I live in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana area and over the past few years I have noticed that a lot of small niche market businesses are popping up and doing well. For example, we have stores that sell loose leaf tea, flavored cooking oils, spices, artisan soap (one brand not several), coffee roasters, stores that carry local farmer market goods, etc. Don't get me wrong...the big box stores still rule and these small business niche market retail spaces are still much more expensive than online retailers of like or same goods. But this type of retail is seeming to thrive. They are usually in more affluent areas of the Metro area but, but they are doing well and more seem to pop up all the time. I'm just wondering if this is a passing fancy or if it is the real deal. It's kind of refreshing to see small businesses doing well, I just wonder for how long.
Resurgence of Small Business Retail or Just an Anomaly?
- Thread starter dangerousdon
- Start date
I think it is happening but you will probably find they have an online presence... and that is where they are making their real money.
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I heard that Williamsburg was getting expensive...
Gentrification.
Rent and prices are too damn high.
Rent and prices are too damn high.
Hi,
Small businesses tend to thrive when people can't seem to find decent jobs. No job means nothing to lose, so start your own business.........Which is far more work to do than a 9 to 5 job.
That said, the internet has really opened up access to a large customer base that anyone can access. Last week I ordered 100 Russian DE blades from Sweden. Making very easy to open a business for anyone. The trick isn't so much what to sell, but service that makes customers tell others how good you are.
Small businesses tend to thrive when people can't seem to find decent jobs. No job means nothing to lose, so start your own business.........Which is far more work to do than a 9 to 5 job.
That said, the internet has really opened up access to a large customer base that anyone can access. Last week I ordered 100 Russian DE blades from Sweden. Making very easy to open a business for anyone. The trick isn't so much what to sell, but service that makes customers tell others how good you are.
Hipsters.
They cater to hipsters.
They cater to hipsters.
kelbro
Alfred Spatchcock
I've seen lots of new small businesses open and construction projects launched since the election.
This.
Lol.Says the guy on the wet shaving forum...
Says the guy on the wet shaving forum...
- Thread starter
- #12
Yeah, I would like to blame it on the hipsters or the millennials or who ever. But the people that shop at many of these businesses are all types.
I tend to think this is the root of the answer... If you look back I think you will find a lot started in the 2008-2009 time frame.. the housing bubble.
I've been my own boss for a a number of years, most of the guys I hang around are the same. I know at least 2 started their business after they lost their jobs in 08.
I'm one of the guys that says if you want to try, go for it! But be warned, the hours are long.
Amen, but cutting hair sure was more fun than nursing on some days, though the hours are long...
All of my friends and I pretty much only do our shopping with small business now, I think in the next 10-15 years we will see a big shift in the way people shop. We don't want this huge take over by big box stores it's the end of the little guy. I really try to plead with people to try to support small business any time you can. Walmart, Target, etc etc will be the death of the little guy, don't be sheeple.
My town, in the 'burbs just north of Cincinnati, is seeing a pretty major movement towards revitalization. Entertainment, restaurants, bars, shops, etc. The movie industry has introduced a bit of positive cash flow towards the area, along with a couple of local colleges putting branches in the city center. There is a definite uptick in the number of "small business" being opened up. I'm a very strong "hometown" shopper and supporter. I put my money where my mouth is, and it doesn't bother me to spend more money with a local business than give it mindlessly to the Walton family when I'm able to. It's all great stuff, and as a homeowner, well... I can only be happy for the direction it's taking my investment. Everybody wants to live here now.
That said, these businesses open up, last for a while then are gone. Replaced with another thing that is all flashy and hip and gone as soon as their money dries up. The biggest problem is that the overwhelming majority of the businesses are being opened by young folks with a great idea and no tenacity. I really am not trying to be the grumpy old man about this, but it is what it is. Most of these new business owners have a lot of excitement, but no experience. As soon as there is a bump in the road, they just move on to the next thing. The number one problem, IMO, is they don't understand/want the "long hours" that the posts above me mention. The majority of the shops along the main drag in town have banker's hours. They only want to be open Mon-Fri for 6-8 hours. I think there's one food place that does a very short brunch on Saturday, every other place is closed on weekends. When do they expect the people that have jobs are going to patronize their business?
Haha, sorry for the rant. I was just discussing this with a coworker, so it is all fresh in my mind.
That said, these businesses open up, last for a while then are gone. Replaced with another thing that is all flashy and hip and gone as soon as their money dries up. The biggest problem is that the overwhelming majority of the businesses are being opened by young folks with a great idea and no tenacity. I really am not trying to be the grumpy old man about this, but it is what it is. Most of these new business owners have a lot of excitement, but no experience. As soon as there is a bump in the road, they just move on to the next thing. The number one problem, IMO, is they don't understand/want the "long hours" that the posts above me mention. The majority of the shops along the main drag in town have banker's hours. They only want to be open Mon-Fri for 6-8 hours. I think there's one food place that does a very short brunch on Saturday, every other place is closed on weekends. When do they expect the people that have jobs are going to patronize their business?
