i saw this image on john payne's blog and thought it deserved to be reiterated. the unbelievable spread of wal-mart has meant death to many small businesses. being a small business owner myself, the fear of this monster is truly scary. i live in a city that has TWO super wal-marts. we also live in a city with a large number of locally owned stores and we all battle this giant with every move we make.
i cannot tell you how many people bring their wal-mart bicycles to us to work on. they are poorly made and even more poorly assembled. yes, their bikes are much cheaper than ours, but when consumers buy a bike from us, they buy our knowledge, advice, maintenance, and a product that they will have for a lifetime, if they wish.
i am truly thankful to all of our customers...they have chosen to support a local business, keeping THEIR money circulating through THEIR town. because of them, we are able to put food on our table, live in a wonderful house, heat our house, raise a family, advocate a healthy lifestyle, and much more.
norman is large enough to put up a fight towards the department store giant, but what about the little towns that until just a handful of years ago thrived in the small business world? for instance, duncan, ok., the small town i graduated from, seems to have surrendered to the monster...the downtown area, which i remember being quite quaint, now looks run down and lonely. my mother-in-law's husband once owned a small business there, but once super wal-mart stomped its big foot there he had to shut her down. this is the scenario for many small businesses in that town and in many other small towns.
it saddens me and i hope to one day see a reversal of this trend and a revitalization of mom and pop shops.
1 comments:
Amen sister!! Very well said.
Post a Comment