Abstract
Following the 10 Percent Rule and staying out of the Customer Trap requires a high level of discipline and awareness. It is even harder to stand one’s ground when the conventional wisdom seems to be moving inexorably toward scale and efficiency when it comes to dealing with customers. Everyone who grew up in the 1970s—or before—can remember conversations in which people bragged about how much they paid for something. To have paid more for a product indicated that a higher-quality item had been purchased. It was a symbol of status that people would brag about. Not anymore. For many years, bragging rights have gone to the person who got a good price, a fabulous discount, a great deal.
Think outside the big box.
—Independent We Stand
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Notes
- 1.
Jose Pagliery, “Florists Now Dread Valentine’s Day,” http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/14/smallbusiness/order-flowers/ , February 14, 2013.
- 2.
Betsy Hall, “Because True Love Can’t Be Googled,” www.independentwestand.org/guest-blog-post-halls-flower-shop-because-true-love-cant-be-googled/ , accessed February 3, 2015.
- 3.
Institute for Local Self-Reliance at http://ilsr.org/ , accessed March 10, 2015.
- 4.
You can learn more about the American Independent Business Alliance at www.amiba.net accessed February 2, 2015.
- 5.
http://www.independentwestand.org/ accessed March 10, 2015.
- 6.
Jane Spencer, “Ravaged Rivers: China Pays Steep Price as Textile Exports Boom; Suppliers to US Stores Accused of Dumping Dyes to Slash their Costs,” The Wall Street Journal, August 22, 2007, p. A1.
- 7.
Li Jeng, “Beijing’s Neighbours Still Have Worst Smog in China, Despite Efforts to Tackle Air Pollution,” www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1699403/beijing-region-still-has-worst-smog-china-despite-campaign-tackle-air , February 2, 2015.
- 8.
Dan DiMicco, “We Built That,” The Wall Street Journal, (March 4, 2015), A11.
- 9.
Sources: Small Business Administration; Intuit Small Business Innovation Study; American Express OPEN Independent Retail Index; Civic Economics/American Booksellers Assoc., US Dept. of Labor.
- 10.
Interview with authors, October 25, 2014.
- 11.
The material about etailz is based on an interview of Josh Neblett that took place on November 21, 2014, and an interview with Tom Simpson that took place on January 6, 2015.
- 12.
“Jack Weil” obituary, The Economist, August 30, 2008. http://www.economist.com/node/12000749
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© 2015 Andrew R. Thomas and Timothy J. Wilkinson
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Thomas, A.R., Wilkinson, T.J. (2015). Staying Local and Independent. In: The Customer Trap. Apress, Berkeley, CA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-0385-9_10
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