Topic: Save your environmental economic cycle - page 8. (Read 1533 times)

If local stores want to sell, they have to offer competitive prices compared to the online stores. But maybe they can't, because they purchase from online stores to sell more expensive in the local community...

So I guess the local stores aren't even necessary at this point of modern society anymore. Those entrepreneurs should look for alternative ways of making money.

Moreover, when purchasing online we have access to a wider variety of products we wouldn't have access shopping locally.

On the other hand, there are exceptions of local stores. Some of them are very traditional and offer goods you can't find so easily on the internet. I believe these ones are relics which should be preserved by locals.

The weird thing about where I live is that online stores have higher price in our culture because it means they are providing an extra service. Yes I know that if you go to a store and buy something, the store would have to pay rent and salaries and bills etc etc, whereas if it's just a warehouse, it's cheaper because instead of 20 stores and 200 workers, they could have 1 warehouse and 10 workers and they could reach out to everyone.

However, they are saying between shipping and providing you with sizes (if you buy a clothing and it's too small, you can send it back and get a bigger size) and you not being needed to leave your house and all, these are all extra services instead of you leaving house and going to a store and trying and buying and coming back, so they charge higher for online stores.

That's the point, we look for the best price to save as much as possible in a difficult situation like this. It's not that we don't think about other people, but it's the situation that makes us do things that don't support the economy around us, let's say.
Merchants can compete and attract consumers to buy from them, but they must have something to offer us and give reasons why we should buy their wares, such as more affordable prices for example. Because what I see now is that consumers like me are looking for something that is cheap and of the same quality. Logically, people will prefer cheaper ones with the same quality comparison.

The fact is people will buy products where they can get it cheaper so the retailers has to sell for competitive price if they want to survive or else they will lose their customers. Grocery like products will become cheaper when the stores buy it as bulk that is why superstores can able to sell it cheaper than a normal store so all the small stores had to bring some kind of innovative ideas to deal with it or else in future only super markets can survive.

Okay, maybe most people complain about conventional stores because the prices offered are higher than the prices offered by online stores, it's natural for you to be in a situation like now, economic turmoil occurred in various industrial sectors and was accompanied by inflation. definitely looking for the best price to save money in the current circumstances.
After I read the book a few days ago, it turned out that it is normal for a business to be disrupted by new innovations and if for business people to be unable to balance or adapt to changing times.

I always try to buy local food and local products, but that's expensive, especially food that doesn't naturally grow here. And i cant ask others to do so, because poor people have less choices on what they support with their money, especially now when cost of food has doubled in few months, cost of electricity is sky high and everything is up but crypto prices .

A lot of people are living from hand to mouth and wouldn't survive without charities. So not only local businesses are suffering, and they are suffering for a reason.

This, besides the difference in the price is not small at all, I went to a mall recently and I had recently bought a product online and when I checked the price at which the same product was being sold at the mall I was surprised to find that it was 400% higher, now most likely this is not very common however it is obvious retail vendors will sell for a higher price than what you can find online, and with the economic situation being what it is and money being scarce customers are not going to be willing to pay such a high price for the same product.

Small businesses are having a hard time surviving because of the economic difficulties that we're experiencing. Local businesses hooe relies on local consumers so we should prioritize buying their products over huge and well-established businesses because they're the ones who need our help.
They can't compete with huge grocery stores but supporting them wi also be beneficial to us since they offer cheaper yet quality products. If we'll prioritize local merchants, we could help them survive and we could also support our local products which are good for our local economy as well.

COVID lockdowns/restrictions decimated small businesses to the point they're out of business and the only options are large retailers with e-commerce platforms that can undercut any local businesses that survived the pandemic. I'm a fan of supporting local business, but it's hard to tell people that they should pay higher prices for goods for the sake of supporting locals in an economy like this.

Online shopping and physical stores are both directly or indirectly part of the economy. Most physical stores these days also have their own online market for customers that are far away and cannot drive down to the physical store, and even many of the people who sell commodities online are into drop shipping, they sell to customers directly from the manufacterers because they cannot affort to rent a physical store. Imo both the large and small scale market are important, and people/customers would eventually have to choose what's best for them, and sellers will have to adapt.

Having said that, talking about adapting, smaller shops in street corners can adapt by understanding the sort of goods that people in their community would need from a local store without having to go to a bigger store or online, thus they can have those sort of commodities on display for fast sales, if they try to compete with the bigger online market they might be out of business sooner rather than later.

As for me, I rarely buy my stuffs online but I prefer to buy things offline because it's less hassle and less costly. When you only need basic items like 1 pc of soap and toothpaste I think it does make sense to shop it online so I don't retail stores are losing because the buyers are transferring online but there might be a different reason for it. One of it can be the inflation.

Inflations aren't caused by the online business but it caused by other things i.e the Russia-Ukraine war or the sanctioning of a certain country. Another could be the increasing interest rates. That might also affect the price of the goods, resulting for them to sky rocket as well.

