Right in the centre - Keeping it local

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Published on Friday, February 13, 2015

By Ken Waddell

In my travels around western Manitoba over the years, I have been often struck by the ability of some merchants to survive and thrive in what has to be a very tough market. I was in a store this past weekend and it was quite amazing. It was a hardware store in a small town. It wasn’t in my usual travel area so I hadn’t been in it for quite a while. Only one staff person in the whole place and two huge floors of product.

The one staff person shows that keeping staff costs to a minimum is one way to survive, but the extent and quality of the stock was also quite amazing. In contrast, we all know of stores that are scantily stocked and even more that have gone out of business. So what’s the difference?

Successful stores often make the transition from first generation owner to second generation and the one I saw last weekend appears to have done that. But that’s not the whole answer. The original owner has used old buildings, kept them in fairly good shape and not over-extended his building and repairs budget. It helps that some of the supplies and materials come from their own store but even still, you can see how growth has been modest and steady.

Over and above the other signs of success, and in spite of the low staffing levels, the owners have always been “on the floor”, visible in the business and that’s very important. Customers want to see the owner, or the manager, and they want to see them out front and available.

Keeping the right stock and the right amount of stock is important. It has to be a constant headache for an owner to know what to stock and how much. Placing weekly orders is the backbone of a small business in a small town.

So how important is it to have a wide range of services in a small town? It’s life or death for communities. All a person has to do is look at an old map of south-western Manitoba and see what used to be and what is no more. It’s a long sad story of de-population, reduction of services, farm amalgamation and government neglect. It’s not likely to change, at least not if one is waiting for help from the senior levels of government or from the corporate world.

We can and should be thankful for all our local business people and we should be especially  appreciative of those who try hard every day to meet our needs.

So what can we, as customers, do to help? One thing is to plan ahead. If you know you are going to need 10 gallons of paint, you might have to give the store a heads up. Maybe they will have 10 cans of paint, but maybe they have to order. Plan ahead. We can also make sure we actually check out our local suppliers first and maybe we can be just a bit less fussy about selection too.

Today’s consumers are spoiled beyond belief and perhaps, in order to keep our business local, we might have to compromise just a touch.

As local communities, we have to look at every possible way to grow and preserve our communities. It looks like the easy way is to shop on-line, to drive to a bigger centre and to make the quick purchase. Yes, it works, but how many of us today want to see another dead town? There’s plenty of those to go around already without making more.