure in short order there will be a relatively cheap solution for you via commercial software to accommodate your tax issue. A few extra seconds per customer. A hundred dollars per year or whatever. That should be about it. I run three small companies and I pay quarterly sales tax for two and monthly for one. Takes just a few minutes once a month. So if I'm doing three companies for one state in a few minutes, doing quarterly for 50 states shouldn't be much more of a burden. The future software will probably have all your efile info and you'll just upload the batch data and viola. It's done. Don't give up the ship just yet! Unless it's an income generating hobby and not worth it, just hang in there and pass the additional cost on to the customer. That's just how it works.

    Not to be snide, but a lot of the anecdotes about customer service from the 90s and earlier are irrelevant now. Well, not totally irrelevant. But I just mean it's not the same. Sure, customer service should always be there. However, in the age of the internet, the same "selling G Loomis rods and Calcutta reels" would have often resulted in a 30 minute demo and then the guy pulls out his phone and pulls up fishingwholesale.com and asks if you'll match their online price out the door..and online there isn't sales tax so you have to eat the 8.25% too. You didn't sell during that era so it may be a bit different now.

    I started my adult life as a stock broker in 1997. Bad timing. Believe me, I know about "markets changing". In 1987, you sold $10,000 of stock and charged $300 for the trade. Regular people had to use brokers and pay the fees. Loaded funds paid 5%. By the time I was a broker, eTrade was just getting launched. You could spend 30 minutes with a customer pitching a stock that you researched and they'd come back with "I'll think about it". Then, they'd call you two months later and say "Thanks for the tip! I put $20k in the stock in my Etrade account (for $10/trade) and made $10,000 in two months!! What else do you have??" That was the beginning of the end of the retail stockbrokers. Now there are investment advisors that charge percent of assets under management. It's just the evolution of the industry. Blockbuster ran off the mom and pop video stores...and then it fell to Netflix and Redbox. I get market forces. The obscure movie recommendations from the experienced video clerk got replaced by Netflix recommendations and google searches.

    So, will the LGS disappear because of cheaper online offerings? Sales tax parity might slow that down a bit but it might still be inevitable. If customer service sucks, parking sucks, hours suck, selection sucks, etc., and with sales tax being a non-issue, people will probably still buy online and put the LGSs out of existence. Maybe only LGSs with ranges will persist since you can't shoot online or rent a gun online. That experience, like doctoring, can't ever be googled away.

    One final funny thing is that occasionally I'll have a guy who pays cash and doesn't want to be in our system so the government can't see what he's doing. Obviously I'm not talking about buying guns, but everything else. Ammo, powder, etc. Guess that guy can't ever buy online. Online sales will always be tracked (and your information likely sold or hacked or assimilated or subpoenaed or otherwise). Most of us don't care. Some do. But not enough to keep LGSs alive by themselves.
     

    Ole Cowboy

    TGT Addict
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    0   0   0
    May 23, 2013
    4,061
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    17 Oaks Ranch
    Spot on. Most of the time you aren't selling the product you're selling yourself. When I was 17 I had to get emancipated to become the youngest manager Arby's ever had (can't sign legal documents if you aren't emancipated.) For the next 18 months I raised store sales by 25% per quarter.. consecutively.. Which is a hell of a lot. 476% if you do the math by the way.. That means by the time I quit (they never would give me or any employee I had a raise except some woman that was mentally disabled they gave raises to every 3 months like clockwork) the store was making 5x as much as it was when I walked in, but they wouldn't pay the people to keep it running that way.




    The government's job in the free market is to make sure it remains free of monopolies and oligopolies. That's literally it's only job. It should never interfere. What happened in 09 is ridiculous and ATT is up to it's old games again.
    That is an absolute BINGO, which is exactly what I said. When the govt allowed companies to grow to the point they because to big to fail, which I don't is the case at all, no such thing as to big to fail, just that the splash is a bit larger.

    Had GM and Chrysler been allow to fail, GM would be where it mostly is today, Caddy, Buick, Chevy. I suspect that GM would be Caddy and Chev if it rose from the ashes. Corvette would be sold off and fly on its on.

