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Businesses closing in Hayward

tsaw

tsaw

New member
On Monday of this week, KFC closed it's doors in Hayward. KFC has been in Hayward since the seventies.
Then, last Tuesday, I went to my favorite bar for a six pack of Miller Lite after 9:00 pm. I found out that the lease was defaulted on. (non payment) The owners were going to be running it. Then today, I found out that Pamida was closing at the end of the year. Pamida in Wisconsin is a big store like a K-mart. So I got thinking of how many businesses closed this year.
I came up with this list:

Northwoods landscaping
Hayward trailer and small engine
R+D rental
The Bridal Shop
Sportsmans Dreams Taxidermy
End Zone Bar and Grill
Cruze In bar
Musky Motors quick oil change
Sun Flower - organic foods store
Hayward Welding
Northland Computer

Last year:
We lost
The Chrysler car dealer
Hardees
The realestate company with the hot air balloon
Imhoff Pharmacy

:sad::sad::sad::sad::sad:

Is anyone else seeing this kind of closings where you live?
 
Quite a few small shops have closed around here. One was a local small engine shop that I bought a lot of items from. The only businesses going good are serving the gas drillers in Pa. I try hard to shop the locals so they have incentive to stay open through the tough economy.
 
Honest to GOD , I try to buy local as much as possible . Then I go in one local store and the guy is 75% higher on plumbing parts .!!! What the hell am I suppose to do ? I worked just as hard as the next guy to save my money but 75 % more is too much to spend to help save the local merchant . I ended up at Home depot .

I honestly do not under stand local merchants up here in Northern Calif . They complain that box stores our killing their sales then rape the customer when he trys to buy local . I have owned a few retail stores and we competed with the box stores just fine . I made up with the lower profit margin by increasing my sales . Why can't they do the same . Its not that hard . Its called "hussling" and getting the job done . 3 % profit is still better than no profit .
 
Al, how long ago is your experience?

There are so many big-box pushed deals with suppliers that the little guys can't get. We've all heard the stories of how Wal-Mart pushes their suppliers. Do you think they are the only ones with a big fist? All of the superstores are doing this type of practice.

In my business the big guy that has 70% of the market share not only has sweetheart deals with the insurance companies (who pay the bills) that we couldn't get or couldn't afford to offer if we could, they have their own supply chains that undercut our suppliers pricing by 50% or more.

This is happening all over. I can't say that paying 75% premium is justifiable or even sustainable. I'm just saying that the markups may not be as skewed as it would seem.
 
Av8r3400 said:
Al, how long ago is your experience?

There are so many big-box pushed deals with suppliers that the little guys can't get. We've all heard the stories of how Wal-Mart pushes their suppliers. Do you think they are the only ones with a big fist? All of the superstores are doing this type of practice.

In my business the big guy that has 70% of the market share not only has sweetheart deals with the insurance companies (who pay the bills) that we couldn't get or couldn't afford to offer if we could, they have their own supply chains that undercut our suppliers pricing by 50% or more.

This is happening all over. I can't say that paying 75% premium is justifiable or even sustainable. I'm just saying that the markups may not be as skewed as it would seem.
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What I had to do was Make a one time large purchase buy to get to a bigger discount rate in my particular business . The better buying rate was then good for a one year .Then I got very agressive and started selling to every possible customer I could think of . In about 3 years we took a little hole in the wall business and made it 13th in size in the surrounding three states .Profit margin was tight but we worked it and most of all sales were phone orders .Extremely low overhead . My total office was 10 wide and 15 feet long , but when you called the customer thought they were talking to a huge nation wide company. We shipped fast and had the answers to problems that the big box stores could not answer .I sold the business in 1999 .
 
Little guys can compete with monster guys. Really they can. Clarity and focus on that one thing that the monster guys can't - customers.

Complaining and whining about the monster guys becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I've seen it. Instead of changing, those on the death bed seem to pull the plug.

I've heard rumors that loyalty is dead. I do not see that at all.
 
My local feed and farm supply store will compete with and outdo TSC on most anything. His prices are fair and I can't call TSC 10 minutes before closing and tell them to set it out on the dock and I square up with them later. I also steer a lot of Amish business his way. The local Amish could not believe he had better prices on baler twine. I ended up buying over 40 bales of it for them this year.
 
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