I don't think that I can "save the small businesses in my town" with my money. This won't be enough.
Please don't try to mix economy with charity.
I will happily buy goods and services from the small businesses in my area, if they sell really good products and provide good services.
I won't buy their products and services, just because I feel sorry for them. The economy doesn't work that way.
What do you mean by "daily needs"? Do you mean food? Who the hell is buying food online? Do you mean services like Doordash?
I think that businesses like Doordash are using the services of local restaurants, which means that buying food from Doordash proves that you are actually supporting the local economy in your area.

We can still run both simultaneously, for our daily needs we can still use the services offered by grocery stores around the complex, such as sugar, eggs, cooking oil and all other kitchen needs. It is impossible for us to buy all these needs online because of sudden needs.
The increasingly narrow economic situation forces us to make choices to cut expenses, one way that can be done is to find places that offer low prices with good quality. Online service providers can still sell lower than offline stores, they don't need to spend money to pay rent for their business premises, only marketing skills are needed to attract consumers.

The business environment has also its own version of evolution. Those who don't adapt will perish.

You cannot blame the consumers if they prefer goods and services that are cheaper. Price is a major consideration. Those with actual stores are forced to price their goods and services in a level that would give them enough income to pay for the rent, electricity, staff, and so on. These could be avoided if what you have is an online store, so you could offer a lower price.

You cannot also blame them if they prefer to shop in the most convenient way possible. Online shopping has provided them that. They won't have to shop physically. They could do it in the comfort of their homes and wait for the goods to be delivered right to their doorstep.

Traders themselves are not insulated from change. They themselves are no longer able to ignore the power of the Internet and its effectiveness in facilitating services. Even in small towns or rural areas in poor countries, they use the Internet to shop, or at least to promote their products. Not all online sellers are honest. Many of them exploit the virtual space to carry out fraud, which is what repels people to use such services.

From where I'm at, most retailers/wholesalers' businesses are booming, and it's kind of weird because it does not align with where we currently stand globally in terms of economic situation. Perhaps it has more to do with the current season (Christmas and New Year) with which a lot of people have a lot of disposable funds and are not hesitant to spend it on basic necessities among other stuff. But come January after all festivities are over, I'm sure I'll see people being frugal as ever with what little remains of their money from the previous year. Retailers would surely have more of the market's share compared to wholesalers as people will have very little money left, and they will opt to buy items individually and would not have the chance to buy things in bulk. Due to the current pricing of everything, people are forced to do the more expensive route (without realizing it) by not buying things in bulk.

Also, online grocery shopping here isn't as popular as walking to your local grocery store/market and getting what you really need. I'd go as far as saying that we haven't caught up with the West's culture in relying almost everything online, and I think one thing that will not change any time soon is buying necessities - we will always want to buy it personally to assess the quality of the product and to see whether it's what we really need/want or not.


And in such a situation, your trade department/industry/organization should step in and freeze prices into what everyone deem to be a fair and reasonable amount. Price gouging has happened a lot of times here in the Philippines and the trade industry has stepped in countless of times when things went uncontrollably hard for the buyers to seek for items that are reasonably priced. Sometimes, it's not always the government that's the problem - for the most part it's the sellers banding together, hoarding these items and creating this imaginary demand in order to hike prices and take profits.


Which is true, but most of the time what they consider "lower prices" are not buying things in bulk and not doing the math before making the purchase. Economic uncertainties often push the public to make uninformed and unintelligent decisions that hurts them more than it can benefit them short-term.

Price matter even if it's not available as long as the price differs from the others and also, no one can expect a good quality over in online shopping but if it's a brand supplier you will get what you expected to get but the price would be less than in any local store although a bit expensive compared to the online shops.

Online shops are just retailers although the quality they are selling isn't the quality we are expecting since they aren't the supplier. You have to expect that those items you were buying through online doesn't have the high quality you were expecting since most of those products are rejects.

Sometimes buying wholesale or retail depends on where you want to buy it if it's available or how you will get less when buying wholesale. Options are open to local store or online shops.

I have to say that it's quite important to have some sort of base income or at least guarantee when you are starting an offline shop. I had a friend who started a bakery based on this, she had this amazing recipe for a cupcake but a tiny version basically and it went for like a week without refrigeration or anything, which allowed shops to sell it for a whole week as long as they do not put it on anything super hot, don't have to be cold but at least room temperature and usually it got sold quick enough.

She got an offer from a big chain, so she started it as an offline shop with the offer in hand. That way she knew what she would make in the long run and could calculate based on that. Nothing like that in your hand means you are just rolling the dice.

Thank God, even though I always buy things online, I don't forget the merchants around and sometimes I often buy them.

Indeed, nowadays most people always buy things online, for only one reason. ie cheaper. the traders who are around sometimes always increase the price, because it is for the sake of profit. because of this, many merchants went bankrupt because people preferred to buy online, and rarely bought. but I'm sure, both are equally good.

Buyers generally look for places that offer lower prices. Grocery stores and those selling other needs around the housing complex are at the point of imperfect competition or a form where there are only a few sellers, but many buyers. Sellers can determine the price of goods for any reason resulting in monopoly which can lead to injustice between sellers and buyers.
When market efficiency does not materialize and people are in a position of economic uncertainty, they will choose to find a place that can offer lower prices than the shops around them.