The other day I was in my local Staples store, looking at a very attractive organizer case that I wanted to give someone as a gift. It was listed on the shelf for $60. It was a little expensive but I thought, okay, I will get this because it is a nice case. I waited in line and when I got to the cashier I was told it was not $60 but actually $140. I was staggered by this and, embarrassed, I decided not to buy it. When I put it back on the shelf, I pointed out to the clerk that it was wrongly marked as $60. The clerk just shrugged and said, “Yeah well I guess someone just put the wrong price on it.”
It didn’t matter to the clerk or anyone in the store, for that matter, that the price continued to sit there wrongly marked. This store is too big to care. This is not a little stationery store on the street, it is a mega store that sells all kinds of paper, calculators, computers, office furniture and virtually anything else you might want for your business. It’s huge.
It occurs to me that we are now at a point where everything is now a big store. Not a monopoly but rather an oligopoly. That’s a new word for me. It means a small group of companies that do almost all the business that there is in a certain industry or retail market.
For example, there are very few, if any, small clothing stores around anymore. They are all major marketing chains. Do you remember when there used to be small tailor shops around? They are almost all gone. I remember a time when there were small shoe stores in every corner plaza in the suburbs or on every street. Now they are all big box, mega-walking world stores.
Today everything seems to be an oligopoly. There are no more family restaurants. They have been replaced with chains of McDonald’s, Burger King, The Keg and a few others. There don’t seem to be very many corner drug stores anymore where the pharmacist would know your name. There aren’t too many local bake shops where they actually bake the pies in the back that they were selling in the front. Neighbourhood hardware stores are now part of a limited number of big chains.
The point is that the days of a one-person business are gone. It’s all slick now with stuff put on the shelf, picked up and sold without the assistance of anyone. We want stuff cheap today. Quick and easy. If it doesn’t work we want to call somebody to tear a strip off them for our stuff getting messed up. How come my cable doesn’t work? You are a bad person, make it work right now or else I am going to scream louder!
Today we are left with oligopolies that have stopped caring because one person screaming does not make an impact on the profits from the masses. We have only ourselves to blame because we wanted everything cheap. We wanted to eliminate the middle man, get it wholesale, find a deal. No more shopping at Eaton’s with the nice clerk who is pleased to talk to us about our Aunt Martha and the kind of perfume we want to buy for her. Now we go to the dollar stores and if you don’t see it, we don’t have it so get out because we don’t have time to discuss it with you.
There just aren’t any businesses left in this country that provide personal services. Even the family farm is gone. Nobody gives real caring services for customers anymore. They are all gone.
All except for one. It seems to me that real estate brokers and sales representatives are now the last people willing to provide services from days gone by when people came to the house and sat at the dining room table to talk to you. What you want, what you need and what you would like to do are still important to a Realtor. This is the last business person left who truly wants to listen to your concerns, your problems and talk to you about a solution to get you what you want.
Even this last service is evolving today with do-it-yourself kits and competitive rates that sacrifice the personal services Realtors are famous for. New selling methods are emerging to help you get the product (your house) on the shelf and out the door. I am not sure if it is a good thing or not. I worry about the consequences and who is pushing all this forward.
Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email [email protected].
