‘I really strongly believe that capitalism as we know it is dead…that we’re going to see a new kind of capitalism and that new kind of capitalism that’s going to emerge is not the Milton Friedman capitalism that’s just about making money.’
—Marc Benioff
10
Capitalism panders to the laziness and sloth of the consumers who are in turn shaped by predatory advertising. This is the way American Cancer Capitalism always has worked and always will. Marx was right that Capitalism can only thrive by starving its own workers of income to buy things. Ergo, a police state with a predatory financial class and an underclass of overwhelming misery who are strung out on debt.
19
"Why is a less efficient, less personalized and more wasteful way of buying screws and plungers — ordering online — displacing the local hardware store?"
The delusive "ideology of convenience" is certainly part of the reason, but not all of it.
Another major factor has been the stupifying mantra that internet businesses deserve immunity from regulatory rules that have for decades and centuries applied, especially to industries producing damaging and addictive products (e.g. social media in the online sphere, which is wrecking politics and young people, not just small businesses). That immunity made some sense when computer and internet companies were garage start-ups. But that was decades ago now. Some of these robber barons have since become massive and monopolistic global juggernauts. It is way past time to rein them in and hard, and push back aggresively against their deceptive propaganda.
19
I live in an area where we are lucky to have 2 local hardware stores, one of them a True Value. They are treasures! The service in wonderful and they sell a lot of things that are not available at the big box stores. Once I brought in a malfunctioning item and the clerk fixed it for me.
15
Yes, indeed. Family owned H&W Hardware on First Ave. in the East Village is a prime example.
Went in there yesterday because I needed a replacement hose for my ramshackle shower. The amount of time and care they took, looking through their stock and old catalogues was incredible.
Together we came up with a hybrid solution that worked perfectly. They must have spent a good 45 minutes with me.
I hope the $15 I spent was well worth their time.
23
Yes, brick&mortar small businesses vanishing, but meantime there are a lot of small businesses are opening at electronic platforms, e-commerce. If we can not survive those b&m small businesses those are closing maybe we can at least focus on empowering "actual" small businesses online those trying to survive in competition with Amazon. Amazon shouldn't be able to function both as a marketplace platform for e-commerce small business merchants and as a giant merchant itself.
2
I have rediscovered the local hardware store. I may have gotten some walking steps in when I visited Home Depot or Lowe's, but the stores are so big. The help there seems to care, but I like a smaller, crammed-to-the-ceiling store where the help is more personal.
9
Where I live I have no idea where there is a local hardware store. We have Lowe's and Home Depot and maybe one or two other national chains but a local place? Not here in Las Vegas. It is a sad story but so many forms of retail and other businesses have declined or disappeared. I have gone to the movies in a long time. Netflix does it all along with some other channels. I remember going to watch rare sophisticated foreign movies. They were a delight, requiring a trip to some part of the city I was living in that was kind funky. No more. It is all my 50 inch HD screen.
Shopping malls? Much of that can be replaced with Amazon which usually has a larger selection and better prices.
I still have a car but I'm thinking ride sharing is viable alternative. When they start autonomous ride sharing systems that would be very cheap that could replace owning a car for most people. I do shop for food but with the new online food services I could get it all delivered.
Bookstores? Well, you know what I am going to say.
1
In 5 or 10 years NYC as we know it will be gone, it's disappearing at such a rapid clip.
Change is inevitable, but the neighborhood with more rent control are much more stable. This exact problem is one of the things that rent control addresses.
More rent control? Seems like a good idea.
7
If you have a doohickey you need to replace but you don’t know what it is called or what size you need, how can you order it on Amazon? Which of the 40-odd aisles would you go to in HD or Lowe’s to find out the non-English-speaking sales clerk can’t answer your question? You can take the item with you to a small hardware store, get a replacement and learn its name. You can get answers to nearly all home maintenance questions and browse the store without feeling you walked twenty miles. My point is that small hardware stores can compete with Amazon and the big box retailers. Price is not the only thing that matters.
11
We’re fortunate to have a small hardware store, Fairfax Hardware, in Wilmington. Easy to drive over when we need this and that. The service is good as well.
I indulge in online shopping, I confess, but it is normally for used items on eBay, or items I cannot find in stores (certain facial washes or shampoos) on Amazon. Online shopping does offer a certain convenience for a number of items, but nothing takes the place of saying “hello” at the cash register.
6
If you think the hardware is cheaper than amazon,try mine in sebastopol cal. Far more expensive with far lessselection.
1
Maybe in NYC. Not in rural America.
2
When the Home Depot opened in our quaint ante-bellum town, Hillsborough NC I made sure I walked into Dual Supply and told the owner I would not change my buying habits when the big box opened. He thanked me. The big box often sends people to our town's hardware store. Now the quaint downtown is full of foodies and coffee shops. Parking is an issue and the city will not support the store and give them a few slots with limited parking time. So the hardware store is getting killed by 3 hour parking and he cannot even get the big trucks to unload in front of the store much less his contractors having the same issue. They are still open and I hope it never goes but with the "Colonial Inn" circa 1838, down the street being refurbished parking will be even more problematic.
25 years ago downtown had just a couple of restaurants and a lot old antique stores and no parking problems. It's great that the Colonial Inn has been saved and restored.
But gentrification of the downtown is more of a problem than Amazon or the big box just a few miles away for Dual Supply.
6
I can’t imagine not having a local hardware store. As a interior designer, and for my own home, I’m in one all the time. While I live in a NY suburb and shop my local one for clients and for me, in the last few years I’ve decorated an apartment in San Francisco and fell in love with the Cole Hardware store there and I designed a flip house in RI and fell in love with two equally fantastic hardware stores there—Durfee’s and Adler’s. It’s their service—the deeply knowledgeable people who work there who can help me find solutions to whatever design problem I’m experiencing—and their great products that I have the gratification of walking out with immediately to get the job done. Amazon cannot compare, at all.
7
College freshman economics at work here. Amazon, et. al has dramatically reduced the viability/returns of smaller independent stand alone retail shops. We call it the aggregation of retailing. It’s another evolution beyond Big Box that sharply curtailed the ranks of individual stores. The small business class is dying across America’s larger communities and smaller towns.
Our own small City of Norwalk, CT once had half a dozen traditional hard ware stores. Now we’re down to just one and small business owners who once flourished taking an active interest in local governance have gone. So we’re not only loosing small business but their enormously important contribution to local governance in being “watch keepers” of City Hall. Sigh.
9
I lived in Maine for a decade from the late 70's through the late 80's and owned a house that was on the town map in 1624.
It included white pine boards close to 2 feet in width.
I learned more about everything from the frequent and increasingly urgent trips to the ACE hardware store in Brunswick than I learned while getting my undergrad degree at the same time at USM.
I currently live in eastern Oregon's out back pucker brush, the closest town and hardware store is an hour round trip.
The home delivery option is a huge selling point and increasingly not in sole possession of Amazon, I've purchased from Home Depot and Lowe's as often as Amazon for hardware needs.
I had a bathroom faucet needing replacement. The local hardware store didn't have what was needed, Amazon would be two days for delivery I chose to drive the nearest Home Depot—two hours—to get it that day and on the drive in a passing car threw up a rock cracking the windshield.
What should have been a $10 faucet cartridge became a $235 faucet cartridge.
The big guilt trip placed on consumers to shop local and support small business isn't often reciprocated by local small businesses in terms of selection and service.
2
IDK about cheaper. The True Value near me has good stuff but they also have a lot of junk stuff and all of it is priced very high. High enough that the cost of driving 20 miles round trip for some single items is covered.
1
Along with this author, I mourn the loss of local hardware stores, and other local stores. I have adopted my neighbor's term:
Home Despot.
I can no longer get what I need from salespeople I get to know. It is online commerce, but also big box stores, that have removed the decent local jobs and human face of "main street".
When I hear that Amazon (and FedEx) paid zero taxes, it makes me furious.
We all need to remember that society should be based on helping either other, not on finding victims to blame and people to hate.
Nor should it be built on unbridled greed and grotesque income inequality.
That way lies the insanity of mass shootings, etc., as we no longer deal with each other face to face, with all our imperfections and generosity.
10
Another culprit: billionaire Waltons, of Walmart, who post how to get government help rather than paying a living wage.
Another trick: making employees part term so they can't get benefits. Just like the gig economy, another trickle-up engine.
16
@SusaIn Anderson - Ummm ... I am hardly one to carry water for the Waltons, but the Neighborhood Walmart around the corner from me offers a good selection of healthy foods at considerably lower prices for staple items. The store reflects the ethnic makeup of our area, and caters to lower- and fixed income families. The major regional chain has its nearest store a mile away, at higher prices. A nearby local chain is the high-price leader, catering to the yuppie crowd.
3
@Steve
Yes, cheap foods and convenience, indeed. So the lower wage people have cheaper goods to buy. And you are right, local markets are pricey and often inconvenient in lower socioeconomic status areas.
4
Supporting small business, mom-and-pop stores and other owner-run ventures, should be a key goal of national economic policy. These businesses, owned and managed by people who have the ambition and skill to work for themselves and their families instead of corporate overlords, lift people out poverty and promote socioeconomic mobility. Generations of immigrants, creatives, and others who opt out of traditional jobs, play a vital role in national prosperity, even as they're excluded from the country's social safety net. It's harder than ever for small businesses and self-employed individuals to make a go of it in America. This has to change for the benefit of all.
9
The closing of Chelsea Convenience Hardware resembles the fate of many small businesses in San Francisco. The same forces, rising commercial rents and competition from online retailers have caused these stores to close. While we have residential rent control in San Francisco, we don't have commercial rent control. I don't know our Board of Supervisors doesn't pass commercial rent control to save these small businesses. Does commercial rent control violate the principles behind a free market economy? The rule of big corporate retailers also means less choice for consumers, as well as workers. Because small businesses have to compete with online retailers like Amazon, they often don't order as many products as they used to. From what I have heard about the oppressive working conditions at Amazon, particularly in their warehouses where they deliver products , I don't shop at Amazon. I much prefer shopping at my local hardware store where I just got expert advice about buying a good paring knife.
2
The smell in these shop were priceless, but unfortunately it was a hassle on the west coast to get there. You had to get in your car drive around and around until you found a parking place, then pay for parking, and it always took a lot longer to buy something because you had to look at everything the nooks and crannies always had hidden gems. So very sad
5
One of the biggest problems that the small hardware stores face is that the younger-than-mine generations have never experienced the service, selection and prices of these independent stores. Even those who stumble into Ace or True Value or Home Depot are faced with the same 25,000 most popular items - different brands, different labels, but the SOS.
FWIW, this is also true of the major grocery chains.
4
Hardware stores are among my favorite stores. Something is broken? Can't figure out what you'll need in order to make something? The folks in neighborhood hardware stores will know and are happy to share their expertise. It's reassuring to know how many things can be fixed, instead of being thrown into a landfill.
I've gotten much more familiar with my local Aces and TrueValue stores ever since learning that the founder of Home Depot is giving millions to re-elect Trump.
3
@Peggy Datz
once upon a time this is true.
I've frequented my local ACE hardware store for a decade now and as the economy has come back the turn over rate has gotten absurd.
The first five years and it was the same half a dozen folks with whom I was on a first name basis. The past four years there has been a new cast characters every other week with the exception of the manager her granddaughter and the weekend manager.
2
I wonder how much of the enormous rent increases began and accelerated after Bloomberg became mayor. I used to live in NYC, and it seemed like he turned the city into a magnet only for the super rich....Now I read about the empty storefronts along Madison Avenue in the upper east side....No longer the place for non-billionaires.
5
Yes, let’s let Bezos and the Waltons have ALL the money.
Other than government intervention, the only solution is for individuals to shop local, shop small, as much as they can. We’re all in this together right?
7
I am thankful to have a wonderful local hardware store within walking distance. The staff is helpful and knowledgeable, and if you need windows or screens repaired, they are the place to go.
I worked at Home Depot's corporate headquarters in the 1990s. They made no bones that they wanted to drive everyone else out of business. They would open stores near other stores in order to do that. They would even cannibalize their own stores if it meant killing the competition. Frequently, once the competitor closed, the HD store would close, too. Customers would then have to make a longer drive to the closest HD store.
After that into modern commerce, I now try to shop locally as much as possible and keep my money in the community.
When I first lived in Atlanta, I shopped at the first HD store, which was in an old A&P building. So it started out as a local hardware store.
In Maine I do try to use the local hardware stores. Yet, half the time I go "We don't carry that" and "Did you try Home Depot?"
My grandfather used to own the store in Maine. The "new" owner (who bought it in the 60s) recently died. It has limited inventory and often prices higher than Home Depot. Both stores are a 20+ mile trip; Amazon is a LOT more convenient much of the time since it arrives to my doorstep.
These stores are going the way of cobblers and dial telephones.
4
It’s wrong to generalize. Ask Ace Hardware.....our local stores do very well.
3
Long live Harry’s Ace Hardware on Magazine St. In New Orleans! They got your dishes, caulk, tin snips, screws, drills, you name it plus great sales people. Grew up going there and thankfully, it’s still there.
Two things jump out in the article and comments:
1) community... we have to design the communities we want to live in, which takes active participation in our community, our democracy. It takes involvement.
2) conversation... many have mentioned a convo with a sales person regarding a repair or general pleasantries. We might need “social interaction” classes in high school to help teens get comfortable chatting and asking for what they need in order to strengthen social fabric and of course, great for job training.
Thanks for a the article; this could be a series comparing hardware stores in other communities and then some basic action items on how to get started either saving a threatened existing biz and starting up a new neighborhood hardware coop where there is a need. Another article series idea: please follow the online product shipping packaging that goes... where? Into oceans and landfills... I have no idea.
3
25-30 years ago I was a wholesale salesman on Long Island selling to hardware stores and lumber yards. It was my experience that if a Home Depot or Lowes opened to the east or west of a hardware store, it was possibly survivable for the hardware store. But if an HD or Lowes opened, one to the east and another to the west, then it was curtains for the hardware store or lumber yard. We said goodbye to a lot of wonderful old-time hardware stores and lumber yards and goodbye to a lot of good knowledgeable people.
1
I lived in a small town in PA where the local hardware store was all things for all people. It closed when the owner died.
I lived in a Minneapolis suburb where there was a wonderful little hardware store that had everything I ever needed, plus free coffee. Rent went up and they closed. Now that space sells upscale children's clothing.
Currently live in Michigan where I am once again blessed with a local hardware that has all and knows all. I hope I don't live long enough for it to become a Baby Gap.
5
Such a great quote from this story, “ that business and capitalism can be at odds — that the drive for immense capital gains can drain the life out of human-scale business.”
Until we learn the TRUE COSTS of the Amazon model (i.e., loss of small neighborhood businesses, products and quality you can’t find elsewhere, jobs for the local economy and youth, local business vibrancy, sense of community and belonging, etc., to say nothing of the climate impact of the exponential increase in delivery trucks racing to meet same day/quick delivery promises for any and all sized orders, and corresponding increased burden on our infrastructure, traffic, etc.), we will continue down this path of gutting our local economies. Generally we don’t change until it hurts badly enough. How long will that take? This unfortunately is not new. Another milestone in this scenario was the dawn of Walmart that began the gutting of small town main streets and flooded the world with cheap product, and moving manufacturing abroad. We have to count the TRUE COSTS and we can only do that by seeing the bigger picture; something this country is not terribly good at.
7
I love the smell of hardware stores!
2
Zimmerman Hardware in suburban Palatine, IL just closed after 136 years!
As for Ace, their prices are too high compared with Home Depot and other big box stores.
2
@SmileyBurnette
Correction: ZIMMER Hardware.
But Willem is “not so stupid,” Mr. Feygin says. “He works for a hedge fund.”
Reading these comments, it's easy to see how often we envy or forget those among us who have moved out, on or up... or have simply gotten lucky!
2
:...a near-doubling of rent, from about $6,000 to $10,800 per month, for his 600 square feet...."
Fred Trump smiles from his grave ....
9
In the West Village, not far from Chelsea, countless storefronts formerly occupied by mom-and-pop tenants like this one are now sitting empty, no one paying any rent at all to the landlords that asked for unsustainable rent increases. Is it only the taxes, or are a lot of these building owners so over-leveraged that they can’t meet their debt obligations? Are they just greedy? Or just stupid?
8
@JH There was actually an article in this paper (last year?) about how many owners were incentivized to keep their store fronts vacant because of clauses in their mortgages.
