@thenobletuckylife wrote:
Evening Folks,
As many folks know, we were one of the first mid size broad based homesteading sellers here on ebay.
The early years were very good to us and we thank ebay for making those years better than we anticipated.
We also have found the challenge we faced was, and is, being faced by so many other folks not even selling here.
Tonight I needed to restock some of Mrs C's organic goods that we do not produce here so I did an internet search to see what was coming up in the www.
The Titans are fighting it out and they must be sinking mega bucks into search placement.
If I was new to the internet I would think that it was only Amazon, Walmart...a little bit of Target and only a few of the Original whole living sellers coming up in my search.
A couple of years ago one of those companies, intentionally not mentioned, came here in a torrent of 100's if not 1000's of organic food listings with prices barely above shipping cost with FREE shipping pretty much ended any chance we could ever compete. Now those sellers have prices that are double.
Do folks see that only a few companies seem to have a monopoly on the internet now?
If so do you think it will be broken up?
How do you plan on surviving this over the next 2 years as the momentum continues?
Mr C
To a certain extent I see that attempt to hold competition down and limit the business they might get right here in our grocery stores. Very close to attempts to undermine and put out of business, truthfully. HyVee will price match any other grocery store on same-item ads appearing in the week's advertising addition. So, if you go to Hy-Vee, you can get what they are advertising on sale, AND you can pick up what the other stores were advertising without having to make a trip to shop at them. HyVee may not have made much profit on the items they price-matched, BUT... they kept their competitor from making ANY money from your purchasing. They kept you from stepping FOOT in the competitor's store. Other than the sales though, HyVee is by far the most expensive grocery store to shop in this entire area!
We've always been told, and so have come to understand, that buying in bulk brings the price down, and the companies what invest enough to buy in bulk of THAT magnitude can certainly undermine the prices needed by many others to remain in existence! HyVee has followed their plan for years now, and one by one the grocery store competitors have gone out of business. And now the consumers complain to one another about the high prices being charged at HyVee all the time.
There is basically only one way I've been able to figure out how to thrive alongside this modern way of being in business, and that is to find a way.. something.. that isn't in competition at all with something that I can't compete with!
I remember when a Walmart come to a smaller but mid-sized town in our state. Right on the edge of town, and immediately few of the shops in town could compete at all. Store after store struggled, faced with the choice of lowering prices until they couldn't make a dime, or holding prices up where they needed to be, and not making any sales, so no dimes there either. Some businesses simply went out of business. They said they were driven out. But, others took a different tact and altered what they offered. They started turning themselves into little shops that offered merchandise that Walmart didn't deal in, a little more upscale, a little more of the hard-to-find, a little more specialized and *gift-y* etc. and that turn of merchandise saved them. Truthfully, today the folks there are real happy with Walmart saving them money, making their money stretch further with those low prices, AND they can now shop those little specialty shops too, which didn't used to exist there, and Walmart saves them enough to have a bit to spend in the local shops.
I'm going to continue to deal in pre-owned and original that mega businesses won't carry. Original art, pre-owned collectibles, antique and primitives, mid-century decor and kitchen pieces, etc. So, will see how it hold up. So far.. so good.
Regards,