    Chrysler would struggle, holding on to Dodge Trucks, maybe selling off Jeep like GM/Chevy sold off Corvette.

    GM/Chevy and Chrysler both have tried to kill off there most profitable lines, Corvette and Jeep Wrangler. In fact When MB owned Chrysler Jeep nearly went on the block, MB saw not need.

    So here is the issue: What color is your glasses? Corvette/Jeep are massively profitable. How much? When Corvettes were selling around $50k, the cost when it rolled out the door of the assembly line was less than $19,000 bucks. I was a consultant at one of the Big 8 Accounting firms and we were responsible for the Corvette audits.

    Having driven Jeep since the 60's I can tell you today a right at $50k Jeep prob cost less than $20k to Jeep when it hits the dealers floor.

    But in both cases above, production numbers are VERY low, extremely so, in fact 2017 Corvette sold about 33k units and Jeep sold 190k, even added together it does not make a dent in total car sales for 2017 of 17 MILLION in the US and that is subtracting Corvette/Jeep sales.

    When the CPA's and bean counters look at these 2 brands and what they contribute to the bottom line in $ sales they want to kill them off.

    Point being never put a bean counter in charge of your company, they will usually run it into the ground, seen it too many times in my career as a Mgt/IT Consultant. They see the world thru the lens of gross profits, not unit profits...
     

    Ole Cowboy

    TGT Addict
    Rating - 0%
    0   0   0
    May 23, 2013
    4,061
    96
    17 Oaks Ranch
    Distinct difference: You can't get "doctored" online. So they kind of have you. You can shop around, but it'll all be local.

    Thanks Benenglish for the link to what avvid does. As for his ham radio thing failing because of the tax burden, hang in there AV! There will be some simple, cheap service that will do it for you. If you add a tiny cost to the customer, it'll offset your burden. And if you're truly one of the only people doing it, then the customer will just have to pay your slight increase. I use Quickbooks for payroll. It takes me a few minutes and a few clicks and I've then filed and tracked all the nuanced payroll taxes. It takes me just a few more minutes to print W2s at the end of the year. It takes me longer to find my special W2 paper than it does to print and file. I'm sure in short order there will be a relatively cheap solution for you via commercial software to accommodate your tax issue. A few extra seconds per customer. A hundred dollars per year or whatever. That should be about it. I run three small companies and I pay quarterly sales tax for two and monthly for one. Takes just a few minutes once a month. So if I'm doing three companies for one state in a few minutes, doing quarterly for 50 states shouldn't be much more of a burden. The future software will probably have all your efile info and you'll just upload the batch data and viola. It's done. Don't give up the ship just yet! Unless it's an income generating hobby and not worth it, just hang in there and pass the additional cost on to the customer. That's just how it works.

    Not to be snide, but a lot of the anecdotes about customer service from the 90s and earlier are irrelevant now. Well, not totally irrelevant. But I just mean it's not the same. Sure, customer service should always be there. However, in the age of the internet, the same "selling G Loomis rods and Calcutta reels" would have often resulted in a 30 minute demo and then the guy pulls out his phone and pulls up fishingwholesale.com and asks if you'll match their online price out the door..and online there isn't sales tax so you have to eat the 8.25% too. You didn't sell during that era so it may be a bit different now.

    I started my adult life as a stock broker in 1997. Bad timing. Believe me, I know about "markets changing". In 1987, you sold $10,000 of stock and charged $300 for the trade. Regular people had to use brokers and pay the fees. Loaded funds paid 5%. By the time I was a broker, eTrade was just getting launched. You could spend 30 minutes with a customer pitching a stock that you researched and they'd come back with "I'll think about it". Then, they'd call you two months later and say "Thanks for the tip! I put $20k in the stock in my Etrade account (for $10/trade) and made $10,000 in two months!! What else do you have??" That was the beginning of the end of the retail stockbrokers. Now there are investment advisors that charge percent of assets under management. It's just the evolution of the industry. Blockbuster ran off the mom and pop video stores...and then it fell to Netflix and Redbox. I get market forces. The obscure movie recommendations from the experienced video clerk got replaced by Netflix recommendations and google searches.