3
Sorry, this a weak piece full of broad generalizations and declarations of "fact" ("It’s cheaper and more efficient than ordering from Amazon!") designed to stimulate emotional responses. The author interviewed one guy whose business failed and then used this case to justify his personal biases. This is an extremely complex issue and the writer made little effort to convey the complexity. Please do a better job, Mr. Wu.
7
ok, millennials.
7
Right on. The Achilles heal of morbid capatilism.
F3
1
Great piece. Sadly small ma n pops are getting squeezed out. Younger generation just don’t care about supporting local business. I don’t see it changing anytime soon
3
To shop at these places, one is forced to interact with other humans. Ordering online,
maybe you see a delivery person, maybe. The intimacy is threatening. You know, “ How are you?”and all that. It’s downright human. And the imposition...oh my. We’re being trained by a one way president*, think Fox and Friends.
Our restaurants are next. Go out! Not on your Grub Hub life.
3
Reading this op-ed, I felt like I was transported back to the 1980s. When my father came back from WWII, he opened up a hardware store on Long Island. By the time he retired 35 years later, the writing was on the wall: chain hardware megastores with free parking and lower prices were opening up nearby and customers were deserting his store. Rent increases weren't the problem; he owned the building. When he tried to sell the entire business as a whole, there were no serious takers, and the building was absorbed by an adjacent clothing store.
Meanwhile, I worked at other family owned hardware stores in cities across the US. They're all closed now or have been reduced to specialities like designer cabinet hardware. In all cases, they could not compete because the chain stores had longer hours (including evenings and Sundays), more stock, easier access and free parking, and yes, lower prices.
While Mr. Wu may bemoan having to spend more on screws and bolts, now available only in packages, there's no doubt that tools, electrical and plumbing fixtures, building materials, and almost all other hardware is much cheaper at the Home Depots than at the independents. Amazon is just Home Depot on steroids.
The real story here is how Mr. Feygin was able to still open a family hardware store in 1997 after this transformation was so far along. And my guess is that this has more to do with the circumstances of retail stores in Manhattan than a larger national trend.
7
This is exactly the same as the recent story about taxicab medallions and Uber. Enterprising immigrants in the 1990's seeking an upper middle class life, by accumulating enough wealth or borrowing to to stake themselves in a self-employment gig, could start small businesses, & make a relatively comfortable living in an ecosystem that supported both big and smaller fish. Willing to accept the latter status and its modest but solid remuneration combined with the autonomy of self-employment, it was a very viable scheme until the "bigger fish" learned to exploit the potential of what the great economist Robert Frank calls the "Winner Take All Society" (read it!).
Speaking of Russians (and Russian ex-patriots who moved to NY for that matter), Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote in "Babiyar," that most famous of Holocaust poems, "First they came for the ______,but I was not _____, so I did nothing....then they came for____, I did nothing because was not ___,.... then they came for me......"
This is truly the story of the modern world, and its faith in Adam Smith's rational egoism: "It is not from the generosity of the butcher, the baker, or the brewer that we get our dinner, but from their self-interest."
In the case of the taxi drivers who got burned with their medallions, as with these small business owners, they assumed cosmic forces would protect them from their own capitalism's darker side, but this turned out to be fantasy. Mr. Feygin's twice-compatriot could have told him that.
2
Pfft. That is the capitalism you all so love and cherish. "Get out of the way for a worse thing. We have no time to listen to your wisdom."
But the NYT is as complicit as anything else in being cheerleaders for the corporates and their interests. So don't expect to find an answer within these pages.
1
We are stripping our humanity from everything in some mindless search for "technology" and another penny per share in net income and making life monotonous and devoid of spirit.
Let me take you back to the 60's in Bensonhurst Brooklyn...
The local hardware store on 20th Avenue and 85th Street owned and operated by "Hy and his wife" the name?
Hy's Hardware, of course.
Need a light bulb? he had them and he checked them by pushing them into a socket he had by his register where it lit up.
Need some nuts and bolts? bring your do it yourself story to Hy and he would look through his Breakstone Butter wood boxes full of nuts and bolts, arranged in a way only Hy understood and he found what you were looking for along with free advice on your project.
When we were building a go cart with a wooden milk crate a 2X4 and the wheels from an old carriage, Hy gave us the nails and nuts and bolts we needed because thats what a good neighbor small business did in Bensonhurst in the 60's.
And lastly, in the back of the store Hy sold Model HO Railroad Trains and the kids in the neighborhood, sent by their parents to buy a sponge or some soap, would stop to watch the trains go by on their track - and dream, perchance to dream.......
7
Nyc continues the move into a high end box store. Thanks Bloomberg deblasio for looking the other way. Allowing rising rents and foreign investment not to live here but just plant their wealth here while their native countries decapitate.
3
100 year old hardware store in Cynthiana KY fighting to survive but will the next generation want to take on the struggle
https://mountainworkshops.org/history/2019/24064
2
The loss of local small businesses has destroyed the fabric of cities and towns throughout the country. Yes, it's sad in NYC but it's really sad in a small town when every cafe, hardware store, and clothing store vacate. Walmart started it all and now Amazon is sucking the life and dollars out of local economies and cultures. I tie the opioid epidemic to this consolidation and centralization. You can add in gun violence which ironically has occurred frequently in Walmarts. People are isolated and dispensable. I love my local ACE Hardware and to there first to get what I need and talk to my "helpful hardware man." I appreciate their advice and their presence. I know their days are probably numbered.
2
You have to love all the comments on here lamenting how they are no longer able to buy a screw at their local store. Do you think these stores are able to survive on your purchase of a screw? What else are you buying there? Paint? Plumbing supplies? Ladders?
9
This is a timely article. It is not too late for Mr. Feygin to learn basic of starting his own e-commerce store. It is a transformation, now small businesses moving to electronic platforms, Amazon happens to be only one of the many Marketplaces where an independent e-commerce store can utilize as a sales channel. Free information on starting your own e-commerce store: https://ownbusiness.us/
1
One of the points of the story is that these stores are better than e-commerce because you can get advice and touch and see what you are buying. Plus, take it home now without environmentally wasteful same-day/next-day delivery.
We don’t need more e-commerce; we need more personal relationships and commerce.
5
Hey that just means one more place for a Sweetgrass.
2
Too bad Mr. Feygin can't hang on until they legalize recreational marijuana in NY State, which is already the case in THIRTY-THREE STATES and D.C.
A bong, pipe and weed shop would do well in that neighborhood.
But what the heck is New York waiting for? Aren't we supposed to be the socially and culturally most enlightened state in the Union?
What is keeping NY back from the inevitable?
2
I mourn for the loss of Falk Hardware, our only real hardware store, in the past year. It was a store where they greeted you at the door. I seldom needed directions. I usually went directly to the bins of screws, nails, bolts, nuts and washers that I could pick up and examine, taking all the time I needed to select just the right fastener for my latest home project, buying exactly the number I needed, marking the price on the bag myself. They trusted the customer. Try doing that at one of the big box hardware stores where the best you can hope for is a plastic box that allows you to get a brief look at what’s inside. The loss of these neighborhood hardware stores is a significant loss to our communities. Shopping at my computer, although convenient, will never replace what we’ve lost.
1
I grew up in a neighborhood that within walking distance had a kosher butcher store, a couple of barber shops, a small appliance store, a toy store, two movie theaters, two pharmacies that sold comic books and made great milkshakes and cherry Cokes, a shop that fixed radios and TVs, a Greek deli , a large park full of trees to picnic under, a big outdoor swimming pool, a public library, tennis courts, a zoo with elephants (yes it was sad, but I liked them), a very good elementary school, multiple churches and synagogues, a couple of liquor stores, a pool hall and a heavily trafficked bookie parlor. Plus you could walk out of your house any time of day and quickly find half-a-dozen guys to play basketball and touch football with.
There was also a brothel. I was in it once. The lady in charge was very nice to me, but I was too scared to become a customer.
Amazon.com it was not.
Thank you G-d.
5
world gone wrong
1
Hey NYT, stop linking your wares to Amazon and start linking them to local proprietors. You’re part of the problem for the demise of the ‘local’ store.
It’s rather funny, after Amazon spurned NYC, you still link them to your wayfarer products. Spun them. Stupid is as stupid does.
2
Incredibly sad, incredibly stupid. Property developers are a bigger cause of our problems than even Amazon is.
3
When I moved into my 100 yr old house in 1982 there was a True Value hardware store 3 miles away. There was a huge Hechinger Hardware about 20 miles away. I bought almost everything locally but certain things like a variety of light fixtures were easier to browse at the megastore. After a few years, the True Value built a big new store over near the interstate and closed three small stores including the one 3 miles away. Still it was only 8 miles. Before long Hechingers went bankrupt. The True Value expanded with a larger lumber selection and rental equipment. The friendly staff were all long term and quite knowledgeable about all sorts of hardware, paint, fixtures, etc. They still have aisles of bins where you can find nuts, bolts, screws and buy just the number you need for a project. The Home Depot which went up a quarter mi away offers such items only in boxes of 100. I occasionally go there, but my “local” hardware store is still better.
1
Death to billionaires!
5
Gee, I dunno. Here in Boulder, Co, a city of 100,000, we have McGuckin’s, a local institution for over 50 years. They even wrote a book about it. You can buy everything from gold pans (for panning for gold) to a Swiss raclette to special screws to mount your own ski bindings. There’s even a Home Depot down the street catering to those preferring a more diminished big box experience. Oddly enough, bot stores are the same physical size.
I always shopped here or at KDM on 26vor Boveon 8th Ave. Then Bloomberg finished the job of ruining nyc tha fascist Ghouliani began. Moved upstate along with many humans. Good luck. Love those real estate values? Oraborus.
1
In rural Wisconsin, many small towns are trying to "revitalize" main street. This, after city governments gave big box stores huge baskets of goodies to come in and destroy said bustling main streets. So maybe the pendulum will swing back as people start to realize that sitting on your rear end wasting your eyesight scrolling through millions of widgets is less efficient than walking to the nearest small business. It might also help with our obesity and social isolation epidemics. And this old lady can once again walk into a hardware store where someone rushes up to say , "How may I help you?" ( And thanks for a great editorial.)
2
I'm sadden by the news. I lived and worked in Manhattan and shopped at this store all the time. Shelves crammed with all those odd items I hadn't seen in years. I loved being able to buy screws from wooden drawers, not prepackaged in threes. I spent my teenage years working in a store like this, in Miami. I learned a lot about hardware and life. A sad adieu.
1
Assume correctly there are economic and social costs to bigness and internet commerce, pieces like the authors are merely exercises in nostalgia. No one at Amazon or any at any related internet business is going to provide individual customer service. Buy wrong - send it back. Plainly there are inefficiencies in buying online.
The real problem for the small business owner is jumbo rent increase that for him is unworkable, a problem arising from scarce resources and the profit motive. Unless we are prepared to roll back the real efficiencies of internet business, recognized by millions of its users, and require commercial landlords to forego jumbo rent increases, small hardware stores, and businesses like it, will go the way of the dinosaurs. Suck it up,dude!
As I’m currently in the process of restoring a Victorian house, I am extremely grateful to have a local, independently-owned hardware store nearby. I rely on this shop and its owner to guide me for supplies, and how best to utilize them- we also chat about the neighborhood, local resources, etcetera. As a general rule, I strongly avoid ordering anything online that isn’t needed or found locally. The thought of ordering via the internet something as mundane and easily accessible as tape or screws makes my brain short-circuit.
1
I have big fairly new Lowes at mu other house on the coast. It's great for buying new cabinets for the kitchen or flooring but worthless for much else.
Instead I go to this little ACE Hardware which stocks all the little things. It has three times the screws and bolts Lowes carries, especially in stainless steel something we use a lot of here. It carries a lot of outdoor items made of plastic since every metal, even aluminum towns to powder.
At the Lowes it's hard to find help when you just don't know what you're looking for. Everyone seems to be an expert at the ACE and knows where it is in the store.
Despite the new Lowes store the ACE has expanded its size and carries more items than 20 years ago.
I would hate to see either store gone when they're so near but they serve different needs. I like the ACE better though.
1
Here in Hove a perennial - well, it's been here thirty years or more - is The Nut and Bolt Store. Other types of small shop have come and gone, though such places as greengrocers and vacuum-cleaner repairs survive, One can go in and buy four screws, vital for putting a piece of wood in place - or, as builders do, load up with rather more. Everybody is treated the same, with knowledge and good humour. All this might sound geekish but it soon becomes fascinating. We are lucky to have this Portland Road here.
1
I grew up in a time where most towns had at least one hardware store. Granted, we were not offered the endless number of choices of brooms, shovels and power tools we seem to need these days. As a baby boomer we were taught to buy wisely from our neighborhood merchants. We usually did not think about the time we saved or the quick advice and benefit to the community of shopping locally.
Somehow, we morphed into a society that rewards choice over quality. Hardware stores were there to help us fix things or solve small problems.Today, the box store is there to sell us what we do not realize we need. They replace what we have or provide solutions that over-solve the problem such as a box of eight screws when we needed only two. What do you do with those extra six screws? Are prices and solutions really better because the store is huge?
1
I worked in a hardware store when I was young. One that my grandmother ran in northern Ohio. I can remember days spent sorting and binning pipe fixtures, cleaning and stocking shelves, learning to cut keys, the smells of grass seed and fertilizer. Putting out the sleds for sale in winter.
The big box stores, which I will not name, don’t smell the same. Folks are nice enough but you cannot get the automated key cutting machine to make duplicates of a non-standard shed key and they will not stock #8 half inch flat head phillips screws since these items don’t hit the necessary expected sales volume to make such stocking profitable. No one—who you just met and will never meet again—will stop and regale you about their wife’s poor cooking. I will not even discuss mail order alternatives.
For my part, I forego the five minutes drive to the big box store near us and will, instead, drive Virginia backroads thirty minutes or so to get to Earls True Value Hardware (and post office) here in southern Stafford just north of Fredericksburg. The sounds, smells, and feeling of early childhood return. Folks have time and an inclination to talk a bit. What I may lose in driving time I more than make up in a balm for my soul.
1
First, if you’re going to talk about small businesses, you can’t really draw any conclusions from NYC. As the article mentions in passing, real estate is expensive in NYC, so of course that’s going to affect viability.
Second, the main reason I went to Lowes or Home Depot for hardware wasn’t price. It was that the local Ace hardware almost never carried what I needed. Even if we’re talking about something simple like hex-headed sheet metal screws.
I couldn't agree more. There is a hardware store on the west side of First Avenue between First and Second Streets which my small business must have used daily for 25 years. Even though they were affiliated with "Ace", they go by their original owner's name. Over a decade before Amazon was just some idea, we would buy everything from steel cable, bolt cutters, chains, or even topsoil in a pinch. The best part is they are only a 5 minute walk from our office. We knew everyone there; some became good friends. One person rode the same Long Island train as I did. We read constantly (as many people on the LIRR do). I remeber the evening of 9/10/2001, three of us happened to be reading the same paperback: "In The Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex", which (unfortunately) was made into a film by Mr. PG-13 himself, Ron Howard (aka "Opie"). It was a remarkable coincidence. Less than 16 housr later, all our lives were changed. I digress. My point is I knew where everything was in the store. From paint to paper, nut and bolts, screws, air conditioners, fans, ad infinitum. The slightly higher cost made no difference for one single reason: when you need something "Right Away", I knew they most likely had it. Brick and mortar stores provide something Amazon cannot: Convenience.
My local store, University Hardware and Housewares in Morningside Heights, has been family-owned and operated since 1938. The owner greets customers by name and staff are knowledgeable and helpful. The excellent customer service, extensive stock, and competitive pricing make for the store's continued success. It's a true gem in the neighborhood and one of those rare and wonderful places that makes the area feel more small-town than big-city.
1
I am surprised that none of the 20 or so comments I read did not address the rent issue. That is the killer element in this and so many other stories. This poor chap faced a rent increase of over 50%; that is criminal. Some hedge fund, or mega rich guy, buys a property, jacks up the rent, slaps coat of paint on it and sells it 2 years for a big profit to the next hedge fund. And so it goes, like a daisy chain. Unfortunately, the only entity powerful enough to stop this destruction is the government. Either by way of local action, or a vote of the citizens a cap on commercial rents is necessary. Otherwise there will be no small business owners left.
3
If you live in the city and have a local hardware store that is a short walk from your apartment, then that may be more efficient that buying from Amazon. However, living in the suburbs means driving to a hardware store and sometimes finding they don’t have the item that you need.
I buy a lot more from Amazon these days to save time, save money, and find exactly what I want.