Haha, sorry for the rant. I was just discussing this with a coworker, so it is all fresh in my mind.
Necessity is the mother of invention. As the economy has moved away from manufacturing and labor-intensive agriculture, people need to find new ways to earn a living. A well-run small business can provide a comfortable standard of living, and stability that few professions can match. On the other hand, a poorly-run business can quickly empty your bank account, and lead you swiftly to bankruptcy.
In the past, when many of the old shops and store fronts you see on old Main Streets around America were built, the country was a different place. The welfare state was still relatively unknown, America's population was growing, and people needed a way to make a living. In those days there wasn't much in the way of financial help, either loans or state grants, but there were also very few restrictions to get in the way. If you wanted to open a sandwich shop, or a car company, you could more easily find a way to do it than you can nowadays.
Many new businesses have sprung up as a result of the downturn in the economy a few years ago, and the persistent lack of any substantial recovery in the established economy. If one can't find a job working for someone else, he may resort to giving a job to himself. Personally, I see this as a good thing; small businesses often grow into larger businesses, which create wealth and jobs.
I have my own small business, and it has been up and running for a few years now. I live and work in Japan, where I immigrated about 10 years ago. As an immigrant, not knowing the language, customs, or culture, finding a career is not easy. I have spent my life working, doing almost every imaginable job. I have cut grass, groomed horses, cleaned stalls, traveled with the rodeo and carnival, cashiered at a self-service junk yard, worked as an apprentice car mechanic, jumped out of airplanes in the Army, and spent nearly a decade patrolling a large American inner city as a policeman.
But even as I did all those things, I always found some kind of extra work to make money. When I worked in law enforcement, I also ran a pressure cleaning and house painting business, doing the work myself on my days off. It wasn't until I came to Japan that I fully committed to working for myself full time.
I left blue-collar life behind me in America, and put the degree I had earned in the Army to use in Japan. My degree was in economics, a popular subject in Japan, and there was a demand for people who could teach the subject in English. My circle of friends in America were a rowdy bunch, mostly fellow officers, night club owners, strippers, and people like that (I was not one of the church-going crowd). My new friends in Japan were academics and business people. Fitting in with these people was not so hard, I have found "Ox-bridge" and Harvard men easy enough to get along with. If you want to be a particular kind of person, you should hang out with a particular kind of people.
I fell into e-commerce in Japan quite by accident. I had bought quite a few things the first couple of years here, and when I moved to a larger apartment (my first one being about the size of a walk-in closet), I tried to sell it on the internet. To my surprise, much of the stuff sold for a lot more than I paid for it. An idea was born, and three years later I stopped teaching at university, and began working for myself.
Working at the university allowed me to make a lot of connections, first and foremost with my future wife. She comes from a good family, and is an investment banker (and is quite a bit younger than myself). Between the two of us, we enjoy a good income, and live in a large high rise building in the best part of Tokyo. We have a two-year-old daughter, and as I work at home, I can spend a lot of time with her.
My father-in-law was once a small businessman who worked very hard to grow his business. Now his business is a multinational company, with offices on every continent, and many employees. He was the number-one student in his high school and university classes, and could have gotten a job with any company. But he was resolved never to work for another man. He said that if being independent meant selling food from a cart on a sidewalk was the only way he could do it, that was what he would do.
On my birthday last week, my daughter and I spent the day swimming at his house. In Japan very few people have a swimming pool at their home. His pool is in the underground level of his new house, which was modeled after the Versace mansion in Miami Beach. The pool is magnificent, very large, with beautiful mosaic tiles inlaid in patterns on the bottom. He has three beautiful homes, his new beach house in Enoshima will be finished next spring.
During the ride home from his place, the car took us through Shibuya, and the famous crossing. If you had asked me 20 years ago if I could imagine what my future would be, I might have said that I hoped to become a sergeant in the department. The last thing I would have imagined was being driven across Tokyo in a chauffeur-driven Maybach, to a multi-million dollar apartment.
When I was my daughter's age, my mother was raising me and my newborn brother by herself. We lived in the Four Corners region of New Mexico, in a one-room house. My mother soon remarried to an oil man, if you can call a roughneck an oilman. Life was lots of moving, new schools at least once a year, small and dirty apartments, houses, trailers, or motels, clothes from the Goodwill, and infrequent meals. We didn't get our first color tv until I was nearly 10 (that was the year Star Wars came out).
No matter where you begin, there is no destination you can't reach, so long as you aren't afraid to take the steps (especially the big ones) to get there.
In the past, when many of the old shops and store fronts you see on old Main Streets around America were built, the country was a different place. The welfare state was still relatively unknown, America's population was growing, and people needed a way to make a living. In those days there wasn't much in the way of financial help, either loans or state grants, but there were also very few restrictions to get in the way. If you wanted to open a sandwich shop, or a car company, you could more easily find a way to do it than you can nowadays.
