The death of local retail

As long as fuel prices stay low enough that UPS shipping remains cheap (right now, it is cheaper to send a small parcel by UPS Ground than by USPS 1st Class Mail -- and it arrives as soon if not sooner), online retailers will continue to eat up the business of local suppliers of anything but food.

Two cases in point, in one day's shopping. I needed two not dreadfully unusual items and shopped for them diligently on the way home today. I wasted an hour, found neither, left dissatisfied, and got both online in a few minutes.

The Camera Accessory

First, a step-down ring that would allow me to attach a slide duplicator to a particular camera lens. Not a standard drugstore item, but absolutely something that ought to be available from a large professional photo store such as our local Keeble & Suchat.

They have two stores that face each other across California Avenue. The one on the South is the Professional store, with gear for sale or rent to the pro photog. I went there first but no, they didn't have any step-down rings, but if there were any, they'd be across the street in the consumer store. Apparently pro photogs never try to mate odd filters to standard lenses...

Across the street in the consumer store, it was as usual a zoo, and as usual the four guys behind the counter were all involved with customers and never looked up to give the waiting ones so much as a "be right with you." I searched all the merchandise shelves and saw no filter adapters at all, thought about online ordering, and left.

Back home it took less than 5 minutes to find the device that I needed at two outlets (Adorama and B&H, to decide to order it from B&H, and to complete the purchase using Paypal. I don't have the instant gratification of getting the item into my hands right now but it will show up in due course.

The Herbal

The other thing I wanted to pick up on the way home was Resveratrol, which I have taken routinely since reading about it in Scientific American (see here and here).

I've bought it at our local earnestly-healthy supplement store, Country Sun, but whoever stocks the antioxidant shelves at Country Sun has no sense of consistency. It seems one never finds the same products on successive visits. As has happened before, the Resveratrol that I had been buying, from Country Life products, was not on the shelf. Resveratrol preparations from several other makers were there, but none from a company I had ever heard of, and all of different potencies and combined with different things -- vitamin C, or Green Tea Extract, or anything else that could be stirred up and called "antioxidant." And all at what seemed high prices.

Once more I thought, "Phooey, I bet it's online," and left. Back home, another 5 minutes turned up my desired Country Life Resveratrol caps at several retailers at prices substantially less than the local retailer asked. I ordered a 6-month supply.

It has taken considerably longer to write this account than it did to find exactly what I wanted at prices substantially lower (even after shipping) than the local outlet would have charged, if it had even carried the item.

What's a local retailer to do? Well, in the case of Keeble & Suchat, they could figure out how to deal with their normal customer flow quicker and more politely; and they could carry a broader range of small items. Country Sun could carry the same stock consistently. These steps would help.

But in general, the local retailer can never carry the range of stock the internet offers, and can never offer instant service. They can only hope that the price of fuel will keep going up so that the rising cost of delivery will erode the price differential and let them keep their margins up.