Hey there, new neighbor, thanks for coming in. They call me “Ol’ Gus” and I run this here local hardware store with my wife Charlene. How are you? How is your family? Are they from around here? If they are, it sure would be nice if you sent them my best. And if you think of it, maybe send them in to buy some obscenely overpriced goods.
You see, you might’ve heard about the plight of us small-time stores. Sure, we get “shop small” weekends and “small business Saturday” every few months, but these big-box home improvement stores and Amazon dot coms are really doing a number on businesses like ours. Somewhere along the line, these crazy folks decided that tools and grass seed shouldn’t be marked up an average of 4,600%. Frankly, I can’t understand it.
I know some people may believe that our markups are a result of these big-name companies changing the competition, but I don’t think that’s the case. See, guys like me – Ol’ Gus – we have a charm that your Ricks and Mariannes over at Lowe’s can’t match. We know our things, we’ve been around, and we understand that local businesses don’t just sell things to sell things. We sell things to make an absurd profit on individual items and ignore the realities facing our customers.
We’re jewelry stores for suburban dads.
Let’s say you need to do a little work on a toilet; it needs a new handle and a new flapper. On the one hand, you could go to Home Depot and get those two items, a houseplant, two candy bars, and a dorm room toolkit for your child who is a high school senior. On the other hand, you could come here, listen to an old-timey tale about life in this here town, and get just the handle and flapper for $14 more than the whole lot would’ve cost at one of those personality-free blights.
There’s something to be said for our down-home charm. I should know. When Charlene and I took over this shop thirty-nine years ago, we knew that people would keep coming back if we treated them well. We knew that the paint section should smell like paint and the screws should smell like metal. We also knew that the best way to make money would be to ask for more of it, so we took the previous owner’s 300% markup on screwdrivers and tacked on a zero.
Nuts and bolts? Yeah, we’ve got those. Take whatever you’re used to paying at a big store and triple it. Also, take the selection you were expecting and halve it. There’s a word for that quaint quality, and it’s “charm.”
But isn’t it just that – charming – to know that we aren’t just a nameless, faceless, billionaire-feeding machine? Capitalism is fine and well, but sometimes it’s just a bit much for a fella like Ol’ Gus. Sure, everyone has to look out for themselves, but when you’ve looked out enough that you can buy an NFL team, maybe it’s time to cut us some slack. Contributing to the top 1% of the 1% has its drawbacks, particularly when you could be spending three times as much and contributing to the sailboat I’m fixing up.
Tell me: Would you really rather save money and use self-checkout scanners than overhear Charlene telling a customer about the status of her mother’s pacemaker while holding the cash register hostage? I know what I’d pick.
Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, right. No, the bank is across the street. Thanks for stopping in.