Yes, the closing of the local hardware store is a real loss. For me, it was Posner's Hardware, a fabulous hardware store in Bayside. Just bring your problem broken piece and they would happily discuss the possible solutions and walk you over to where the solutions could be found. Or just browse the store and find interesting items you didn't know existed. I now shop Home Depot, where you walk through a huge canyon of stuff where unhappy and unmotivated employees appear too busy to look your way.
4
The times well they are a changing ,we live in a digital plastic age
with little human encounter, I hate all of it.
One could put our local needed stores that sell medical supplies in this sad story as they disappear or are bought out by new owners who do not any longer SERVICE home used medical needs equipment and mobility devices .
For specialist caregivers supplies my wife requires that I used to purchase at a local medical mobility supply store ,I now have to shop on Amazon.
1
One hears--from economists, from undergraduates, from ordinary Joes--how capitalism is "the best and most logical economic system," a great way to "create wealth" and "fundamentally democratic." I'm a high school teacher and there's no dissent from this catechism among my students or colleagues.
And yet...
In my town, and perhaps in yours as well, what happens again and again is that a large national chain will open its doors, lower prices (bulk sales!), bankrupt nearly every competing small business, including hardware stores, bookstores, clothes stores, and stand-alone local restaurants, and then, when the market is saturated with other competing large national chains, they will close their doors and leave a landscape cluttered with vacant buildings, enormous trash-strewn parking lots, and unemployed workers.
Tax incentives, stagnant wages, monopolies, globalization, and a complete lack of any concern for local consumers have rendered this "business model" the norm.
It's called "creative destructive."
Unfortunately, whether its a mad Republican in the White House or a moderate Democrat, this part of our lives isn't going to change.
2
I always go to a hardware store if I can. The wealth of knowledge and information can not be beat. Sadly, one of my favorites, Stepney Hardware in Monroe, CT closed. But I hear another may open up there. Hoping it is so.
2
Convenience, good advice, lower prices are being forced out of our cities by high rents. high property taxes, . . .
I suggest that we apply an old idea, encourage by incentives ground floor, low rent conveniences in big buildings. Barber and salon shops. Local restaurants. Watch and shoe repair shops. Hardware and computer and phone repair shops. Dr and Dentist offices.
Right now the ground floors are mostly wasted space and appearance. So make incentives.
Note: Encourage late evening businesses at street level. They would make downtown much safer at night to walk or to wait for the bus or taxi!
2
same story with small clothing stores....Americans have made the choice to buy in the big box stores ad use Amazon instead of the small family run retail shops that helped many go from immigrant status to their next generation going to college. That was part of what made the American Dream a reality and gave our nation increase strength and optimism.
The same is true with manufacturing ...people would rather save money up front and by cheaper Asian produced goods ( like clothes) that put so many American manufactures out of business and that in the long run destroyed the economies of so many small towns..so we all pay for that for decades .
We have lost a profound perspective on what makes us strong and vibrant as a society.
2
It isn't Amazon that has killed small businesses, it is the government that does not tax this behemoth.
If Amazon had to pay taxes, that packet of screws delivered free to your door the next day would cost double the price.
So everyone's fascination with the internet 25 years ago created the economy and government we have today.
Deeply unsatisfying, anonymous, and cruel.
2
Perhaps rising rents are a factor or a generation without do-it-yourself skills - Ace Hardware flourishes in any neighborhood that I visit. They have an online service too but I enjoy my weekly visit - from a few of the right screws, bird seed, plumbing needs, to tools always a cheerful smile and expert service:)
3
" He says he faced a near-doubling of rent, from about $6,000 to $10,800 per month, for his 600 square feet. Property taxes, which are tied to property values, also rose sharply. It was too much.
A much bigger culprit than the internet especially for a hardware store. Sure some folks will buy screws, nails, and tools of the internet, but most DIY folks like to discuss their plans a bit with someone who may know what is best.
4
"Property taxes, which are tied to property values, also rose sharply. It was too much."
But are renters responsible for property taxes? Aren't the owners of buildings responsible for taxes on their property?
Did Mr. Feygin's rent go up partly because the building's owner passed the property tax down to his tenants?
I'm for higher taxes on wealthy people, but the so-called law of unintended consequences should never be ignored.
When I need something for a repair or construction project, I head to local hardware stores and lumber yards. It's rare that I don't find what I want. Who'd order screws online?
(Response: I did, once, when I needed flat-tipped screws for my 1860s doorknobs. Sold in a box with a variety of sizes, none fit anyway.)
1
R-E-N-T! Just to cover the monthyl $10,800 rent he would have to net $360 a day ($30 an hour) in his 600 square foot store. Think about it. That's a heck-of-a-lot of screws and plungers.
3
"Why is a less efficient, less personalized and more wasteful way of buying screws and plungers — ordering online — displacing the local hardware store?"
I think a better question is why do people lament the closing of a store like this while at the same time they buy everything online.
2
What about the cost and energy of getting to the "store" and the inconvenience of searching when there is no wise man who knows about every screw, nut and light bulb in the universe? The collected wisdom of the internet knows far more than any one person. I have found, as have many people, that ordering online is by far more convenient and allows me to spend less time on the merely instrumental necessities of life. No local store has the variety of items, the detailed information and the quantity found online. It also makes better economic and environmental sense to have goods distributed by one truck driver (or robotic system) then to have a thousand people in a thousand brute machines traveling to the local distribution point. Also, the items I receive from Amazon are in better shape -- not picked over, dented, returned, abused or just plain old from sitting on the shelf. Bigness is not better for families and intimate social events, but is often better for purely anonymous commercial transactions where efficiency, economy of scale and time are the main point.
My neighborhood here in Louisville has a wonderful privately owned hardware store (Oscar's). It has parking within steps of both the front and rear entrances, employees who know their trade, and service that exceeds any standard.
I'm a 67 year old homeowner of 13 years, and every time I needed a toilet part, screw, paint supplies, or had a question about a home repair, I was able to walk in, get what I needed, and get back home within minutes.
Oscar's may not be cheaper, but they are certainly more efficient. Why would I blindly order something from Amazon or spend excessive time at a Lowes or Home Depot wandering around looking for what I need?
3
In Seattle,I can walk in 3 minutes to two independent hardware stores. I love their old wooden floors, the employees who know every single screw and bolt. Their inventory is amazing! Aside from loyalty, probably the reason for their success is that it is at least a 15 minute drive to Home Depot, and 20 minutes to Lowes.
2
@shirley - I'm guessing you simply must walk to the hardware stores, as driving would result in completely unaffordable parking... compared to the free parking offered by Home Depot and Lowes. Either way, convenience is what most shoppers have always preferred.
1
I love my local Hardware store. But its a dangerous place to take my wallet (I even still use cash sometimes). They have every conceivable light bulb and type of nail or screw. The most dangerous part is waiting in line and getting distracted by the incredible array of inspection flashlights hanging on the wall across from the register. From tiny to huge, LED or old fashioned light buld, bendable or rigid, magnets to hold it in place inside of a pipe ... magical. They even have free popcorn! And I didn't even have to wait a day to get what I needed.
2
bought some screws online for a tv support last week, and it was delivered through my local auction site (live in Brazil) from a local hardware store... maybe Mr Feygin should have gone to amazon and ebay marketplaces too..
1
When I lived in NYC for a few years, I got so many things in my local hardware store on Broadway. I still use every single thing I bought there- from screw drivers to an air conditioner and ladder. The prices were great and I got advice and good products. Greedy landlords are definitely part of the problem- most of the problem in the case in this article. Everyone will miss this hardware store and have to either order stuff they can't see first, on Amazon, or drive themselves to Home Depot. It's such a shame.
1
I’m a financially comfortable female who has owned her own home for 30 years and see no reason to pay someone for tasks I can easily and safely manage myself. I make every effort to support my local hardware and lumber stores vs e-commerce or big box retailers. From the moment I walk into these stores, I receive immediate help and recommendations from experienced staff who know what they’re talking about and who have taught me invaluable skills over the years. If I only need a couple screws at the last minute I can go out and buy them individually instead of waiting for a plastic bag full of the cheaply made ones to arrive from online delivery or having go through the chaos of maneuvering the big box stores. When I need a new power tool, they help me find one that is appropriate and safe for my small stature as well as take it out of the box, show me how to use it and encourage me to return if I need help. How can any of this compare to ordering online?
232
The ONLY reason I deal with Amazon is because it offers "free" shipping - which, in Hawaii, saves a huge amount of money. I will cease, as soon as I return to the mainland, much preferring to deal in person, locally.
1
Nowadays I prefer to shop at nice ,clean, well stocked ,locally owned , independent stores - hardware or general merchandise.
I prefer , if possible , to see it, touch it, pick out an undamaged package, have it same day and if necessary be able to quickly return anything unsatisfactory.
Handing a defective / damaged or just unsatisfactory product , to a well run local store is generally much more painless than dealing with online attitude and fine print. If I sometimes pay a little more , I don't feel too bad for the above reasons.
When the big boxes came to town and when the online option really got going , things were good ...for awhile, but then the usual greed and complacency took over and service /selection suffered and it was back to local , independent retailers.
1
Buy your holiday gifts at a local crafts fair or from local stores. I use Amazon as a reference, from time to time, to find out what’s available, then I buy whatever it is locally.
P.S.. Handmade art and craft pieces make the best gifts — they’re unique.
1
I find that Amazon is usually noticeably cheaper than the neighborhood hardware stores. As in $4 cheaper for an OXO can opener.
I try to support the neighborhood places because they are a safety blanket. But that patronage comes at a premium
1
Does Mr Wu realize this is nothing new to most of America?
Does he not know about supermarkets vs the local grocery store? The American small town vs Walmart (and for that matter chain restaurants and Obama’s Hampton inn)? Does he not realize that most less dense areas lost their hardware store to Home Depot decades ago? That they lost their bookstore to Barnes and Noble (which is fighting Amazon today)? What about the consolidation in eye care, funeral homes, broadcast media, and yes newspapers?
His point is not new. It is not particularly profound. Mr Wu has worked for a lot of distinguished institutions, but if this is where he is at, where has been?
5
And this is why CM Stephen Levin introduced a commercial rent control bill recently. A bill which the Mayor does not support because Real Estate call the shots in NYC.
3
It's not only competition from big box stores & Amazon, it's the rents in NYC! How the few mom&pop businesses stay in business is a phenomenal achievement.
In our local hardware store, we could buy a single nail or screw, exactly the right size. Nothing was ever on backorder. If you needed directions on a project, you got the best information. No up-sells since the community functioned together, as a whole. You were a customer as long as you lived there, and a regular after the second time you went in.
The same applies pretty much across the board for all types of neighborhood stores and services. We need the shoemakers, dry cleaners, dry goods stores, candy stores, stationery stores, and liquor stores. We need neighborhood businesses. They know their customers better than anyone, and serve them the best.
Hopefully there will be a revival in shop local. With gentrification, the only shops that can afford to be in business are chains and banks.
The most bizarre thing is that the very reasons people love individual neighborhoods is the culture and the services, and the latter are disappearing rapidly.
2
Treasure, treasure, treasure our store here in Ocala, Florida where you can go buy one bolt or screw of exactly the right size and thread shape. And all other hardward stores that have experienced people to advise you. Home and tool repair are not amateur sports! We need expert advice.
1
The story is very complex. I recently needed a particular rather common screw for a particular purpose. First I went to Lowe’s, and the employee there (once I found him, which took about 15 minutes) had no idea what I needed. So I decided to go to a local hardware (which is part of a chain). The employee there had no idea what I needed. I gave up, exhausted from driving around, then walking around stores trying to find someone, anyone to talk to, then getting no meaningful help. I ordered a whole package of screws I don’t need but containing the one screw (only 1) I need. The problem is a combination of factors. Lowe’s and Home Depot are too big, alienating, devoid of knowledgeable employees. Smaller hardware chains are simply devoid of knowledgeable employees (using the same genre of low-paid employees found in Lowe’s and Home Depot - they hardly know a screw from a nail and take forever to find). Additionally, many of the smaller, often big-city stores are hit by another problem: Lack of affordable housing for owners and employees. People simply can’t live in most cities now. We are entering a feudal society - the very rich and the rest of us peons.
2
If you want to be able to buy a screw at a local hardware store, then you need to suck it up and buy bigger ticket items there too. Otherwise that store will be gone the next time you need a screw.
5
In the mid-90s, here in Toronto there was a small hardware store on each block. These were special places that smelled of paint and glue. You could buy nails by the pound and there were jars of every size and kind of screw. I could spend hours exploring its dusty shelves, fascinated by the little treasures there. Now all gone.
For the first 18 years that I lived in Allentown, NJ, the hardware store a block-and-a-half down Main St. was the friendly little gem of a store, where the manager knew me by name and was happy, even eager to find just the nut, washer, or screw that I needed for my 10-cent purchase, or the several gallons of paint I might need. Even gave me a "senior discount" though I'd have been happy to pay full price just for the friendly service and the convenience of just popping down the block when a sudden need arose. Alas, he is no longer. Put out of business, of course, by Home Depot (where I will no longer shop, out of principle) and Lowe's, as well as online ordering from Amazon. Something once understood to be as American as Apple Pie.... the Mom & Pop store... is now all but gone. We are NOT the better for it.
1
My husband and I have sworn off of internet shopping and big box stores. In the past we bought items from Amazon, only to find them cheaper at our local hardware. So we stopped buying from Amazon. We wandered around for hours in Loews or Home Depot, but we couldn't find what we needed or we bought something that didn't work for us, and returned it. Long live the local stores, where we find better prices, less wasting of our time, and sales people who can answer questions.
2
Hall's Hardware here in West Palm Beach is the best. Well stocked, helpful staff. I recently purchased a plug for a lamp cord that I wanted to shorten that was supposed to make the process quick, easy and fool proof. When it wasn't working out well, I returned it to Hall's frustrated. The young man helping me said the plug was defective. "I'll get you new one and I'll do it for you." That wouldn't happen at Home Depot.
1
"For entrepreneurs, the American economy, with its extreme centralization, is becoming more like the Soviet economy Mr. Feygim left behind."
This is perhaps the most idiotic thing I've read about business on the NY Times OpEd.
Of all the challenges facing small hardware stores that Wu mentions -- e.g. rising rents, the internet, e-commerce merchants, and even his "ideology of convenience" theory -- only one, the Big Box lumber/hardware stores like Home Depot, is at all related to market share concentration.
3
I love going to my locally owned, hometown hardware store rather than the big boxes. There are guys to help with everything under the sun (and it’s 99 percent guys)...I am so unencumbered by practical fix-it knowledge. Help to fix my flashlight (it wasn’t the bulb), how can I get my toilet seat to stop coming loose (the plastic solid-tight nuts didn’t work), finding the right bolt to fix a part on my loom...you name it. I’ve gotten small stuff fixed for no charge. My pup dog tags along, and they always have a dog biscuit for him.
Just the other day I was ruing the demise of Stark Hardware in Shrub Oak and dreading the drive to the big box store which probably doesn't have what I want anyway (stainless steel nylox nuts? Good luck).
I run a small boat-building business from my home (little overhead) but I see the small stores being run out by the high rents and clout of the megas. Sad.
1
I was looking at toilet tank item replacements on Amazon but decided to drive into town to our local hardware store. A friendly owner looked at the antique item I brought in, laughed, and said he had a replacement for $8 (I was looking at Amazon items for more than 2X that). He showed me how to install it and I bought it. Works great!
1
My hope is that people bemoaning the loss of small business are including in their compassion the death of community newspapers. Do you also support yours?
2
I've been reading versions of the fawning article for at least 30 years. The 30 year old article would have placed the blame on the then rampant crime in NYC. 20 years ago it would have been WalMart's fault, 10 years ago, the Great Recession, and now Amazon. Yet, in all this time, everyone in NYC who needed a light bulb bought one ever more efficiently.
3
In NYC-the "Amazon effect" is a convenient distraction and opportunity for Big Real Estate...REBNY et al to cop-out of their predatory squeeze on small business tenants and the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost as a result. They say with a straight face that on-line shopping is why your local bodega has gone out of business. No kidding...
But in truth, warehoused empty storefronts await the arrival of the national one-size-fits-all chain store-or bank-or fast food joint wiling to pay top dollar rents. Because there are no commercial lease protections in place-occupant small business owners can be kicked out on a moments notice...yes, really. Developers & landlords figure it's a good investment - keep them empty & await the gentrifying beaucoup $$$ bucks to come.
