Catering Business

J. Kevin Tumlinson

Recently, Best Buy announced that he would be reformatting its stores so individual locations could focus on a particular clientele. For example, if a store happens to be located in an urban area where car stereo equipment outsells home entertainment products, then amplifiers and speakers will occupy more floor space than DVD players and HD Televisions. If you want a good selection of movies on DVD, you'll have to go to a different branch. YOUR branch caters to the car audio crowd.

On the surface it sounds like just good business practice. Why shouldn't a retail outlet target the people who are spending the most money? The problem I have with it is what if I, a discerning purchaser of video and computer equipment, want to buy the things I'm looking for without the inconvenience of a trip across town or, in my case, a trip to another city? Isn't this sort of practice the same as saying that people like me don't matter unless we want to buy what everyone else is buying?

Maybe I'm just being petty. I want the convenience. That's what stores like this are for anyway, right? But once again, the 80 th Percentile gets to determine when and where I can buy something I want.

Just imagine if Walmart or Target decided to initiate this same practice! It's already tough enough to find clothes, personal products and food that I want in these places – what happens when they start catering to the masses? I admit, my tastes are a bit eclectic but they aren't unreasonable. I can understand having to go to a specialty store if I want to buy hummus, but why should I have to go to another town to buy a bottle of over-the-counter medicine, just because there's no market for it at my LOCAL Walmart?

The point of a national chain, a franchise, is to make the same products available to all customers. I get it though… some things just don't sell. Fine. I hereby give permission to carry fewer of THOSE items. That's not so tough, is it? Is it so costly to carry a couple of low-selling items, just in case someone wants them? I'm pretty sure the mark-up on everything else can compensate for it.

The problem is that the idea of customer service went out the window a few decades ago. It's been a flume ride downhill ever since. There was a time when you could count on going into a store and finding what you wanted, and if it wasn't there the management was red-faced about the whole thing. It was likely they'd special order it for you right away and make sure to always have it in stock. Now, though, you're lucky if you can convince them that the product still exists. Why should they cause themselves the headache of looking for the product and ordering it, just for you? What do you matter? You're just one customer.

We're all just one customer, though. There used to be this attitude that one customer lost was one too many. Now, there's a shrug and people go on with their lives. Of course, it used to be possible to ban a store all together. If you were dissatisfied with service or if a store never had the item you wanted in stock, then you could turn away from them and never look back. But these chains have since become all-powerful and all-possessing, and there's no escape. You want it? They're the only ones who have it.

There's one last thing I'd like to point out – the public consciousness. If the public ever once makes the mental connection that “you can't get that there” you're done. They'll always go elsewhere. If you aren't the first place that comes to mind you'll never see that customer. Public consciousness is fickle and short-sighted. Why give them ammunition?

Again, it comes down to customer service. The 80 th Percentile doesn't really care about customer service, they just want their speakers and they want them cheap. If you cater to that crowd, you'll always loose. Sooner or later, someone will do it cheaper than you do. And at that point, don't you think it'd be nice to offer OTHER products, to pick up the slack?

J. Kevin Tumlinson is the Publisher and Editor for ViewOnline Magazine at www.viewonline.com . He is a Houston Baptist University graduate with degrees in English and Communications. You can reach him by e-mail at kevin@viewonline.com . He thinks Best Buy should sell hummus.