We know consumers have countless shopping options. Home environment products and household appliances are available many places, including hardware & home improvement stores, department stores, HVAC (Heating, Vacuum, and Air Conditioning) specialty shops, plus big box superstores. Superstore retailers, like Wal-Mart, Costco, K Mart, and Target plant their retail chains everywhere. Suburbia is littered with these outlets, laid out next to track homes and strip malls throughout the American landscape. Furthermore, these stores operate online storefronts to sell goods. The Great Recession over the past 3 years has affected all retailers, even these large conglomerates.
In terms of space heaters, portable ACs, and other heating and cooling appliances, these colossal mega-marts offer the convenience of popular models and rock-bottom prices. These huge corporations have the advantage of being able to offer free shipping and extra promotional discounts, at both brick-and-mortar locations and online. Their sheer size and span even allows retailers to lose money on sales in some categories, since the profits will be made up with other purchases. The sales volume allows these large companies to be the unrivaled price leader. They are able to use the advantage of a network of established warehouses, a large-scale distribution fleet, and extremely high-budget marketing campaigns.
At What Cost?
Wal-Mart is notorious for strategically shutting down smaller local businesses when it comes to town. The company does this by slashing prices and taking a loss on specific categories to directly undermine its competitors who can’t afford to do the same and stay in business (i.e. drastically discounting party supplies and costumes to the point of losing profit to put Party City and local costume shops out of business). Big box stores typically pay minimum wage, offer little room for advancement, and create an impersonal, monotonous work environment.
Wal-Mart in particular is known for sexism in the workplace and threadbare healthcare benefits that most employees can’t afford on their fulltime salary. Compared to workers in boutiques and independently owned stores, large chains provide fewer, worse quality jobs. The retail giant is known to reduce their bottom lines further by aggressively bullying manufacturers to lower their costs. For factories abroad, the result is too often paying sweatshop workers less while demanding increased productivity during slavish hours. There’s little need to bring up even more sensational incidents to make the case against Wal-Mart, such as the storefront greeter who was trampled to death during last year’s Black Friday rush at the NYC location. This has gotten out of control!
Value of Independence
The cycle perpetuates as joblessness stagnates, foreclosures rise, and customers rush to bargain pricing. Maybe paying a little bit more is worth it for marketplace diversity. Air & Water is an independently owned sole proprietorship, which offers its employees benefits and potential upward growth. Giving the staff a better standard of living cuts into the bottom line, but it’s a small price to pay. Air & Water provides knowledgeable advice and resources for customers, since the staff of customer service people is trained to help customers find the right device for their home. Our catalog of heating and cooling devices is many times larger than what superstores can offer. Not to mention, through our website you avoid the crowds at superstores. Even better, when you call our toll free number your call is answered by a real live person, not a recorded message. Consider these benefits before heading over to Home Depot to choose a space heater.
Do you shop at big box retailers?
Do you prefer the customer service at Wal-Mart or Air & Water?
Photos: Retrieved from ceoworld.biz; retrieved from thebudgetfashionista.com.