Capitalism and bottom-line-profit-conquers-all...to be expected-but one must ask why the City Council...why Speaker Johnson & his cohorts have prevented the Small Jobs Business Survival Bill from being put on the floor for a vote to mitigate the emergency under our nose? This decades long effort to level the commercial tenant playing field has been suppressed, subverted & politicized.
In the meantime, we lose not only the NYC character, quirkiness, localized distinctions -but the jobs...all because our electeds prefer listening to their campaign funders i.e. the Real Estate Board of NY than to their constituents.
It's on them.
6
Amazon is certainly an issue for Mr. Feygin, but as someone out here in the hinterlands of America, the ruination of small business started with franchised, fast food restaurants and "Big Box" retailers.
As "mpound" mentioned in his/her comment, my first move as a homeowner, needing to make a repair or redecoration is to hit the local, Lowes or Home Depot.
If you need to purchase one small item, you might have to buy a plastic, package full. G-D forbid you need a special item like a certain size tube or hose. For a 5 inch repair, you need to buy 3 feet.
Amazon does work for certain items in particular quantities. If you can wait a few days, delivery might be free to your door.
Mr. Feygin has given his son his inheritance up front. Hedge fund professionals can make a ton of money from the unusually low interest rate environment, which allows this to happen.
Remember, THERE IS NO INFLATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!
3
destroying small family businesses its evil
2
Try buying one nut or washer at a big box store.
2
Two words: Maine Hardware.
mainehardware.com
1
“He works for a hedge fund.”
Part of the problem is that our society teaches children from the earliest age that money is the most valuable thing in life. Here’s a Hot Take for the NYT readership: There is something amoral about devoting your entire life to moving rich people’s money from one place to another in order to generate more money for the rich people and yourself.
6
I love my local hardware store, in Bernardsville, NJ. Recently, I was reconditioning a 20+-year-old tricycle, and took it there to get advice on rust removal, etc. The guys there were so helpful, and so knowledgeable, that I took the trike back after I was done cleaning it up, just to show them how great it looked.
Growing up, my family owned a furniture store in Pennsylvania, started by my great-grandfather. That store put three of us through college and sustained our family for many years, until it was time for my parents to retire.
Long live local businesses!
1
There was a small hardware store that one could walk to in my town; wooden floors et al. The owner provided my teenage son and many other teens with a first job. Later, it became an Ace Hardware franchise, but that couldn’t save it. The space became a bank; one of six on the same street in town. (For the record, we also have three nail salons.) This was before the large home improvement stores or Amazon took over. I’m not sure how to “save” these small businesses, but each year, and this year on November 30, American Express runs an incentive and calls it “Small Business Saturday”. It would seem that if we want small businesses to thrive, we need to shop at them more than once a year.
1
I’m a sculptor, seldom looking for standardized repair parts or trendy home construction materials, but the old-time hardware store equivalent of institutional memory is invaluable—to me. Non-standard fittings and hardware are often exactly what I need and big box stores just don’t bother with anything that doesn’t have a short shelf life or quick turnover. They’re interested in corporate need less than my need, at least. Whether this is an indictment of modern hardware capitalism I’ll leave to others to conjecture.
1
IT's the property taxes that are crippling. The homeowner pays everything while AMAZON pays none. Wake up ya bunch of lemmings! I propose everyone is billed directly for their property tax, separate from the mortgage payment. Maybe this will alert the gen public of what is really going on.
2
The Council Member where this hardware store is has failed to address the small biz issue in NYC. Corey Johnson the council member has so many empty storefronts in his district but continues NOT to sign on www.saveNYCjobs.org. Maybe the Commissioner Greg Bishop of NYC SBS can tell us why this wasn't done ages ago https://ny.curbed.com/2019/7/24/20708488/nyc-small-business-database-track-retail-vacancies. Also, we got duplicate services in the city where you got to wonder what the heck do all these so-called Chamber of Commerce, Business Improvement Districts do to help the small businesses in the areas they represent? Then you got a city tourism agency which is also suppose to promote small businesses, but does nothing. Another great example of a useless duplicate agency that doesn't help small businesses is the Harlem Community Development Corporation where there are many empty store fronts right near their headquarters. The HCDC is a subsidiary of Empire State Development who has a Small Business Division. So, we got BIDS, Chamber of Commerce, tourism agency, development corporations, NYC Economic Development and with many staff at these various entities can someone tell us why we have a small business problem?
2
As Joni Mitchell said:
“Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot“
2
To anyone who bemoans the demise of hardware stores you might want to read "Ode to Hardware Stores" by Barbara Hamby, found in Garrison Keillor's "Good Poems, American Places" and on line
What would Adam Smith say in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments"?
I'd like to agree, but the fact is I was constantly bullied and belittled going into the same cruddy hardware store for 20 years. The old man was always condescending and always made me feel low and like I overpaid. Now I just go to Amazon and get the same supplies at a better cost and shipped to me the same day. I sympathize greatly with the majority of mom and pop stores, but I'm glad Jerk Hardware is suffering.
3
Placerville Hardware Store in California's Gold Country town, is the oldest hardware store west of the Mississippi. The store opened in 1852. The same family that founded the store runs it today. It is now a True Value franchise, but sells everything from gold panning paraphanalia to lawn sprinklers and more than you can imagine, in between. It is one of the main reasons tourists stop in our town. The best thing about our hardware store is service. Over the past seven years since we moved here, I can count on one finger the number of times the Placerville Hardware Store didn't have what I needed. Also, instead of roaming Home Depot for a half hour looking for someone to help me, the Placerville Hardware Store family members will stop what the are doing to give you service. We are so lucky! thahttps://www.onlyinyourstate.com/northern-california/oldest-general-store-norcal/
1
Before rising CO2 kills us all, it would be heaven to get back our old hardware stores, and our local banks who did not sell away our mortgages, Some shred of the old, decent life, before we are cooked to death
1
Need just one nut and bolt? Great! Go to Home Depot and you can buy a package of 30, a lifetime supply! Need a new flapper for your toilet? Try to match it to a picture of one on Amazon and when it arrives it’s the wrong part. Oh and you also wind up ordering more stuff that so the amount qualifies for free shipping. Gee this is really convenient!
I am not a Luddite and am not wishing for the ‘good old days’. But I find it sad and distressing that people choose to order online for certain items like hardware rather than patronize a small business that offers expertise and interaction with human beings. The result is that as brick and mortar stores close we will have less choice, not more.
3
We have two LOWES & two HOME DEPOTS in the Portland area, and despite their presence we go to the local ACE, known to all as Maine Hardware. Large knowledgeable staff, have had everything I needed. Plus... free popcorn, self-served while you shop. And Tim is right: never buy hardware stuff on A-zon.
Too many Americans have been brainwashed into believing that the big chains and behemoths like Amazon are cheaper to do business with. I have found just the opposite. Independent stores often have the same prices or cheaper prices than the big businesses and offer more personal service.
I really hate Amazon. I ordered from them once and the goods I received were second rate and more expensive than I could have bought locally. Jeff Bezos is a greedy little man who has no sense of humanity. What really did me in was reading about him cancelling health insurance for the employees of Whole Foods when he bought it. Here he is, a man (and I use the word man loosely) worth $140 billion dollars and he is such a greedy little cheapskate he can't treat his employees like human beings.
People who don't do business with their local merchants are cheating themselves and they don't know it. Too many Americans have become lazy and stupid and have no common sense. They complain that the so-called American dream is over, but they don't realize that collectively they are contributing to life in this country becoming a nightmare.
3
Another wonderfully written personal story about how the American economy is rigged against small business and individual owners. To those that think rampant, uncontrolled and unregulated capitalism always yields the best for society; think again. It yields the most rewards for only the owners at the expense of everyone else.
Not only are these large corporations continuing to close small business, they leverage their power to win huge government concessions to pay little or no taxes while everyone else is left making up the difference.
The following is the list of companies avoiding income taxes in 2018.
https://itep.org/notadime/#table
1
Go to the trouble of shopping local for what you need. Go online when you can't find it nearby. It's called community.
1
Before people buy on Amazon, they should try to imagine someone in their community cutting them out of whatever their profession is. If you’re a dentist, imagine people in town driving to another city to save a few bucks. If you’re a lawyer, imagine your clients doing their own will on legalzoom.com. If you teach piano, imagine your piano student quitting and watching YouTube piano videos.
This is the Tragedy of the Commons, and it is an almost irresistible force. It has been with humans since we exterminated all of the big game wherever we moved, and it has taken many other guises, including deforestation, air and water pollution, and now, retail shopping habits that destroy local economies.
We are wired to grab a little more if we think no one will notice, and it’s the essential problem of humanity.
3
I bought a fridge from Home Depot but when it needed a new filter I had to shop online as HD doesn’t sell them for some reason. I ordered one for about $50 and when it arrived it looked used!!
The next time I needed one I tried to buy a plug for it instead. They want $50 for a $2 plastic part.
Now it seems a $1500 fridge needs a new filter every 6 months which basically doubles the cost of the appliance over 10 years.
It’s not about employees, customers or mom and pop organizations. It’s about share holders. If you own stock it’s your fault you greedy short sighted fool.
1
my lifetime observations of the secret of long-lasting small business ...
OWN the building.
If you pay rent - sooner or later the landlord is gonna be raising the rent to a level where you're gonna squeak, and decide it's no longer viable for you.
My favourite long-time cafe and comestibles -
since 1954 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pellegrini%27s_Espresso_Bar
since 1968 - http://www.abdulrestaurant.com.au/
bought the building - then didn't need to burn cash doing expensive renovations every few years demanded by a landlord - no, they can keep the original fittings and furnishings so you end up feeling the history - a patina that ends up adding to the charm - you don't find in your shiny fast food chain store.
Once the building is paid off, their ongoing costs are minimal – and they can concentrate on providing good quality food for an affordable price – which brings customers back year after year.
Abdul’s was started by his father - it’s now run by the grandson – I first ate there in 1977 – 42 years ago - and am looking forward to going again soon
I can walk to 3 local hardware stores, but I live in Center City Philly, not Manhattan.
We have killed the goose that laid the golden egg. We have enriched the rentiers and lessened the quality of live. The 1% live at the expense of the rest of us.
2
I'm coming to the conclusion that we are become more and more stupid –– too ignorant and lazy and silly to sustain a working society. We generally live good lives in America, and many things work well for us. We have our little problems, and we find ways to solve them, land things like hardware stores help us. We have a real nice one here, where we live.
Yet we insist on staying indoors and keeping to our lonely selves. The Internet beckons! We can order on Amazon or stream something. And so, we make ourselves more lonely, more physically immobile, more stupid.
There are profound reasons why we make the choices we do, and it will be our fall.
As Barbara Tuchman said, in Distant Mirror, about the French in the 14th century. "There was something in the culture that made them makes such (stupid) decisions."
I'm sort of glad I'm 72 and will not have to spend my young messing with such nonsense.
1
Yes American capitalism has turned against small business but so has the American consumer....shame
1
I know that lots of people like to make fun of Boca Raton, Florida, but there is a great hardware store, Belzers Hardware, that I have patronized for 17 years, and they are the best....in terms of available products and knowledge and recommendations and customer service.
I have no affiliation with them. Just a customer.
But, I can say, in all honestly, that going to that local hardware store, instead of Lowes or Home Depot, for almost anything.....not major things, of course.....is what I do, because it's better than risking ordering the wrong thing online or going to a big box store and hoping that someone might.....just might....pay attention to me.
Support your local hardware stores! Many of them are family-owned. They need to survive.
1
Who is responsible for the decline in local hardware stores and other mom and pop stores? It's us, the consumers. We have been presented with alternatives that many of us found to better: Amazon, other on-line stores and big box retailers. Many of us chose these alternatives with our spending and other stores suffered and closed.
No retailer should have its continued existence guaranteed if it fails to provide its customers the mix of products, service and price that they desire.
2
I’ve two local hardware stores within two blocks of my UWS home. So. Also, any DIY handyman will tell you having a hardware store close by is essential.
For the past five years I have worked in the Tools and Hardware Department of the Home Depot on 23rd Street. Prior to that for fifteen years, I helped manage the now shuttered "best hardware store" in the city, Vercesi Hardware, also on 23rd Street near Lexington.
What do I do when I don't have what someone needs at HD? I recite to them the list of hardware stores on 21st Street.
Kove Brothers is at Seventh and 21st, J&M is on 21st between Broadway and Park. Over on 3rd Ave, between 21st and 22nd are my friends, the Warshaw Brothers.
Oh, and that's leaving out others, the Brickman stores, one on First Ave and the other down on 4th Street. Chelsea Hardware on 25th, sadly will be withdrawn from the list.
They are all wonderful places, crammed with every item anyone has ever asked for in the past because that's how you stock a hardware store. Plaster rail hooks? Sure. Doily pins? Right over there. Double boiler? Hmm, let's see. Vercesi Hardware at its high point had eighty sizes of fan belts and almost that many types of vacuum cleaner bags. We had four sizes of tenter hooks and t-pins. There were drawers full of springs of every length, and drawers full of crystals for your chandelier (and the pins to attach them) because people asked for them.
That's what hardware stores do, so go ask, you may be surprised at what you'll find.
166
@Jonathan Jeffries Vercesi was my go-to hardware store for many years. I was surprised when they went out of business because they were always busy.
8
@Jonathan Jeffries
I grieve every day I pass the spot where Vercesi used to stand, I remembered everyone in their family and yes they stocked just about anything one required in hardware and quite often made by several manufacturers.
When the new owners took over from the Vercesi family sale they kept most of the same inventory ,what they did not seem to know is that their building was being sold to a hi rise developer ,they tried to open another store in our neighborhood but failed to find a place with affordable rent.
12
This is my hardware store
Since moving to Chelsea I’ve seen this play out over and over again over the past 15 years
The internet - Artificial intelligence- deep learning- these are the new reality. People would rather peer into there phones in a state of self induced Autism.
I’m sad to see the lost.. I also miss those corner diner and lumber stores and bodegas. The torment of memory afflicts only those old enough to remember.
2
Small hardware stores generally charge more than the prices I find on Amazon, where the selection is astronomically larger and I can almost always get delivery in 2 days or often even 1 day.
Besides, the town I live in no longer has a "real" hardware store, for which I would have to drive 20-30 miles round-trip to an adjacent town, wasting my time, polluting the air and adding to the traffic.
I would shop at a local hardware store if I had access to one, but they and the dinosaurs are not coming back.
1
Is it wrong to think that in a place where 600 square feet might cost thousands less per month than in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City - I.e.; almost anyplace in the country outside of the largest coastal metropolises - an entrepreneur such as this store owner could make things work?
If his biggest problem today is that his rent is going from $6K to $10K, is it wrong to think a $2K rent - still high for 600 square feet almost anyplace in Arizona - could make his business model function successfully - Amazon, Home Depot and Lowe’s aside?
2
I appreciate the author's empathy, but Mr. Feygin emigrated to the US and started his business for the same reason Amazon was started: to make money. The "little man" and the gargantuan are both capitalists; only one has the scale that ensures success. We wax nostalgic about the neighborhood store, but we flock to megamalls to shop, eat, recreate, and get our eyes checked. When we don't feel like going out, we go online. Amazon didn't make that happen; they created an option that consumers have embraced.
3
Sounds like the increase in local taxes have led to a large increase in rent which is not sustainable in an Amazon age. Also, the do it yourself market isn't what it once was, with so many renters, who leave the repairs to the building owners.
The old talking points from both the right and left about supporting small business's looks to be a thing of the past.
Small business's were supposed to be the backbone of our economy and a way for someone who worked hard to climb economic ladder. I can't see how this will continue to be the rule. If anything, it's the exception to the rule and looks like the new rule will be that you would have to be crazy to open a small business.
This will continue to create a bigger gap between the haves and everyone else and income inequality will continue it's creep into the economic landscape.
Where will this leave us?
2
Experiencing anticipatory grief for the most wonderful hardware story near my home expected to close in August. Heard traffic made it hard for customers to get to the store...;~(
2
I run the library at a Title 1 Elementary School. Because I need to stretch my budget as far as I can, I thought I would have to buy new books for the library on Amazon. But when I compared the Amazon prices to my local independent bookstore, more than half of the time I could get a better deal at the independent bookstore! So that is where I buy many of the books for the school. (I also get books from the charity Firstbook which is a wonderful resource. And I buy used books too at used book sales).
Please don't just assume that Amazon is cheaper. Support small businesses.
