![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
let them eat cake
Apr. 6th, 2006 05:46 pmThere's a new convenience store in the town center, right next to my bus stop. I don't usually shop at convenience stores, but I really like the idea of having one there. It's much nicer for the neighborhood than a boarded up storefront (because no store could afford to rent the space) or Yet Another Bank Branch. Everyone banks online, and the town still has 4-6 bank branches/mile. Not ATMs, but branches with tellers. What's wrong with this picture?
So the depanneur is less than 2 weeks old, and I've been in there 4 times. I wished the storekeeper well and welcomed him to the neighborhood, bought overpriced bottles of iced tea, and got out of the cold wind while waiting for the bus. Between the bus stop and the catholic high school around the corner, I expect them to do pretty good business selling coffee and junk food in the mornings, but it's always been empty when I saw it. (Not quite empty. One girl was at the slush machine, getting what I think was frozen off-brand Red Bull. *shudder* Poor kid.)
I don't expect to see really passionate arguments at 7:15 in the morning. I know people operate on different schedules - I've done shift work myself - but it's still a surprise to stumble on the shouting and emphatic gesturing with fists when I've only been awake a little while. When one of the angry men stormed out, the storekeeper deflated and went behind the counter to sell me one of those bottles of tea. He explained the problem...I'm not sure he could have kept quiet about it, just at that moment.
He wants to sell bread. There's this empty space near the front of the store where he wanted to display loaves of bread, and he has customers *asking* him for bread. But the bread companies don't want to deliver to little stores. Even some of the local bakeries that used to deliver to little stores are trying to be more efficient now, only taking bread to big supermarkets. Some of them will deliver bread to large and medium-sized stores, then come back and retrieve the unsold stuff. The bakery would rather deal with the remainders than miss out on the sales of a big store, and the associated chance for brand loyalty.
But a tiny little store? A tiny little store so new everything about it is unpredictable? That's not profitable enough to pay for the delivery truck. Not even enough to pay for it to stop on the way to the big supermarket up the street.
So this frantic man is trying to juggle everything needed to make a new store functional. The operation is so marginal it's absurd to suggest he leave the place and go buy bread elsewhere, to bring back and sell. If he can't get it delivered, he can't sell it. The economics of cake seems to be different, somehow. That, and the fluorescent "frozen energy drink," swirling round and round in the machine.
So the depanneur is less than 2 weeks old, and I've been in there 4 times. I wished the storekeeper well and welcomed him to the neighborhood, bought overpriced bottles of iced tea, and got out of the cold wind while waiting for the bus. Between the bus stop and the catholic high school around the corner, I expect them to do pretty good business selling coffee and junk food in the mornings, but it's always been empty when I saw it. (Not quite empty. One girl was at the slush machine, getting what I think was frozen off-brand Red Bull. *shudder* Poor kid.)
I don't expect to see really passionate arguments at 7:15 in the morning. I know people operate on different schedules - I've done shift work myself - but it's still a surprise to stumble on the shouting and emphatic gesturing with fists when I've only been awake a little while. When one of the angry men stormed out, the storekeeper deflated and went behind the counter to sell me one of those bottles of tea. He explained the problem...I'm not sure he could have kept quiet about it, just at that moment.
He wants to sell bread. There's this empty space near the front of the store where he wanted to display loaves of bread, and he has customers *asking* him for bread. But the bread companies don't want to deliver to little stores. Even some of the local bakeries that used to deliver to little stores are trying to be more efficient now, only taking bread to big supermarkets. Some of them will deliver bread to large and medium-sized stores, then come back and retrieve the unsold stuff. The bakery would rather deal with the remainders than miss out on the sales of a big store, and the associated chance for brand loyalty.
But a tiny little store? A tiny little store so new everything about it is unpredictable? That's not profitable enough to pay for the delivery truck. Not even enough to pay for it to stop on the way to the big supermarket up the street.
So this frantic man is trying to juggle everything needed to make a new store functional. The operation is so marginal it's absurd to suggest he leave the place and go buy bread elsewhere, to bring back and sell. If he can't get it delivered, he can't sell it. The economics of cake seems to be different, somehow. That, and the fluorescent "frozen energy drink," swirling round and round in the machine.
