I grew up in a small town in the middle of small town farm country in the northeast. Our local feed store was "local" and you could bet that the person working the counter knew you by how many bags of which livestock feed you came in to pick up each week. I'm sure that's not much different, no matter what part of the country you grew up in. You could always count on a couple of farmers buying baling twine or rake teeth, the older ladies picking up garden seeds and the retirees standing off to the side sharing stories of the good old days.
Enter the Big Box Store. In this case, Tractor Supply Company, who built success on selling, what else? Tractor parts, farm supplies, and livestock needs. Then, sometime in the past few years, their ad campaigns have proudly boasted "We don't sell tractors." Managers near retirement - managers who, by the way, knew customers by their names and needs, who didn't mind the corner of the store becoming the meeting place for retirees in the middle of the week - replaced. Somewhere along the way, becoming successful and growing meant losing sight of what brought them success in the first place. Now, in place of "Made in America" and International Harvester parts, we see racks of cheap tools and dog toys.
I suppose the story is much the same across "corporate America."
It's just a shame that, as part of "success," that these Big Box stores also drive the small-town feeds-and-anything-you-need stores out of business. It's not just the stores we're losing. We're losing that connection to our neighbors. We're losing that connection to the store that not only knows but cares what we need on Saturday morning. We're losing that free advice that the small store worker would gladly share on feeding the rejected calf or giving the new puppy his first vaccines or which gate hardware would work best for that particular project. We're losing that place to stop in and get the chainsaw fixed while browsing the bulletin board of community announcements and livestock for sale.
How we spend our money can affect whether this trend continues. Will it?
No comments:
Post a Comment