5
I'd be careful not to read too much into Mr. Wu's lament about the closing of this store. Even in the age of Amazon, the rules of brick and mortar still apply: range of selection, convenience, presentation and customer experience are the essentials of retail success. The photo of the store shows a unimaginative, chaotic, mish-mosh of products crammed into a 600 sf space that has the ambience of a storage locker. The only wonder is that it survived as long as it did.
Mr. Wu makes valid points about Amazon, perceived convenience, rising rents and the nature of capitalism today. Too bad he used the wrong example.
2
@smp But that "mishmosh" is what many love, though they might be more likely to browse than buy.
1
Although our small city (and the greater metropolitan area) has multiple large chain stores like Home Depot, we also have one staunch survivor of the old style hardware stores. They've managed to stay alive by stocking items that no chain store could afford to carry and by knowing every detail about what they sell so they can explain anything. Plus, when you walk in, they take you directly to what you're looking for and you can buy it and return home happy. Service is the name of the game.
1
I went to Home Depot the other day to buy a grill. The woman working in the grill dept didn't know the difference between a propane grill and a charcoal grill. It was impossible to find a salesperson to help me. I went home and ordered on Amazon. It's not just the inventory that Amazon has, it's the stupidity of the sales people that drove me away from Home Depot. I wish there was a small hardware store with a salesperson who could do more than hand out dog treats. I'd pay more for that.
1
It is a shame that the small local business owner is becoming extinct in America. This phenomenon has unfortunately been going on for decades. As a child I spent hours shopping with my mother at the local butcher, fish monger, vegetable/fruit store, bakery and then stopping at the local drug store for my reward a milkshake. Today my mother has that all delivered-sans the milkshake.
What kills me is that space will remain unrented for years to come as the owner tries to find anyone willing to pay 10k a month.
1
Antidote to amazon, SHOP LOCAL!
2
No way it’s cheaper.
2
It is mean-spirited to have this fantasy, but I do: me as post-apocalyptic Boss, rebuilding damaged homes and shops with other handyfolk, the Internet just a tribal memory.
My brute labor? Former hedge-fund managers and dealers in phantasm we now call “money.” They are the parasites of our warped economy. Sometimes, I want it to all fall down.
2
Where did you ever get the idea that it's ok to just knock everything down?
2
Other perks of patronizing independent businesses: they don't stalk you on-line; they don't collect all your consumer data and sell it to other multi-national corporations; you're not feeding the insatiable appetite of individual billionaires with far too much unchecked power; they generally don't work employees like robots--aiming for the day when humans will be replaced by more "efficient" robots who don't whine about stupid things like breaks, shorter hours, liveable wages, health care and benefits (yuck!).
4
Laughter lots and lots of laughter, Here we are crying out for rent control & how evil it is that economics are driving small businesses under, Not to mention something should be done in capitals. But you know what? I will say the same thing so many people here have said to me when I point out I have had 2 jobs shipped to the 3rd world & been forced to train my own H1B replacement at a 3rd. Tough Luck!!!. Welcome to the wonderful world of the Internet, Globalization and "Free Trade" . I have as much sympathy for these folks and the people calling for rent control and how evil it is. As they have shown for those of us who have had our backs broken in the name of Comparative Advantage & how wonderful it is for the 3rd world country that got the jobs. But for those who lost out ? Crickets, Nothing was said, nobody cared. No one even pretended to care. So don't expect me or a whole lot of others to cry when "Comparative Advantage" & economics comes for your jobs and businesses. Well care for your losses of jobs & businesses as much as you did for ours. Which is to say NOT AT ALL!!!!!
1
Cheaper than Amazon? Prove it.
Seriously, that’s a ridiculous statement and, unsurprisingly, one made without a scintilla of evidence.
Very Trumpian.
1
@Veritas But shopping local is very unTrumpian.
1
My first and best job ever was at a hardware store in my hometown in upstate New York. I learned a million things and was, eventually, able to help people with their problems and repairs. It taught me about retail, about dealing with people and about doing a good, honest job. When it closed, I was distraut. Still am.
What we're losing is not just a "place to buy stuff," but a place for people to gather, talk and get to know each other. A place to laugh, to learn what a Crescent wrench is and how to connect a compression fitting to your ice-maker. And if you make a mistake, it's a place to return to and try again, always with the help of the owner or their staff.
Young people might never truly understand what they've lost until it's gone forever.
2
Walmart laid the foundation. Amazon is merely “finishing” the task at hand.
4
The article is making an argument against scale, a recurrent theme. 20 years ago the same argument was made about Walmart destroying Main Street. In the early 20th century there were hundreds of small auto manufacturers. The assembly line (scale) wiped out all but a handful. Who remembers the movie “You’ve Got Mail”? The national chain bookstore wiping out the neighborhood store.
My point is, arguing against scale is arguing against modernity. It is a losing economic argument.
If the author is so opposed to scale, I suggest he does not write opinions for a national news source (NYT) that is attempting to operate at scale: millions of subscribers, international footprint, etc.
What hasn't changed? I was a psychotherapist. Now you can get therapy on-line. Movies? Telephone? Television watching? (remember the olden days of yore when families had to decide which show to watch because there was one TV?) Airplane travel where there was always a meal and room for your legs? Taxis? BB guns (what boy didn't have a BB gun?), Paying with cash?
Amazon does better with many hardware-like items than even the best hardware store--especially if you know what you are doing and don't need a consult with someone. Large items are better from Home-Depot/Lowes.
We are in the process of purchasing a TearDrop camper. What we have found is that the "companies" that make them are basically mom and pop operations. The major RV companies want to build and sell large RVs. So, people stepped into the void and are making livings and providing work for local people.
We can lament the changes or adapt to them.
4
We still have one local hardware store, which just last weekend saved me from a 700 dollar plumber’s bill, but the local bakeries are all gone, replaced by grocery store wannabes, which serve big bright cupcakes that taste of Crisco. Last night I ducked into a McAlister’s “deli,” a pitiful chain imitation of what New Yorkers still know, for how long who knows, as the real thing. For the illusion of speed and control we trade the deep, slow satisfactions of the one and only real world.
1
Tim,
To ascribe the rent increase here to “the transformative consolidation and centralization of the American economy since the 1990s, and to “a symptom of the enormous concentration of wealth in a handful of coastal cities,” is to miss the fact that this is just the action of greedy Manhattan real estate company.
This is just another rapacious landlord, unchecked, unregulated, destroying the fabric of a New York City neighborhood. They raise the rents pushing out stable small businesses, sit with empty stores, and take the loss off their tax returns.
$216/ square foot is a ludicrous rent for that location, $10,800 is $129.600 annually for 600 sf.
Two Certificates of Occupancy are available on the NYC DOB Business Information System for this building, the corner of 25th St and Ninth Avenue in Manhattan, a 1926 6 story factory building, converted to 3 retail stores on Ninth Avenue with 39 apartments in 1979.
What is a fair amount for a real estate company to generate in profit? How many For Rent signs on Broadway, on Fifth Avenue, 6th Avenue, 7th Avenue, on Bleecker St, do there need to be to provoke the City Council to balance quality of life with the property rights.
This valuable neighborhood store is closing because of greed, because of money that cares naught for its neighbors, not national trends.
4
The nearest hardware store is in a small town not to far from were I live. It's called going to town day and the hardware store and lumber yard are often one of the stops. The only time I don't buy from the hardware store or the lumber yard is if it's an item they don't stock or a speciality item. In most cases they'll find a supplier. Order it for me and even have it shipped to my house if I ask. These places are staffed by people you get to know and who know you. Such a deal.
1
I shop in my town when possible, even if it's a bit more expensive.
But, a handful of stores, even some with competitors in town, don't have enough respect for their customers to post their business hours.
While it's over an hour to NYC for many of my neighbors who commute there as I did for many years, a fair number of local merchants find it inconvenient to stay open past 6pm.
This makes it more difficult for many of their customers whose whole life is about inconvenience.
3
I couldn't agree with you more. All of the wonderful hardware stores, for the most part, have closed. Stebbins-Anderson in Baltimore, MD a store over one hundred years old, just announced their closing. One could find most anything there. They had wonderful salesmen who could help you find the tiny tiny nail needed for a cabinet door.
I do blame Amazon, but I also think young shoppers "just don't get it".
Wilber's Hardware in Nicholville, NY is my absolute favorite place to buy whatever I need to get the job done. Great shop. Great shop cat, name of RK. Does Amazon have a shop cat?
2
My story: I ordered the wrong toilet valve from Amazon.
There was no shortage of helpful toilet-repair advice on the Internet. Videos, even.
First, I was supposed to look on the inside of the toilet tank, and find the target toilet’s model number.
I took off the lid and looked.
The lettering was worn and blurred with age. It was definitely Model # K44 [black smudge]. Was that an “H” or a “3”?
I was the TV detective trying to match a partial plate.
The Thing displayed in Amazon’s photo looked kind of like the Thing that was worn and had to be replaced.
And all I had to do was click.
I clicked.
I now had an excellent excuse for sacking off two more days.
On the big day, I opened the box left by Kyle, our postman.
Oops. Five inches in not three inches, is it?
Amazon was willing to do a return on the Thing.
I put it in the trunk of my car.
The next time I drove down Main Street, I pulled over and offered The Thing to the guy behind the counter at the plumbing supply.
He looked at it skeptically. “We don’t get much call for these.”
“But it’s still in the box,” I argued.
We negotiated.
I gave it to him.
Our Main Street is dying.
I felt good about doing my bit to help.
5
@Will B. Giving a retailer and item that doesn't sell does nothing for anyone.
@Ron May
This was a $10 item. I told him as far as I was concerned, he could give it away. He said somebody would take it, maybe one of the local contractors. This was small-town Oklahoma, not New York City.
2
@Will B.
I am within 15 minutes of two good hardware stores, Ace and Strosnider's. When traffic isn't messed up, that is. I am retired, so I can go to the store in the middle of the day. I don't have child care responsibilities, so I don't have to schlep children with me.
There is a lot behind people's choices -- willingness to go out and shop -- vs. order on line --that Tim Wu doesn't address.
Value lies in community -- and the time to find, nurture, and enjoy it.
Ideas? I favor a 24-hour work week for everyone (job sharing) at a living wage -- and universal free child care. Ok, well, other ideas?
Lastly, I am less likely to be hanging out in hardware stores -- than in book stores buying books. I remind myself to check my phenomenal local county library first -- then buy or order from my locally owned brick and mortar book store. Used books -- OK to shop on Amazon Smile (the Amazon page that donates a percentage of my purchases to the charity of my choice -- Hello, Jeff Bezos, that percentage could be higher. Thanks though fr supporting the Washington Post).
1
It is a good bet the local hardware store did not sell the light fixture with the oddball lightbulb socket. The local hardware stores succeed when they are integrated into the entire building lifecycle from first rough construction, finishing, and maintenance to restoration and remodeling. Customer expectations force hardware store owners into no-win predicaments to stock low volume oddball lightbulbs for a walk-in customer that owners know do not sell fast enough to pay the rent.
@Rob D Thanks for the insight on how hardware stores were formerly integrated into the building lifestyle.
But, even if customer demand caused the problem for local hardware stores, making it the customer's fault is no solution.
1
I don’t know how the collective mind shifts to convenience or the best price possible. I do know i’ve stood against the tide for a long time. My shoes are American made, and I know most of the staff at the hardware near me by name. Their owner doubled the square footage of the store when Walmart built down the road and they’ve enjoyed the bounty that comes from a location that is two per cent of the size of a big box. The democratic forces I see at play are a relentless capitalism of cities and counties to make the most money possible on property taxes and with shifting strategies sales tax as well. So the small business gets pushed aside. One former grocery in the heart of this city quit and sold, the investor who bought now spends 2000$ a month just on property tax and for two years of ownership has no suitors, the rent he tries to command makes no sense to businesses that should be attracted to an urban center with median incomes as are here. Bottom line here is greed, it’s what drives a fair number of real estate closes to astronomical heights and with that rents that are unsustainable. When a city has 20% of storefronts in a shopping and tourism district closed, you’d think the rents would go down. But no, places stay vacant until the next small business or franchise owner sees fit to run unbelievable numbers and throw the dice to build out a slow eroding failure until the next untrained capitalist comes along.
1
Real estate as asset shelters tends to result in skyrocketing market values that do not reflect any other utility for the properties than as shelters for capital with no opportunities to invest in productive activities.
2
A problem with the big box stores is that they often want to just sell replacement units instead of repair parts. I recently needed to replace a toilet tank flapper valve in a 15 y..o name brand toilet. The two big box stores only had 'universal' flappers that were poor substitutes or complete flush valve units--which is what the help pushed. I took the flapper off and noted the mfg.molded in the part and went to their website. The exact part was at my door in a couple of days for just the extra postage costs and only took 5 minutes to install. Although the local small store didn't have pro solution in this case there have been times when they have had or would get parts, especially before the www made it easier to find repair parts for the homeowner.
I’m not so sure Amazon is to blame here, nor Lowes. I may be showing my age, but most of the young people I meet couldn’t wire a switch, or tell a torx from a Phillips. So the expertise we find at the local hardware is lost on those who think Amazon comments are a source of learning.
3
Curious essay. Just a knee jerk conclusion, a vague illusion that American Capitalism killed this store. But then you said, it was the rent, that was the big problem. Taxes and regulations in NYC have a big role in the cost of living and rent. Those are not capitalist forces. Further, if on-line buying is more convenient it will win. How often do you go to the store and get a product that was not exactly what you were looking for but you settle because your choice is limited. I am concerned about Amazon but the convenience and value are clear to the consumer. The decline of the corner store is not the plot of some unseen oligarchs but a choice the consumer is making.
4
Mr. Wu is spot on: it's the rent increases driven by concentrated wealth invested in real estate that kill off local retail businesses. If a rent increase at one location could drive Barney's with its two dozen stores into bankruptcy, Mr. Feygin and others like him stand no chance. Twenty years ago the rent increases were killing mom and pop shops in NY with faceless retail chains taking their spots. Now, with retail being killed off by a few behemoths of online commerce, it's the chains' turn.
The sheer fact that Mr. Feygin managed to run his business for so long is a testament of the value he brought to the community.
2
Wright's Hardware - Manhasset, New York
lost to the community after decades of extra helpful, knowledgeable sales people; could buy three bolts and have assistance finding the right size. They repaired broken toasters and irons, rewired lamps, put together your new outdoor gas grill and delivered to your home-the list of amenities goes on and all supplied by good people.
The place smelled wonderful.
after many stints as restaurants and too many bank branches to recall it is now a Wells Fargo Bank; oh, the irony...
3
It's possible I missed it, but it appears the only concrete data provided regarding the decision to close were regarding rent and taxes. Amazon is the villain of this article, but there are no comparative sales data offered. The comparative numbers that are offered show increased taxes and increased rent. These are both fallout of New York (City and State) policies. I'm fairly liberal, but this article fits too neatly into the liberal narrative that the things we purport to hold dear are victims of capitalism run amok. In a different newspaper the same facts could be presented along side a narrative about how the new rent control laws for residential tenants along with higher taxes are pushing small business (commercial tenants) out.
1
It's the greediness of the landlord that put this hardware store out of business. Look around NYC and see the vacant storefronts. Doubling someone's rent is a great way to close a store. These small neighborhood stores are vanishing and it's a shame.
3
I lived in Chelsea for almost four years, amidst the crazy endless construction, myriad rats and unrelenting noise, but whenever I needed something for my tiny studio apartment, I headed to Ninth to grab advice, techniques and gadgets from Chelsea Convenience. Had many a chat with Mr. Feygin, always admiring the Russian dolls he displayed, lamenting the fact that having just returned from a trip to Russia and buying my souvenir dolls in a hotel in Moscow, I’d have done much better to truly have bought “locally.”
Not surprised, thought. The area contains Hudson Yards, the Hadid glass building, and The Highline.
There’s also the huge housing project, Penn South, right smack in the middle of all this. Residents said they’d welcome back the old days when the Guardian Angels used to patrol the streets and worked to clear out the dealers and prostitutes on 10th.
The times, they are a-changing.
1
Let us know what replaces this store. Too often the rent goes up, killing a store that provides a service to the neighborhood to be replaced by a semi-permanent empty storefront. (Add a big tax on those empty spaces!)
1
The banner ads in an online article are added according to a mysterious formula - not I think, totally randomly. I found it ironic that the banner add in this article was for Home Depot.
3
It ends with the part where he said son is not stupid, “he works for a hedge fund”. Great. Next generation handles people money in a financial casino, which doesn’t create funds for mortgages, businesses or government infrastructure investment and for which they pay low capital gains tax rates on income earned in daily trades.
At least his father was a service provider that fixed things in people’s lives.