    So, will the LGS disappear because of cheaper online offerings? Sales tax parity might slow that down a bit but it might still be inevitable. If customer service sucks, parking sucks, hours suck, selection sucks, etc., and with sales tax being a non-issue, people will probably still buy online and put the LGSs out of existence. Maybe only LGSs with ranges will persist since you can't shoot online or rent a gun online. That experience, like doctoring, can't ever be googled away.

    One final funny thing is that occasionally I'll have a guy who pays cash and doesn't want to be in our system so the government can't see what he's doing. Obviously I'm not talking about buying guns, but everything else. Ammo, powder, etc. Guess that guy can't ever buy online. Online sales will always be tracked (and your information likely sold or hacked or assimilated or subpoenaed or otherwise). Most of us don't care. Some do. But not enough to keep LGSs alive by themselves.
    Lesson Learned:

    Way back in one of my Finance classes, my Prof was friends with Stanley Marcus, founder of Neiman Marcus. And Stanley would drop in from time to time and give us some lessons. One day he says, today I am going to tell you how NM not only did NOT go broke durning the depression, but sales and profits grew.

    He said like everyone else they were having some troubles with foks not pay their bills so the did an analysis of WHO their customers were. [If have ever shopped at NM then you know its not for the weak of heart or light of wallet.] What they discovered was many of the customer base were Farmers, Ranchers, Oil men and they all got paid differently. Farmers when crop goes to market, ranchers at cattle sales usually 2x a year and oil men quarterly. The result, NM changed it billing to match when its customers got paid.

    All this was wrapped around the primary point of the discussion being Customer Service.

    He closed out his lecture with this: I will give you 3 rules to follow and if you do will be successful! Rule 1 is Customer Service, Rule 2 is Customer Service and would anyone care to guess what rule 3 is?

    At that time in my life I owned a same company and I took what he told us and thought on it and I changed my business model and sales skyrocketed.

    Today I own a company and our motto or tag line if you will is: "Obsession with Quality - Obsession with Customer Service"

    That has served me well for over 50 years
     

    phoenix

    Active Member
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    Sep 10, 2014
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    i THINK it puts way too much extra regs on local and small business. yes the state might have a right to collect it, but in theory i wonder how on things occurring online in cyberspace is subject a tax. Also in theory at least, they could put the onus on the customer to report what they bought and then pay the tax. I am sure most people would do that. In addition you also have the issue of when someone lives in say PA and shops in Delaware ( no taxes on sales of most things except like autos) for things. The idea is the same What do they do start posting cops at the PA border and searching every car?
     

    TheDan

    deplorable malcontent scofflaw
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    8   0   0
    Nov 11, 2008
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    Austin - Rockdale
    I can count the companies that I think do a good job on customer service on 1 hand.
    Discount tire, Disney, chic-fil-a, and maybe buccees (IMO they’re maintenance, stockers and Janitors).
    I used to be a fan of Discount Tire... After several positive tire buying experiences with them, they didn't have the tire I wanted or a comparable one in stock, so I ordered online. I took the wheels off the car and carried the wheels and new tires to them. When I tell the counter dude I need tires I already have mounted, he gets the manager. Manager comes over to look at it and tell me it'll be $100 per wheel, and he had an attitude to boot. All they had to do was mount the tires... Went across the street to NTB and got it done for $28 per wheel and the people there were more friendly.

    They screwed up... I probably spend $1000 a year on tires and lots of people look to me for recomendations, too.

    The absolute best tire shop in town had been open for 40 something years. There was one guy that worked there all his life and was in his 70s. He wasn't even the owner or manager; just head tire dude. I think he passed and the owners shut it down :(


    There will be some simple, cheap service that will do it for you. ... I use Quickbooks for payroll.
    Are there any solutions that aren't anti-gun?
     
    Every Day Man
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