Why Give The Customers What They Want?
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With all the different types of businesses out now, there are many that have different advantages for different areas then others. Some businesses have no choice but to give in to certain advantages. It is something that makes all the business sense to keep doing its normal business strategies but maybe there are ways to gain those lost advantages. The advantage of businesses to provide their service to the majority of their customers any time of the day, or night is an advantage that can only be taken advantage by the right kind of business setup.
The first format to be discussed is the department store format. The brick and mortar department stores that exist today have a specific way their businesses run. They are usually located in a shopping mall or in a shopping center. Their hours of operation are usually from 10 am to 8 pm. In terms of the convenience to the customer, it is enough to get all the customers in a reasonable time. Usually customers do not go to clothing stores in the middle of the night to shop for a new wardrobe, so there is no desperate need for them to have longer operating hours and lose money on staffing the store for those extra hours. Not only do these stores have to spend more money in employee hours if they want to stay open later, but also money on security. Most of these stores located in shopping centers are out on their own, and if they were the only store open, then it would make them an easy target for criminals. All and all, they brick and mortar department stores do not have an advantage over other retail formats as far as hours of operation, they just have enough for what they need. As far as having an advantage in delivery time, they have the best advantage since they deliver the product on the spot, since the customer is in the store.
Another business format is retail stores such as Wal-Mart, Dollar General or Family Dollar. These businesses have different operating hours and no delivery services, at least the brick and mortar ones dont. Wal-Mart for the most part has the most advantage out of any other format. They way Wal-Mart is set up, they are able to keep operating 24 hours a day in the majority of their locations. They have a full staff all through the night for restocking and they have one, and in very few locations two cashiers throughout the night. Now with the automatic registers, they can have one person manning 4 automated registers. A Wal-Mart is entirely too big to be a weak point for criminals to attack or burglarize during the night and to big of a staff also. This gives Wal-Mart the biggest advantage as far as operating hours compared to any other brick and mortar business. Other retail stores such as Dollar General does not carry that advantage like Wal-Mart does. They can only operate during regular business hours because of the potential loss of capital due to wasted payment for unnecessary employment time. This gives those kind of retail stores no advantage as far as operating hours but all these retail businesses have the best advantage in delivery since they have the products on hand to give to the customer on the spot.
The next business format is the online businesses. These businesses by far have the biggest advantage as far as hours of operation, but the worst in delivery time. These businesses can be operated 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, no matter the weather conditions, holidays, nothing closes these stores down unless they dont handle their business and their servers go down. These stores have no location issues, no rent, no worries about being open and paying employees while no one is in the store shopping. The online businesses have a great disadvantage in the delivery time with their products in most cases. If the business is a local business that delivers items within an hour or two, then they have an advantage in on both ends as far as operating time and delivery time. Places such as pizza chains offer such delivery options for their customers. Most online businesses have a disadvantage since they cannot get the product to their customers in the very best case, the next day. If I want a DVD player, I can buy one from bestbuy.com and wait a couple of day to get it, or go to my local Wal-Mart and buy one and take it now immediately.
Video stores and bookstores have a unique format within themselves. Other than the online ones, these are all brick and mortar businesses. As far as delivery, they have the biggest advantage possible since they have one area that they concentrate one, Wal-Mart cannot compete with the amount and selection of videos compared to the local Blockbuster. The amount of books Wal-Mart has cannot compare with even the smallest local book