American capitalists-take-all corporatism has ruined our culture, jobs, and is bad for the environment, trade and immigration.
4
What the internet has wrought.
The big money has decided we don't need any of that old school analog consumerism, entertainment, privacy, any of it.
My own current home city for the last 20 has been losing it's heart and soul to the requirements of digital consumption.
Many businesses, from local art houses, eateries to book stores get the ax when their lease runs out and the landlord triples the rent because a developer has offered the owner a fabulous buyout offer. They're all becoming high-rise parking lots and high end condos.
Stop and think for moment;
A real book, newspaper, magazine, my analog thermostat, fridge, furnace, light switch can't be hacked. Digital thieves can't obtain my SSN or bank records through my old toaster. My old school copy of 'Can't Buy a Thrill' still plays.
(Good lesson in that title for the kids here! LEH!)
But this is where we are going.
The purveyors of your coming AI/cyber existence want control of everything you do, think, buy, and say even before you do, all the while telling you; 'You control everything!'.
We don't.
5
Our town’s hardware store, here in a small town suburb, closed after being in business for 100 years, after a Home Depot opened nearby.
A marijuana dispensary took its place.
And business is booming.
Can’t yet buy pot from Amazon.
2
At what point do the greedy real estate owners declare bankruptcy when they cannot rent their overpriced real estate? Walk Manhattan, you’ll see plenty of papered up storefronts just waiting for suckers to pay overpriced rent. Mr. Feygin’s store won’t collect any rent now. Is $6000/mo not enough for 600 sq. feet?
I guess landlord greed is good until you need a washer to stop a leak immediately and you have to wait two days for Prime to deliver, and you’ve ordered the wrong size. Convenience beats Price every day people.
1
The New York Times in hiring unqualified reporters is contributing to the trend of greedy short term focused landlords pushing local small businesses out. Tell us Who raised the rent specifically? Let us know the company and the person. As organized consumers, we will boycott businesses who rent space from that landlord or hotels that landlord owns. The landlord needs to understand that when they make a business decision to raise rents, that there could be potential downside or fallout from that decision. Maybe their kids will read about the story and they'll think twice or be more compassionate. Or at least, let us publicly criticize the person. When the Times fails to identify the culprit behind the destruction of our neighborhoods, they contribute to that destruction.
3
Is it a coincidence that the current occupant of the White House is a real estate crook from New York? I don’t think so.
He is a manifestation of the greed and corruption which have always dominated the economy of the U.S.
From the very beginning, those who had the means bought up real estate and then turned it over to make a profit without contributing anything of real value to our society. That’s what the “business” of real estate is.
After 250 years, this practice which enriches the few while making “tenants” of the millions must be stopped. It is no different than the wealthy landowner/serf relationship that many of our ancestors fled in Europe.
I don’t know how to stop it, but I’ll bet Elizabeth could come up with a plan!
4
So it was the rent raise that killed this small business. This implies that there is a demand for the space that will pay more after the hardware is gone.
What business will this be?
My guess: something to eat or drink.
2
Amazon is being used as a “generic” online behemoth example. But yes, Lowe’s & Home Depot are equally culpable of contributing to the demise of the neighborhood store. However, in NYC, you also have to blame “vulture real estate developers and owners” who have priced small stores out of the city, not to mention working families. And running on the chutzpah lane, Michael Bloomberg announced this AM that he’s running for President. His legacy? The most segregated public school system in the country; “stop-and-frisk” targeting the same groups that Stephen Miller is targeting at the border. Closing St Vincent’s Hospital, the poor people’s hospital, to allow his friend to build a luxury apartment building. We have become America's West Bank, and Michael Bloomberg is our own Netanyahu. So, yes, let elect him
3
While I appreciate the sentiment as it pertains to the little guy and their little guy advice. I can tell you I have been mislead by such shop-keep's as much as by those in the aisles of the big box stores. But I have also been given awesome advice in big box stores, from both the CSA's, and/or the professionals shopping there.
Look, how hard is it to learn that light bulbs have differing bases? Why do people walk into these stores, large or small, and say; "I need a light bulb for my lamp." As if - the CSA knows what sort of lamp you have?
Here's a hint. Take the burned out bulb with you! At least the base will be correct.
Why have so many consumers become so willfully ignorant of some basics of being a homeowner and/or renter?
At the very least, use that dumb phone of yours for more then selfies and cat pixs...and take a picture of the "broken thing, that attaches to the thing, that goes under the thingy..."
1
Give it up for Ann Arbor's STADIUM HARDWARE. Go, Blue!
1
The last sentence "He works for a hedge fund" says it all, doesn't it?
6
I don't like Amazon. This PRIME stuff is pure nonsense. Amazon is posting items on eBay then you unknowingly buy it as if it was from one of the many small enterpreneurs who sell there.
I prefer the local stores. I don't know if they exist today but one of my favorite store when I lived in NYC was Packard Electronics, a small store around 14th street. It was a pleasure purchasing there. Amazon is not for me.
2
support independent businesses, it keeps your communities funky. not stainless steel coffee shops, or burrito makers, not orange hardware stores. support the little local that gives your life flavor or rue the day you are strip malled to death... giving us all psychological problems. Homogenization is the bane of the human psyche...
2
Shout-out to the best hardware store in the world, Brown and Roberts in Brattleboro, VT.
1
Manu comments looking askance of our political leaders..... I say good luck with that. the author could have extended his piece to include a shout out to our well funded corporate political system.
This is why we need a Warren or Sanders 2020.
2
As you ultimately point out, it's people making what they've convinced themselves are convenient choices. I would suggest in most cases it's done in something closer to an "entertaining themselves" mindset, and down the rabbit hole we go.
Your mention of monopoly Home Depot strikes a chord as walking through the local one you'll be asked eleventeen times "how ya' doin' " by "associates" and not one will ask (or likely be able) to actually help you ... glorified walmart shelf stockers. And then if you do want to purchase something, you get to pay via self-service - there are no more human beings at check out.
3
About 20 years ago I needed a common plumbing part for under the kitchen sink where the dishwasher emptied into the drain.
I went to Home Depot and looked at a wall full of parts, everything neatly packed in theft-proof blister packages ... everything that is but the one part I needed.
The helpful "customer service associate" (aka sales clerk) looked at the part and told me I'd have to go to a "hardware store" to get THAT part. Standing in Home Depot, looking at a wall full of plumbing parts, I thought I was in a hardware store. Delusions.
There were few hardware stores left even then. Big box firms, with billions of Wall St dollars behind them, had rolled up most of the old hardware stores into mammoth chains.
The rolling up of mom and pop stores was a specialty of Wall St darlings (and Wal-Mart) who already had done the same to mom and pop stores for books, office supplies, toys, furniture, shoes, sporting goods, wines, kitchen items, auto parts, etc.
I stifled a scream and drove a few miles away -- to a locally owned mom and pop hardware store. The place was like Mr. Feygin's, with stuff stacked to the ceiling, and best of all it SMELLED like a hardware store. I found the part and finished my repair.
That store is long gone -- as is the America where I grew up.
5
I did get lucky, as during the recession my local Home Depot had two local master plumbers on staff on weekends so I was able to get many plumbing questions answered correctly. But now when I go to a Home Depot or Lowe’s there are no staffers and automated checkouts, so all the value and local expertise is missing altogether.
2
So, the AOCs etc. of the world recently got finished patting themselves on the back for gutting Amazon's move to NYC, thwarting that awful tax break they were going to get which allegedly would have devistated local businesses and what do we have here? The devistation of local businesses — only this time with no organized protesters because this owner is too small to gather the possie together to help him and those like him. One thing is for sure: They certainly can talk those political changers, but the walking part is lacking.
I too miss the old neighborhood hardware store over on W25th. Both mom and pop spoke Polish. Gone with the last century and on to the Brave New World. Does Amazon sell test tube babies.
We have one indie hardware store left in the area. Went there today in fact to buy a special light bulb and got a bag of fresh popcorn that they offer free to customers. Sadly, this trend has been happening for 20 years since all those big box stores came and now even Amazon is making those stores extinct. This is local retails last hurrah!
1
My roommate ordered a shower curtain liner from Amazon. It was 4x the price of the $2.99 liner I always buy from the small drugstore across the street that was forced to close last month due to high rent. I needed to replace a flush valve for a toilet. My roommate wanted to order the $20 valve from Amazon. I walked around the corner, one block from my apartment to a small, Chinese-owned hardware store (the store already had to relocate a few years before due to high rent), showed the owner a picture I took of the valve in my toilet, and he produced a new one, price $11.95. The so-called convenience economy is abetting the lazy, destroying community and, no doubt, wreaking havoc on the planet as well.
5
I'm reminded of Joni Mitchel: "you don't know what you've got till it's gone... they paved paradise and put up a parking lot..."
1
We live in rural Oregon. The nearest hardware store is 20 miles away and they often do not have what we need. Amazon is Always cheaper and the item is delivered to our doorstep.
1
I no longer live in NYC but in a small town with an excellent hardware store. Another excellent hardware store is in the next town, about 6 miles away. The owner and staff know what they are doing, and can be very helpful when you’re not sure what you need or how to fix something. They can order what I need. The local store staff know me by name. They contribute to the community. And we would be worse off in many ways without them. That said, I look to Amazon for other things, to fill the niches that the local businesses do not cover, because in a small town, surrounded by other small towns, it’s impossible for businesses to meet every need.
Another factor in people not wanting to go to the local hardware store, though, is the fact that people are getting less social. They don’t want face to face contact. They don’t want to talk to someone. They want an interaction with a screen and not a person.
In NYC Amazon is shifting to one day deliveries and I can imagine a future where the Amazon drone taps on your window an hour or two after you order. And then all local business is in trouble.
1
@Karen
I find it sad that so many people cringe and are afraid of social contact. I think it is a reason why some local business are in trouble. Some people feel extreme anxiety when forced to interact in person.
2
I go into the big stores and cannot find basic items that I buy infrequently, so I spend time on Amazon to find those items offered by vendors in Marketplace. The small businesses become beholden to the big monopolies.
In my experience, local businesses rarely match Amazon’s prices, and the ability to order from Amazon 24/7 with next day delivery is often more convenient than driving to a local store, parking, feeding the meter, and driving home. On the other hand, the advice available from a local proprietor with whom one has previously dealt is usually superior to the info gleaned from Amazon reviews. But to me, the decisive factor favoring local businesses is that, for a variety of well-known reasons, it is important and simply the right thing to do. Did I mention that local businesses pay taxes and often support local events?
4
I suspect that while you think it’s more convenient for you to shop at a local hardware store, given that you live where you live, for most of the rest of the country Amazon or some other online source is just as or more convenient, and I have found it to be very cheap, with endless variety coupled with overnight delivery. I don’t like it, but there it is. In my experience, going back many years, local hardware stores were great for finding a few common tools, and the right bolts, nuts and washers, but if it was anything more exotic you had to get it somewhere else, or they would order it for you, which took forever. Thus the rise of big box hardware, and now Amazon. While I wish it were otherwise, and that a small business could readily compete with the new alternatives, this is not something new. My father sold sporting goods in the 1960’s until the early 1970’s, and I watched him driven out of business by the big conglomerates 45 years ago. The reason he failed, as have most small businesses that have been pushed aside, is because of the economy of scale. Like it or not, people want things cheaper, and all in one place. It’s true that you won’t get advice from Amazon, but most of us know what size light bulb we need, and I don’t buy light bulbs from a hardware store anyway. The death of retail is unpleasant, but unless and until people start going back to stores this is what we have, most of us anyway.
America in a nutshell, cheap and convenient, and disposable, with no concern about quality at all. Shopping by price rather than need or necessity. It is scary that is what our entire economy has become. Amazon seems very similar to the old Walgreens or Walmart model, defeat the competition by lowering the prices enough to eliminate the competition, then when the competition closes, leverage the higher prices to a monopoly. Amazon got a great head start by not collecting sales taxes for years. Now they can charge higher prices as they have built the empire, as people just look at the convenience factor. But the prices have gone up significantly, and the third party sellers are even more unscrupulous it seems. Local retail and hardware sales are taking a sense of community and expertise with them when they close.
1
I almost bought lights online the other day but thought better of it and made the effort to drive 15 minutes to a shop.
When I made a bland, chatty comment to the shop owner about how nothing in my house matches, I got a glib response about first world problems. The price was identical. The conversation was more than I had bargained for.
I don't regret making the effort, but it left me feeling how vulnerable shop owners are, how easy it is for us all simply to click, buy and avert our eyes.
5
There was a time that this piece might have complained that the new hardware store (and its mass-producing suppliers of nuts and bolts) was putting a local blacksmith out of business. Business advances need hard looks at their downsides, as Tim Wu has done elsewhere. But folks who use Amazon and Home Depot are not deluded - we generally ALSO patronize our local hardware store, and decide among these based on cost (yes, you can buy much of what is in Mr Feygim's store cheaper on Amazon), value of our time - and perhaps even the environmental impact of a car trip to the hardware store, which may be as bad or worse than the extra stop the Amazon truck makes at my house.
@Jim Whitehead You have been programmed to believe Amazon is always cheaper. Their vendors, who handle the majority of transactions pay Amazon 15% fees and have hefty shipping costs particularly on anything over 13 ounces which then qualifies as priority mail. Those costs are then passed on to you. You can find anything Amazon sells for cheaper if you look hard enough.
1
It's not only Amazon, it's the cost of doing business in NYC. The property taxes, the high cost of making deliveries, the insurance costs, I can go on.
The year I closed my medical supply business in 2016, I saw two major art supply stores close (New York Central and Lee Art Supplies), an old time appliance store close (Krups Appliance). another old time kitchen supply distributer (Broadway Panhandler).
As your article says, Amazon may offer some convenience but there is no one to ask or offer any information about the products. When I was in business, it was not an infrequent occurrence for some one to purchase from Amazon and then come in to me and ask how the product worked or to handle warranty repairs since I was an authorized distributor of the products.
Service is an intangible product that Amazon does not offer.
If I have a choice of purchasing on line or brick and mortar I will be there in person to order.
3
I live closer to the hardware store on 21st and 7th in Chelsea. I usually try to shop at local businesses before trying chains or Amazon, but often have the opposite experience of the author. They don’t make it easy to support them.
Recently I had a plumbing issue, so I went to that store in Chelsea first. The staff were grumpy from the start and had an attitude when I asked questions, they would suggest the most expensive products first (one time a $70 tool when a $12 one was fine! It was even cheaper at Home Depot) and I needed to rush my shopping there because their hours are terrible (they close at 6pm on weekdays and aren’t open at all on Sundays).
I honestly don’t know how they’re able to stay in business. I don’t mind paying a little more if I know it’s helping a small business, but they often act like Home Depot and Amazon don’t even exist. And I end up paying more for bad customer service.
1
Amazon's genius is that is has been able to convince Americans without a shadow of doubt that it's product are always the cheapest option. But the stone cold reality is that it charges it's small vendors an average of 15% in fees per sale. Then the vendor has considerable shipping costs. Anything over 13 ounces must ship priority mail which starts at $7.50 and can be as much as $11.00 for coast to coast shipments. Amazon small vendors, who Jeff Bezos estimates as conducting 58% of the site's transactions have no choice but to mark up the price. The truth is that you can usually find the same product cheaper somewhere else and many times from a small online vendor where you know your purchase is helping to pay for a family's mortgage and put kids through college. Call me old fashioned but I will always support the little guy and most of the time get the better deal.
3
Tim Wu hits the nail on the head. I am old enough to know what it is like to go into a real locally owned hardware store and get quality tools and supplies from experts in the field. I complained when the chain hardware stores like True Value and Aubuchons stopped carrying all the quality items i like and all the useless items from china started clogging the shelves. More and more the people who worked in the stores had limited knowledge of what they carried and how to use it. The worst of it is, they seem to have not control over what the stores carry. This is true of Home Depot and Lowes.
Now amazon comes along and makes it worse, I cannot support my local economy and respond quickly to the needs of my customers. All capitalism seems to be good at is concentrating wealth and power. Not the directions we need to be going in right now.
4
I live in suburban Sacramento near Emigh's Hardware. I shop there nearly every week. The service and knowledge of the employees is second to none. I have never bought hardware from Amazon.
2
There was a store called Busy Bee Hardware in Santa Monica where you could find anything you needed for home repairs. Gone.
The local ave in Benicia .CA thrives.