Many new businesses have sprung up as a result of the downturn in the economy a few years ago, and the persistent lack of any substantial recovery in the established economy. If one can't find a job working for someone else, he may resort to giving a job to himself. Personally, I see this as a good thing; small businesses often grow into larger businesses, which create wealth and jobs.
I have my own small business, and it has been up and running for a few years now. I live and work in Japan, where I immigrated about 10 years ago. As an immigrant, not knowing the language, customs, or culture, finding a career is not easy. I have spent my life working, doing almost every imaginable job. I have cut grass, groomed horses, cleaned stalls, traveled with the rodeo and carnival, cashiered at a self-service junk yard, worked as an apprentice car mechanic, jumped out of airplanes in the Army, and spent nearly a decade patrolling a large American inner city as a policeman.
But even as I did all those things, I always found some kind of extra work to make money. When I worked in law enforcement, I also ran a pressure cleaning and house painting business, doing the work myself on my days off. It wasn't until I came to Japan that I fully committed to working for myself full time.
I left blue-collar life behind me in America, and put the degree I had earned in the Army to use in Japan. My degree was in economics, a popular subject in Japan, and there was a demand for people who could teach the subject in English. My circle of friends in America were a rowdy bunch, mostly fellow officers, night club owners, strippers, and people like that (I was not one of the church-going crowd). My new friends in Japan were academics and business people. Fitting in with these people was not so hard, I have found "Ox-bridge" and Harvard men easy enough to get along with. If you want to be a particular kind of person, you should hang out with a particular kind of people.
I fell into e-commerce in Japan quite by accident. I had bought quite a few things the first couple of years here, and when I moved to a larger apartment (my first one being about the size of a walk-in closet), I tried to sell it on the internet. To my surprise, much of the stuff sold for a lot more than I paid for it. An idea was born, and three years later I stopped teaching at university, and began working for myself.
Working at the university allowed me to make a lot of connections, first and foremost with my future wife. She comes from a good family, and is an investment banker (and is quite a bit younger than myself). Between the two of us, we enjoy a good income, and live in a large high rise building in the best part of Tokyo. We have a two-year-old daughter, and as I work at home, I can spend a lot of time with her.
My father-in-law was once a small businessman who worked very hard to grow his business. Now his business is a multinational company, with offices on every continent, and many employees. He was the number-one student in his high school and university classes, and could have gotten a job with any company. But he was resolved never to work for another man. He said that if being independent meant selling food from a cart on a sidewalk was the only way he could do it, that was what he would do.
On my birthday last week, my daughter and I spent the day swimming at his house. In Japan very few people have a swimming pool at their home. His pool is in the underground level of his new house, which was modeled after the Versace mansion in Miami Beach. The pool is magnificent, very large, with beautiful mosaic tiles inlaid in patterns on the bottom. He has three beautiful homes, his new beach house in Enoshima will be finished next spring.
During the ride home from his place, the car took us through Shibuya, and the famous crossing. If you had asked me 20 years ago if I could imagine what my future would be, I might have said that I hoped to become a sergeant in the department. The last thing I would have imagined was being driven across Tokyo in a chauffeur-driven Maybach, to a multi-million dollar apartment.
When I was my daughter's age, my mother was raising me and my newborn brother by herself. We lived in the Four Corners region of New Mexico, in a one-room house. My mother soon remarried to an oil man, if you can call a roughneck an oilman. Life was lots of moving, new schools at least once a year, small and dirty apartments, houses, trailers, or motels, clothes from the Goodwill, and infrequent meals. We didn't get our first color tv until I was nearly 10 (that was the year Star Wars came out).
No matter where you begin, there is no destination you can't reach, so long as you aren't afraid to take the steps (especially the big ones) to get there.
I would like to see our economy move from Wal-Mart to small businesses thriving again. I like brick&mortar shaving shops because I get to smell what I'm buying (they haven't found an effective way through the internet yet, but only matter of time). Unfortunately where I'm at, the majority of small business seems to be buy-sell-trade things.
You are awesome.
Most startup small business fails in a couple years, has always been that way, I imagine it will continue. A variety of causes, but the biggest I think is not realizing just what it takes to run a business, most folks want to be the "boss" and take time off when they want. Too late they find out that is not how it works.
There have always been small shops, or cottage industries. Colorado has passed some laws the last few years to make cottage industry easier to get rolling and fewer hurdles in the road. Unfortunately once grown past the "cottage" level to the traditional small business the hurdles reappear in the road, hopefully you now have the momentum to overcome them.
When I was a kid, pie & cider stands were all the rage. Try to find one today. Interests & markets change.
There have always been small shops, or cottage industries. Colorado has passed some laws the last few years to make cottage industry easier to get rolling and fewer hurdles in the road. Unfortunately once grown past the "cottage" level to the traditional small business the hurdles reappear in the road, hopefully you now have the momentum to overcome them.
When I was a kid, pie & cider stands were all the rage. Try to find one today. Interests & markets change.
