Here is an article which does make a person think.
sfgate.com
Net Unemployment
Will the Internet Put You Out of
Work?
Hal Plotkin, Special to SF Gate
In March, Palo Alto's landmark bookstore,
Printers, Inc. will shut its doors for good. The
owners cite competition from online vendors like
Amazon.com as a primary reason for the store's
demise.
Similar closures are occurring elsewhere, beginning
what is likely to become a major new trend:
Net-induced unemployment. Neighborhood
bookstores are just the first penguins off the ice
floe.
If the Census Bureau is correct, there are now at
least 10 million people working in retail sales. Many
of them are at risk of being displaced by the Net's
superior sales channel.
Even traditionally secure jobs, in fields like law and
medicine, may also be threatened as the Internet
helps erode the quarantine on information
previously dispensed for high fees. The Internet's
New Frontier has created the economic equivalent
of a raucous Wild West party; some folks are
having the time of their lives, while others are
getting their heads shot off.
So, how do you avoid getting stuck on the wrong
side of the online revolution?
For starters, look to see if what you sell is listed on
any of the online comparative price websites, like
Pricescan.com or BuyCentral.com. These sites
represent e-tailing's apocalyptic future, favoring
only the biggest vendors able to offer the lowest
prices.
I recognize the danger these sites pose to local
shops but, like most everyone else, I have only so
much money to spend. When I need to buy toner
for my printer, for example, I log on to the
shopper.com site, which serves up a list of the
prices charged by different vendors for the specific
product I need.
In the few short months they have been up, these
sites have unleashed a vicious price war.
Competitors have been regularly lowering their
prices in two cent increments to make sure they
capture the top spot when lists are re-ordered by
price (which is something you have to tell some of
these sites to do since positions on the default list
are frequently sold to the highest bidder). As a
result, the price I pay online is often at least 30%
less than what I would pay for the same products at
my increasingly less-crowded neighborhood
computer store.
If you see items you or your business sell on any of
these comparative price lists, you may soon be
dead meat. There is even a site that pits the sellers
of Beanie Babies against one another.
It remains to be seen how many sectors of the
product distribution economy will be gutted by the
Internet. It'll probably be a while before enough of
us buy groceries online at places like netgrocer.com
or peapod.com to jeopardize supermarkets. But
the writing is on the wall: sell commodity products
or deal in trades that rely on restricted flows of
information at your peril.
Fortunately for our neighborhoods, some of the
most able local merchants are not yet ready to
throw in the towel to their larger online rivals.
Instead, they are meeting the enemy in the digital
battlefield, offering up creative alternatives to the
websites that can get it for you wholesale.
In Menlo Park, for example, Kepler's bookstore,
which reported strong holiday sales, is fighting back
with its own nimble website. Kepler's site artfully
conveys a lot of what made the store an institution
on the Peninsula: a sense of community, advice
from an informed and well-read staff, along with
unfailingly excellent customer service. In contrast, a
visit to the far less compelling Palo Alto Printers,
Inc. website shows how the Internet's sword cuts
both ways.
Kepler's success demonstrates how savvy local
businesses can compete in the online wars. Online,
as at their store location, Kepler's sells a good
shopping experience as much as it sells books. In
the years ahead, that will likely be the factor that
most distinguishes the winners from the losers.
Some businesses and employees are not threatened
by the online onslaught. They sell items you can't
get online, such as a meal in a restaurant, a round of
golf, or a good massage. But the future looks
considerably more bleak for those hawking goods
that can be found online. The only way they'll be
able to compete is by creating places people want
to shop.
That could be good news. In the future, many
customers, save certified shopaholics, won't be
willing to trundle from store to store looking for
what they want.
To compete with the Net, merchants are going to
have to get into the aisles, give away more samples,
introduce more new products, conduct special
promotions and find other ways to attract and
entertain patrons.
Shoppers might soon find more on-site child care,
for example, so they can safely park their kids
while sniffing the latest perfumes or sampling food
delicacies. Merely offering large selections, which
helped big stores edge out mom and pop shops
two generations ago, won't be enough. In the
future, how stores sell things will be much more
important than what they sell.
There will also be an opening for more enlightened
businesses, such as those willing to help patrons
locate what they need even if they don't stock it, as
some leading department stores already do.
Now is the best time to consider whether you are
on the wrong side of this trend. There are still many
opportunities to be found in growing segments of
the economy, slots that will become more scarce if
and when web-surfers create a tidal wave of lost
jobs.
Delivery services, for example, are exploding at a
record clip, propelled, in part, by all those online
sales. It's hard to believe that, say, twenty years
from now, there will still be only a handful of major
delivery services. If so, we probably won't be
getting our Grey Poupon mustard as quickly as we
might like.
The collapsing product distribution chain also offers
more of us the chance to become small-scale
product producers thanks to the low costs
associated with selling products online. The same
can be said for those providing services. Even the
most humble among us usually have at least one
thing we can do well. Now is the time to brush up
on those skills.
The question to ask yourself is: would I want to do
business with my company, would I be a customer
here if I could get the exact same thing at home
sitting in my underwear? If the answer is "no" it's
time to move on.
Before everyone else does. |