Shifting money from the hands of the many to the hands of the few helps concentrate great amounts of capital that can build great things like huge assembly lines and electricity generators as big as big houses, but it does not generate any need for assorted fasteners and house paint and assorted household goods. If you want to know why big businesses are replacing little ones, it’s for the same reason that our infrastructure is decaying, the Reagan Revolution that misdirected our political policies to make some control most of the new wealth and keep it from all others who did not offer huge returns for investments and loans.
2
This is what's making cities unliveable for me anymore. When I moved to NYC in 1979 and lived near Columbus Circle, within two blocks there was a supermarket and 2 Korean greengrocers, a hardware store, shoe repair, 2 cleaners, an independent pharmacy, a huge independent bookstore, a record store, a pet supply store -- all the things you need to live independently and without a car.
During the '80s, a large number of newer apartment towers wnet up around there, and these businesses thrived, and then some: for a while we also had a bakery, a magazine store, and one of the greengrocers expanded into a modest sized Asian supermarket. Life was good.
What's left? I do know from reading the NYT that I can buy $10 melons at Whole Foods and dinner for $500 in the new Columbus Circle. But how many of those everyday businesses are within two blocks of Columbus Circle now?
Of course, it might be moot because I couldn't afford to live in my old space any more. In 1979 it was a $570 per month studio. Now it's a $1.5 million studio.
1
One of my favorite refrains by supporters of predatory big business is "if you don't like it, build a better business".
It ignores the fact that the reason Home Depot, Amazon, Walmart and so forth can be so profitable is because they have the scale - and therefore power - to drive down costs. Labor costs, forcing employees to work part-time so that they don't have to offer health insurance and pensions; goods costs, forcing suppliers to cut their own costs until they go out of business.
To compete with that, you'd have start with the specific goal of decimating every community you touch.
My town was decimated in this way by Walmart, who forced our local manufacturing industries out of business by driving down their unit prices, and now primarily sell goods made in China. Then they opened up a Walmart in the town, selling those Chinese goods within a few hundred yards of the grocery store that served the town previously. Now the grocery store, too, is nearly empty; they can't compete with the prices of all those cheap goods.
All of this so that the Walton family, and their shareholders, can get richer.
4
Trust me online sellers have the same problems as Mr. Feygin and many do go out of business because of underlying changes in the economy they are powerless to change.
Dealers who I know have this discussion all the time.
1
Its always easy to blame Amazon.
However in this case clearly a near doubling in rent is the primary culprit.
I use Amazon a lot but never for small things i can get from my local hardware store.
I hope the property owner will have great problems getting a new tenant
2
Andrew Yang’s Human Centered Capitalism is intended to mitigate some of these tragic loses. Maybe in Chelsea 1k per month for each adult and no health care costs wouldn’t make that much difference but in much of the country it would give small business not so much a boost but a firm grounding for survival. And the survival of these local businesses just make the lives of all of us more pleasant.
2
There a hundred good reasons to avoid Big Box stores. Have we forgotten the Wall-mart documentary which showed the invading executives placing bets on how long each local business would last after Wall-mart opened?
My personal deal breaker was when I learned that the products they sell are often name brands made specially for them. Plastic gears replace metal ones, cheaper electronics replace more durable ones, but the brand name on the side tells you none of this. But you SAVE!!!!
It's dishonest, but no one seems to mind. These places have the ethics of allay cats, but for the sake of "saving" a few cents, we're selling out the core of our society.
6
I'd like to see someone explain the mystery of why the big cities are the irresistible business magnets they are? Is it because you need big-city amenities to attract all those smart young tech people your business needs? How long can the cities remain attractive when the cost of living is so high and high rents and new construction push out all the unique things--including good hardware stores--that make city life desirable?
I wonder if our current big-city boom is really sustainable.
6
This is exactly why I love my neighborhood hardware store. To me, that’s what makes a neighborhood - having a hardware store I can walk to. With staff who actually know what they’re talking about. They don’t have everything, especially large items. For that I drive a ways to Home Depot and cross my fingers I’ll find the one competent employee in the giant store. Or, if I’m lucky, my local hardware store already told me exactly what I need from Home Depot.
2
I try to do what I can to support local stores. I agree that the convenience trend is really not that convenient as the consumer is left to determine whether a photo and description of an item will be what they need and no one stands behind the product, or it’s too complex to address a product malfunction. I also deeply miss the ability to buy unique, quality, one of a kind items - whether baby gifts, decorative items for the home, etc. - unless one finds an art gallery!
1
I had to go to Home Depot for a $6 item of contact cement. I was only wishing for a local hardware store like Ace, but I knew they hardly don't exist where Lowe's and Home Depot rule my neighborhood.
3
Most of these comments are either anecdotes or unsupported opinions ("I like Home Depot better," or vice versa). It's great that you get to vent but the rest of us don't learn anything. Everyone ask yourselves whether it's easier to shop at Amazon or Lowe's, or at a local store--it's a difficult question. Furthermore, ask youselves WHY it should be so hard for small entrepreneurs to give better service.
My opinion is that there's a huge hidden time cost to shopping online. Search for something on Amazon, for example, and you get bombarded with extra material you have to sort through to find what you really want. Most other online shopping is even worse.
p.s. Great article.
6
I think it is rent more than Amazon in the case of local hardware stores. When you need hardware, you usually need it quickly and want the advice. 3 hardware stores, long time ones, have closed in the last 10 years in my neighborhood. This is in direct relationship to the sky-rocketing rent increases in my now very gentrified neighborhood. (I am no Amazon fan, but this one is rent's fault, I think. ) There is no home depot or Lowes in walking distance, but I have heard from hardware stores that they did cut way back on items once those stores came to Brooklyn because they couldn't compete.
1
Thank you to the hardware stores still in business. A customer can walk in with a dilemma and walk out with some advice and be steered to the correct product to fix the problem from a helpful salesperson. Sometimes when the customer has only the most vague terms to describe what is wrong.
3
Another interesting point: how many people in wealthier neighborhoods DIY anymore? When we were younger, it was a point of pride, even for successful professionals, to wash their car/keep the lawn looking spiffy/change out leaking faucets. Sure, it wasn't a good use of their time, but people wanted to take care of their own projects. I didn't know anyone who would hire someone for anything other than a job that required specialized tools. Making a good middle-class salary, I had my first home and when it needed ceiling fans and a new door, I did all of that myself with a friend who had run wiring previously. I wouldn't have considered calling an electrician or a handyman for that stuff. I am a landlord and boy, my tenants (both lawyers) sure are needy. They want to call the handyman if I am out of town when literally the job could be done in 5 minutes with an adjustable wrench.
Fast forward today, and most of the successful professionals I know probably can't change a light bulb, and have no desire to. They just call someone and spend Saturday going out with friends. Priorities are different.
Perhaps the specialization we are talking about is related to all aspects of life, not just commerce. We are all becoming too specialized. Talking to younger people in the professional ranks, it is interesting to see how many have never held a manual labor or trade job and simply can't work with their hands. Specialization all throughout life.
10
ACE Hardware is a great local option. Each store is owned and operated locally with local and helpful staff. ACE's business model relies on being a co-op and joining thousands of other ACE stores to take advantage of economies of scale. Is it too late for Chelsea Convenience to join a co-op?
6
@George, our local Strosniders stores are ACE affiliates. While I wasn't sure whether or not that qualifies them as "local", I find their personnel to be very knowledgeable. Shopping there is also a more pleasant experience than shopping at Home Depot. While Strosniders has a good selection, they don't stock every single variation of each item, in a cavernous warehouse like the big box stores.
Also, I just found out they have a customer appreciation event in December. Sure, that's just commerce. It's also kinda charming.
1
@Karen Lee As an ACE store Strosniders would indeed be locally owned and operated. All ACE stores are. I've had the same experience at my ACE too. Nice people who know more or less what they sell.
1
Strosniders is great. Also, a shout-out to the (Ace) Old Town Hardware in Alexandria, VA.
1
While Amazon is to blame for using price to lure consumers (and convenience if convenience means not moving an inch from your laptop), the op-ed rightly names American capitalism as a whole as the reason these amazing shops and people are closing their doors forever. I recently made a decision to only purchase online if I could truly say that the item I needed wasn't available near me for a reasonable price. But we have all been trained to think that walking a few extra blocks is 'hard'. We'd rather wait for boxes filled with plastic and bubble wrap to lay things into our laps (and forget about the packaging waste!). A recent Frank Bruni op-ed recently mentioned the benefit of having lots of acquaintances or familiar faces that you interact with. These shopkeepers and local folks help to make up our daily interactions and conversation - if we want them. Many people are satisfied to live through their devices now. American capitalism isn't just the rising rents and the online shopping, it is a culture of consumers who don't want to be part of a community, who shop based on price, from their couch, happy not to talk with another human being when they don't need to. What is the point of cities anymore? The next big question will be what to creatively do with all the empty shops that are sure to keep piling up.
4
@Bernice
At 55, I have moved from a big city (DC) to a small community in NW CT/W MA. I am a woman on my own, and entry into the web of easy-going relationships of mutual recognition, like those you describe, has been a miraculous joy. The carpenter I recently hired turns out to be married to the woman who coordinated nursing care for my dying mother 2 years ago; my electrician is a cousin of my plumber; and even if the other people I’m getting to know at other small businesses aren’t related, virtually all of them engage in the few extra seconds of smiling and chat that are the thin edge of what may be growing friendship. The improvement in my quality of life is priceless, and I strive to buy local for fear of the disappearance of accessible, humane small business.
6
@Bernice, you make a very interesting point.
I happen to enjoy grocery shopping, which I suppose might be a bit odd. When there's a parent with a baby, I tend to say something like "Your baby is adorable! How old? Congratulations!" And, while they might be humoring me, over 99% of parents will smile and reply. [This works well even if the baby is fussy.]
Of course, I also ask store employees about new products ... especially in the produce, fish, and prepared foods departments, where I might have questions.
The central premise is wrong. This is the essence of American capitalism. Rent goes up and down based upon what the market can bear. The landlord does not actually choose the rent the market does. The landlord just charges as much as he or she thinks it can get. If another business can pay more that is by definition the highest and best use of the space.
@Chris
The choice of money as a person’s or a society’s only measure of “highest and best” beggars us all. A truly rich life can only be one that fills hearts to overflowing. As another commentator on a different thread wrote this morning “The Constitution is the American Dream,” not capitalism.
I fear that we are all missing the point, the larger point, that we all serve technology and not the other way around.
There's a certain genius in the transition we find ourselves going through. Adjusting to that change is a challenge, for me at least. But, back to my original point. I can't help but feel that I'm working for the technology and not the other way around. That's different.
3
@dove, I don't use Uber, Lyft, or Instacart. Why?:
1. Before my local grocery store discontinued Instacart, on many days several Instacart shoppers were just sitting around. They were paid by the item "picked", so they were just waiting for the *potential* to make a few dollars.
2. Because I enjoying shopping for groceries, I asked one of their shoppers how she liked contracting for them. She replied, "It's fine if you like working for an app."
3. Articles about Uber and Lyft indicate the drivers aren't making very much.
Is this a free country, and do contractors choose to work for these services? Sure.
I just believe we can do better.
1
@dove, I don't use Uber, Lyft, or Instacart. Why?:
1. Before my local grocery store discontinued Instacart, on many days several Instacart shoppers were just sitting around. They were paid by the item "picked", so they were just waiting for the *potential* to make a few dollars.
2. Because I enjoy shopping for groceries, I asked an Instacart shopper how she liked contracting for them. She replied, "It's fine if you like working for an app."
3. Articles about Uber and Lyft indicate the drivers aren't making very much.
Is this a free country, and do contractors choose to work for these services? Sure.
I just believe we can do better.
@dove, I don't use Uber, Lyft, or Instacart. Why?:
1. Before my local grocery store discontinued Instacart, on many days several Instacart shoppers were just sitting around. They were paid by the item "picked", so they were just waiting for the *potential* to make a few dollars.
2. Because I enjoy shopping for groceries, I asked an Instacart shopper how she liked contracting for them. She replied, "It's fine if you like working for an app."
3. Articles about Uber and Lyft indicate the drivers aren't making very much. They also take on risk, depreciation, and the cost of gas and car maintenance.
Is this a free country, and do contractors choose to work for these services? Sure.
I just believe we can do better.
I grew up in WNY in a small town that twice defeated Walmart’s entrance. The McDonald’s wasn’t allowed Golden Arches and the only sign is very unobtrusive. There are NO big box stores and local is heavily promoted, but the town is vested in its survival and sustainability. It is very difficult for most people to fight the move of lower prices. Sadly, the real cost of convenience is often the loss of a community.
5
Advice from the workers at Home Depot has to be considered a kind of fake news. These nice people are trained to treat customers well but often know very little about the products on the shelves. Often five or six of them will walk by you as you waste time going up and done the aisles looking for something that you would have already been shown where it is at the local hardware store. the local hardware store has offered free, fresh popcorn for at least 25 years. I've watched the employees at this store grow old like I have, and seen them walking to and from work. the parking is as good as Home Depot's. The cashiers are often local high-school students. It's as convenient as Amazon but doesn't have the confusing variety. They can order anything you need that's not in the store so why not let them order the correct item for you rather than having to return something. Returning the almost right product is not convenience.
6
This is sad...at what point are we going to see shops like this move upstairs? Like in K -Town? Upstairs rents are much, much less as are the carrying costs - things like insurance, even utilities and security costs are less once you are off of ground floor retail...
One of the reasons for this sorry situation is the failure of the government to enforce the anti-trust laws. In the early 1900s, after the rise of Big Business--Carnegie Steel, Standard Oil, Philip Armour--lawyer Louis Brandeis pointed out the dangers of Big Business to American democracy. We adopted his views during the New Deal, but have forgotten them since. We could adopt them again, if we voted either for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in the election. Both are in the Brandeis tradition.
6
I stay away from Amazon and the big boxes most of the time. I will go out of my way to shop at local, small retailers rather than shovel money at corporate shareholders. I might pay a bit more and yes, I will have to actually leave the house but I know my dollars are well spent.
8
I miss the local hardware store where you chatted with the owner everytime you entered.
Explanations on how paint was mixed for color - not by machine.
Explanations on how to repane a window or rescreen it properly.
Taking in your favorite lamp - I still own it from childhood - for rewiring.
Learning experiences.
Teaching moments.
Supporting a strong work ethic.
Supporting fair work & wages.
vs
Ignorance on how things work.
Ignorance on learning from others.
Supporting an overpaid ceo.
Supporting over work & low wages.
I miss my local hardware store everytime I get ignored at home depot and lowes - after travelling by bus 30-45 minutes to get there.
On line shopping will fade as roads continue to crumble as these cheap convenient goliaths pay zero taxes.
At some point humans will no longer find it healthy to deliver to the lazy.
Local shopping died due to malls.
Malls died due to online shopping.
Online shopping will peak as "community" areas grow were all is in walking distance.
Cycles. Fads. Wasting money via impulsive online shopping.
But those living beyond their means know that.
Penny nails. Bought only what you needed and if you ran out - you sent your kid out with a few pennies for more. I miss those days as a kid.
I learned so much.
5
I do shop on Amazon, because I find stores unresponsive to customers. I know that this is a generalization, but lately I find it difficult to find someone to help me find an article which is located in a nonsensical place, and if I do find someone, they are rude or don't even the answer themselves. And many times, the store doesn't have my size or even the article I need. If the stores want to bring us back in, they need to be more responsive to what we consumers need and want.
You found this to also be true in small mom and pop shops? I can understand in the large chains but small stores usually do offer solutions to all those things you experienced.
3
@Asher Unfortunately, yes.
My wife and I are openly Muslim. We go in to these small businesses and have people give us bad looks and mistreat us. When it happens in Walmart, I simply pick up the receipt and through the corporate survey, the offending party either disappears (as in fired) or is suddenly much more nicer to me the next time we go in the store. I disliked seeing our small businesses disappear at first, but there is prejudice in small business (called personalization here), the ability to get away with mistreating some and others betters. Now, without guilt, we go to Walmart whenever we can. It is our way of fighting the mistreatment we get when we walk into many of these mom and pop shops.
3
@GregAbdul, while that lack of respect is reprehensible, I wonder whether it might be a regional thing. The DC area is quite diverse, and my county is "majority minority", so I hope that employees at small businesses are respectful to all.
If you buy everything from the internet why live in the city?
The attraction of the city used to be that you could get everything practically at you fingertips.
No more. Now Amazon will deliver to you. Just a few taps.
With you fingertips.
1
These little hardware stores were the norm when I moved to NYC in 1975. But these stores were only for small items, for plumbing you went to a plumbing supplier, for hardware you looked on the lower east side. For the big tools there were specialty stores in lower Manhattan. Buying stuff was hard work, and required a lot of knowledge.
