March 29, 2016
The Future of Retail vs. the Web & Amazon...What Say You?
Okay so here is our take on this subject...
I enjoy a stroll in a retail store as much as the next person. The challenge is finding the specific item you want and then finding it to be well made. This is where retail seems to be falling down on the job. More and more retail is focused on price and the broadest market opportunity which almost always means that quality and choice suffers.
Most of our customers are seasoned garage guys (or gals) and are not interested in $4 dollar toy siphons that look like they are intended to remove baby snot. The same is true for many of the low end solutions that retailers offer as it relates to specialty needs.
The internet has a very unique ability to find exactly what your'e looking for the first time and typically get it with less overall effort and time spent. If you can wait 2-3 days it just shows up at your door.
We've also found that retail has a substantial lag time in getting new and innovative products into the stores.
I hope that the retailers recognize at some point that customers will pay more for a tool they can count on and be proud of. I see some hope in the retailers that we deal with but in the mean time the internet is going to continue to fill the gap. Oh sure, we will still travel to the retailer to kill some time and pick up our general need products but when we want the the exact thing, we will be hitting the keyboard.
The good news is that your internet shopping affords us the opportunity to make an affordable quality product for you.
Our 2 cents. Thanks for reading.
I enjoy a stroll in a retail store as much as the next person. The challenge is finding the specific item you want and then finding it to be well made. This is where retail seems to be falling down on the job. More and more retail is focused on price and the broadest market opportunity which almost always means that quality and choice suffers.
Most of our customers are seasoned garage guys (or gals) and are not interested in $4 dollar toy siphons that look like they are intended to remove baby snot. The same is true for many of the low end solutions that retailers offer as it relates to specialty needs.
The internet has a very unique ability to find exactly what your'e looking for the first time and typically get it with less overall effort and time spent. If you can wait 2-3 days it just shows up at your door.
We've also found that retail has a substantial lag time in getting new and innovative products into the stores.
I hope that the retailers recognize at some point that customers will pay more for a tool they can count on and be proud of. I see some hope in the retailers that we deal with but in the mean time the internet is going to continue to fill the gap. Oh sure, we will still travel to the retailer to kill some time and pick up our general need products but when we want the the exact thing, we will be hitting the keyboard.
The good news is that your internet shopping affords us the opportunity to make an affordable quality product for you.
Our 2 cents. Thanks for reading.
