In the recent weeks I noticed an interesting phenomenon. I visited several owner-managed shops in my vicinity who happen to have a, generally very basic, internet appearance. For instance:

Even to the people not fluent in German you should notice that none of these sites is special. Their aren’t even particularly well designed. But… all of these shops are managed by their respective owners, there is no nationwide chain behind them. And all of these shops excel in customer service. They really try to solve your problem. Of course they have to make a living but still, first and foremost, they really do care.

I rarely find that kind of service in larger shops or department stores. Au contraire, I recently had more or less bad experiences with larger chains like Gravis, Dell etc.. My guesses:

  • Small shops are very similar to startup companies. But they seldomly will experience being taken over by a larger company. They either strive or they die.
  • Owners of small shops take it personal. They do understand that they get their income from their customer. Their is a direct relationship between service and success.

What are the consequences?

While this is not really a true Long Tail phenomenon I’m still convinced that the non-existence of service in larger stores lowers the market entrance barrier for smaller shops. Although the small shops don’t have the economies of scale on their side they can create passionate customers who even take into account higher prices if the service is just right. That’s another reason why I personally always prefer Amazon to eBay, even if I get some items cheaper at the latter place. Amazon makes it easier to return goods, they don’t charge in advance, they don’t charge shipping at certain level, they have product ratings, so they have many properties that the aformentioned small shops have as well.

But for the small bookshop around the corner even Amazon is no real competition: If you do happen to be in town anyway and you need some advice on what to buy, say, as present or whatever, the small bricks&mortar business outperforms Amazon easily. And the small shops gets the ware to you as fast as Amazon.