The Wall Street Journal today published an article entitled, Entrepreneurs Pack Up and Go Home, which talks about a trend of small businesses abandoning their brick and mortar businesses, unable to afford the rent and overhead, and going online.
One such person is quoted as saying in support of closing its store and moving it online:
“You don’t have overhead, you don’t have to manage employees, you don’t have to keep the store clean — all the stuff that comes along with running a retail business”
We wrote about this back in January when we asked has the Net Killed Brick and Mortar Retailing?
when we made the same point:
“”””Just like it is virtually impossible for a small store to compete with Walmart when they open in the same town, due to Walmart’s buying power, they can price their goods well below a mom and pop store or a small chain, how can a brick and mortar store compete with the Net?
With the lousy economy shoppers are ever more price conscience.
So in reality how can a Linens’n Things compete with a site like our’s LuxuryBedding.com?
My rent is $7 a year.
Their rent per store, is tens or hundreds of thousands a year depending on each location.
I have no employees, no insurance, no utilities, no inventory, nothing.”””
The WSJ article them went on to discuss some issues that people moving from brick & mortar to home businesses face, including zoning issues, if they have employees.
It’s an interesting read, if you have a subscription to the Journal, you can read the story here:
I don’t necessarily disagree with the article, but then how do these small businesses online compete with the likes of Amazon, etc.