I remember my first visit to a mega store in Paramus NJ with a fellow contractor. We were used to seeing one or two drills, there were 100's. If there is such a thing as love at first sight for carpenters we had it.
We filled my truck with doors, flooring, paint, and fireplaces for a restaurant I was building on Hudson Street and I have never fallen out of love.
Meh -- go to Bed Bath and Beyond if you want light bulbs.
Hardware from Amazon? Mr. Wu must be living in an alternate universe. My smallish town has 3 hardware stores, All three are locally owned and have been here for decades. One is small and on the outskirts of town and is always busy, The other two are local stores that can compete and beat Lowes or Home Depot any day of the week. They stock the things people need now, not what they needed 50 years ago.
What Mr. Wu ignores in his lament about the loss of the old time small hardware store is that they disappeared not because of Lowes or Home Depot but because they were stuck in the 1950s. If you are "horse and buggy" the automobile will beat you every time. The rule of the world is and always has been compete or die. Why not lament the loss of local buggy shops or horse drawn wagons. .
1
"For entrepreneurs, the American economy, with its extreme centralization, is becoming more like the Soviet economy Mr. Feygim left behind." I think we should all take note of this.
5
Unfortunately this phenomenon is taking its roots all over the world. Even India where small vendors and grocery stores were all too common are falling prey.
Today’s young generation in India buys almost everything on line including groceries, vegetables, fruits, all household items and India is classified as poor country. Problem is almost every one in India is actually proud of the fact that their country is catching up with Western Countries and is technologically getting in par with them.
2
My favorite independent store is McGuckin Hardware in Boulder, CO. Having moved to another state, I seldom get to avail myself of their expertise now. They have inexperienced teenagers relegated to the cash registers, and experienced guys in the aisles who will listen to what you need to do and find just what you need to get the job done.
We used to joke about the "fern hardware store," because Boulder, but they really do have a nice plant section too.
2
Hardware stores naturally have worse selection than Amazon.
I also beg to differ that by talking with someone you will find what you need quickly. Usually, if I need to get something from the hardware store, it will take 3 trips before I get the right thing, and sometimes to avoid the embarrassment of returns I just end up keeping the mistaken products. With Amazon, I don't have to waste 1 hour in repeated trips and returns are easy.
@leah why are you mentioning Amazon to shop! You can get amazing service from Home Depot, Lowe’s, Wayfair, indie websites. Just to let you know Amazon DOES NOT HAVE the best prices. Sellers have to markup everything on Amazons greed with seller fee. Amazon prime free shipping? Nope. You paid a hefty yearly expense and the shipping and Amazon storage fees and return shipping are put into prices.
Shop alternate websites and support other American businesses online and in your town!
1
For hardware stores, my experience is that the BBS Big Box Stores, like Lowe's and Menards have destroyed the local hardware stores. We had 6-7 in my town a few decades ago. We're down to 3, and they struggle. I really don't see a lot of "hardware" items being bought on line, so although the Amazon argument has truth, not so much for hardware. I used to work in a local hardware while in high school. I miss the creaky wood floors.
1
I have lived in Spain, France and Italy and travelled through Asia and Africa. It has always amazed me how American tourists flock to the small shops of other countries enjoying a neighborhood boulangerie in Paris or a marketplace in Hanoi, returning to the U.S. with cameras full of shots of the "local color," interesting gifts in tow and fond memories of those neighborhood places full of character, history and charm. Once back stateside those same tourists could rarely have that same experience. Apart from those who live in the city, they more likely cannot walk to a store and have to drive some distance in their giant SUV's to load up on goods from the "colorless" and impersonal chain stores in malls, Home Depots or Walmarts. The very image of an SUV packed with kids and product in the small towns I have known makes me chuckle. I digress.
As this article so aptly observes, the days of the "ma and pa" shops are numbered in the U.S. and Americans may just have to travel to Europe, Asia or Africa if they want to find and enjoy them. Hopefully Amazon and online shopping will not completely replace small businesses in those locales any time soon. The price of a plane ticket is worth it for those who can afford a trip abroad to shop locally. Sadly, for the rest of us, the only shopping place we can walk to will have to be the local convenience store or 7 Eleven.
6
The end result of an unregulated free market capitalistic system is monopoly with the wealth held in few hands and the rest of the population poor.
French revolution anger, especially in a population with instantaneous mass communications and weapons of war in many households.
Good luck.
4
@kirk The French were literally starving. We have subsidized high fructose corn syrup and fox news to always distract us.
The extraordinary high cost of cheapness. Americans, it appears, will chase anything to get lower costs and "convenience." What they don't seem to get are the unintended (or intended) consequences: decimating their local stores, the decent-paying jobs of their neighbors, and their own community's declining tax base. Thank you, uber- frugal consumers, for that dollar or two savings Jeff Bezos makes another million.
4
Mr Wu is certainly right about the rents and Amazon as the major reasons for the death of independent retail businesses, and he is also right to pint out the benefits of such businesses. These businesses also provide jobs. One important factor that Wu fails to mention is the fact that a company called Google is running a massive protection racket unimpeded by government. Google contacts retail stores every day via robotic phone calls and asks them to pay up. If they do not agree, they are excluded from all "near me" search results. I can cite many specific examples from my own neighborhood in Chicago. In a city a densely packed city like New York, people will not know a nearby hardware store exists--even if it is a block away-- if they search the internet for one without a specific name
4
We live in a rural area and do a lot of shopping on Amazon for things we can't find in our area, which is great if you know exactly what you are looking for. That isn't always the case for hardware related projects. Sometimes you just need to look at what's available before you know what you want, so we do spend a lot of time in the local Home Depot. It is difficult to find things and difficult to get someone to help if it is busy, but it is almost the only game in town. I would much prefer a smaller hardware store. There was one about 25 minutes away-it just closed.
4
I have lived in NYC and LA and loved both. Big cities have so much to offer, but almost every big city in the US has become unaffordable for most of us. That seems a shame when we love the culture offered in city museums and concert halls. It is also a shame that we are forced to use cars rather than be able to live in city neighborhoods where errands get done by walking which can be a daily workout too!
I am hoping big cities get overbuilt, rents lower and we can all move back...dreaming? Maybe.
1
A lot of comments seem to focus on issues of convenience, but the more important story here is how Amazon and large chain businesses have been deeply damaging our economy. If you spend your money at a small local business, that money largely stays in the community. If you spend money at Amazon or a large chain business, much of that money leaves your community forever, and the median job it supports does not pay as well. The big businesses thrive by creating efficiencies requiring fewer workers and lower salaries, and much of the profit is typically funneled away to a relatively small number of people who make so much that they won’t even be able to spend it all in their own communities, let alone yours. And they use their leverage as big companies so get tax concessions and wholesale discounts that increase their ability to crush small business. Politicians and others usually try to blame the problems on other more convenient scapegoats, but if you’re looking for deep systemic problems damaging our economy, look no further, and think twice next time you shop with a large non-local business.
3
So the landlord jacks up the monthly rent from $6000 to $12,800, or 55%. Yearly rent rises from $72,000 to $129,600— an additional $57,600 annually. Yes Amazon, rising property taxes, and nearby Lowes & Home Depot are culprits, but the greatest force of displacement here is the real estate industry—the same industry which gave us our billionaire(?) president (a president whose base is largely populated by the “little guy”).
12
Personally, I find my local New York hardware store overpriced and offering poor quality.
For example, I looked for small part for a toilet. The version at the local store was a cheap and flimsy looking version; I was unsure if it fit, and the salesperson was unsure as well.
When searching on Amazon, I found many others that were of higher quality, were guaranteed to fit, and was half the price.
However, the major advantage are reviews.
A quick glance at ACTUAL real-world usage made the buying decision simple.
What is wrong with this scenario?
Obviously, others recognize the major advantages here:
--Lower prices
--Better quality
--Reviews showing real-world experience.
That's way many see buying online via Amazon, Target.com or other sites as the much better option.
P.S.: I live in Downtown New York and have shopped locally and in Queens.
3
Hugely important issue for America; if only this article had more analysis. The problem in this particular case isn't just (misguided) competition from online consumer options (and the rent hike), but pressure from corporate hardware franchises, like Home Depot, Lowes and Menards. Because of their size and effects on supply chains, marketing and consumer expectations, the niche for individualized materials and tools for home repairs is evaporating. Consumers are now turning to online sources that offer cheap product REPLACEMENTS at prices less than prepackaged (and highly packaged) generic repair options of corporate hardware stores that dominate the "marketplace".
The marketplace works worse now than it ever did. Protectionism is the best answer and can be done responsibly, as in Europe. We will need to close our borders to some extent, again like Europe, since constructive or adaptive reorganization of a country's economic system does not work well in 'open systems'.
First, we need to stop subsidizing large-scale enterprises, like corporate industry and agriculture (and, yes, our federal government which has co-evolved with these) - and then actually subsidize small-scale commerce systems (and government). The long-term, combined effects on our health, our culture and our environment would be great and probably even economically superior to large-scale alternatives. REGARDLESS, it is the way to go. Suboptimality is underrated in our free-market, brain-washed culture.
1
I used to shop at our local hardware store (Carr’s in Berkshire County in MA) until I got tired of the impolite and unresponsive customer service. Small hardware stores can compete on customer service, but when they drop the ball there, might as well “Go to Lowe’s” as they say.
2
The neighborhood hardware store is a niche retailer that can often be more convenient and certainly more helpful that ordering from Amazon. Good service and extensive product knowledge are the keys to remaining successful. I live in a semi-rural area (NW New Jersey) where both Lowes and Home Depot are a 25 minute drive away; my local store is 2 ½ minutes from my house. The business started out as a small operation 30 years ago and after a move to a larger location and several expansions continues to prosper. The staff is very helpful and knows what everything is and where to find it. You are unlikely to find this kind of service at a big box retailer and certainly not at Amazon. I do like Amazon for some items due to the convenience of ordering from home and not having to waste time and money driving to a store that might or might not have the item I need.
2
When Amazon owns everything and no more small businesses are around, our lives will hang on whether the box has arrived via UPS or the Post Office (if the GOP allows it survive) just like the people in Music Man. We won’t know who sent it or if it’s what we ordered but there it will be and customer services...what a joke.
Amazon will have us with no competition and monopolies are not kind, low priced or even good. They can do whatever they like including no sell to you or not sell what you need.
Our streets will be darker; no eyes on the street from your local store owners. Our stacks of boxes and bubble wrap will make our current waste problem look like child’s play.
It’s lose-lose for customers. It’s also lose-lose for workers.
7
Demise of small stores seem to be accelerating in USA and it is visible in other countries too much lesser extend.During my trips to Latin America I noticed numerous Ferreterias ( hardware stores) in many neighborhoods.
Small cafes, non chain restaurants, shoe or clothing stores are sprouted in Europe and Latin America.Whenever I travel, I try to buy some of everyday stuff mostly because of personal attention one gets in those smaller stores and sometimes because articles are a bit different in design than here.
Overall those type of businesses in neighborhoods create sense of human connection.I went to one cafee in Argentina, twice the same day and second time proprietor gave me a hand shake and we had a little chat.
Here trained robots say: how are you today?, what are your plans for rest of the day? etc, all artificial conversations embedded during some corporate training.
I do not think it is capitalism anymore, but corporatism, which is by the way very similar to system I was growing up with ( socialism in former soviet block country). The only difference is that stores in socialist countries carried fraction of goods, which we have today, customer service and impersonal approach was the same.
2
My Millennial and Gen Z nieces and nephews epitomize why Amazon has thrived. I blame their parents, my siblings, as well as my own parents for failing to teach: 1) every dollar you spend is a vote and that consumer elections have consequences; 2) voting for people like Reagan and Bill Clinton meant the death of our local hardware stores.
My brother, Gen X, grew up during the Reagan era. "Made in USA" and local mom & pop shop didn't mean anything to him; Wal-Mart made him always focus on the 'cheap' price and not care that it was made in China, with horrible working and environmental conditions.
His kids either are too busy to shop (gig economy) or not affluent enough to buy American goods (gig economy). So they buy from Amazon and contribute to the viscous cycle.
2
A lot of the points in this article don't make any sense, although I do agree that small and medium sized retailers are hurting. For instance:
"the high rents are a symptom of the enormous concentration of wealth in a handful of coastal cities like New York, San Francisco and Washington"
That doesn't make sense. If only a few people have money, that wouldn't explain why rents on all properties would increase. In order for rents to increase, there would have to be a general increase in the population's ability to pay.
Also, the article doesn't seem to really address the fundamental point: It is more convenient to order from Amazon than to visit several stores and talk to unknowledgeable clerks who probably don't even have your item in stock anyway.
Certainly local business models have been destroyed, but it is what the market has decided it wants. Some brick and mortar retailers, such as Walmart and restaurants, are adapting.
1
@Herr Andersson
Maybe in your country the market decides, here in the USA , Wall Street, hedge fund managers, politicians, race, bankers decide which products succeed and which products do not. White politicians zone areas in there zip codes deciding what can be housed on their property and what can not. Guess what minority business are not included in the drawings in specific zip codes.
Who gets the start up money from Wall Street or the hedge fund managers? Guess what they are not minorities or women.
Politicians gets their money from Wall Street and Wall Street tells them who they should support.
Their is no free market and anyone who wants to challenge that better understand their history. Google from another monopoly if you don't know our history.
Capitalism is greed with the production of no quality from customer service, to being made in America .
Hidden shareholders who need to stay hidden because they should be ashamed.
.
I wish you were right about the cheaper part, but my experience belies that statement. I shop local when I can, but for a big job, I find the savings over the local store to be 30-50%.
2
Yes to this. 2 years ago a local entrepreneur in my town in Cathedral City opened an Ace Hardware store. What a beautiful, efficient store! It did not survive.
The Ace Hardware in Palm Desert is great!
0The business model makes very little sense in a world of Lowe's, Home Depot and Target. Amazon does not help, but probably does not make the pivotal difference.
Only people who are fixing something they do not know how to fix value the hands on service. This rules out handymen and most rich people or any task you can look up on a phone. In a place like NYC, many people are probably renting so do not do significant repairs. Those that aren't are often rich. Who is left?
Just like the anecdotal stories about restaurants that claim (on dubious evidence) that big minimum wage hikes do not cause significant harm, this is a cherry-picked business that is, for some obvious reasons, mostly obsolete in cities. It is not a compelling wider conndemnation of capitalism.
This kind of store, with its significant inventory carrying costs and largely professional clients (people doing their tasks as a business), is a terrible idea for a mom and pop store unless it is in a very isolated area and can charge sky high prices.
If you want to open a new business, do not make it a small hardware store. That is only slightly better than a mini electronics store trying to outdo Best Buy. Companies with repeated processes,organizational learning and scale get extremely good at what they do and do not have the life and financial constraints that a store owner does. Trying to be a mini version of a big box store will go poorly in a city.
1
"But American CAPITALISM has turned against small business."
Why use the word capitalism here--a grand abstraction that conveys no meaning. Customers (people) for good or poor reasons have (and are) changing their shopping practices.
Does this statement mean to imply that some system where people may not change their preferences should prevail?
3
@Gerry Professor
Oh please don't get into word nuances you know exactly what the words mean. GREEDY CAPITALISM has destroyed AMERICA and anyone who wants to start a small business forget about it if you don't fit the profile of how the banks will lend money to. . YOU know exactly what is happening so don't be nasty SMUG.
Rich CEO's and no quality products. that is what we have right now. This is not what the GOP state all the time they care about small businesses all the way to putting them out of business.
Troll you are, you know what is going on don't insult the NYT readers, this is not Fox News.
I went to a local hardware store just yesterday, walked in, explained what I needed, and got it in five minutes. The staff was helpful and friendly and I will go back whenever I can.
Amazon can be overwhelming. Instead of a few variations of what you need, there are hundreds. And you have to wade through descriptions and reviews hoping to find something suitable.
On the other hand, there have also been times when I went to three or four stores and couldn't locate what I wanted. Had to use Amazon. They both have their place.
4
I cried the day my local hardware - one half mile from home - closed it's doors because of the encroachment of Home Depot and Lowes. For 32 years I had relied on it, sometimes multiple times a day, as I bought an 1870's house (built and used as a schoolhouse originally) and I was always needing something when deep into repairs and upgrades. The owners knew me, knew what I was working on and always helped supply it.
Parks Hardware had been an ongoing business venture since the 1890's and had the original wood floors and tin ceilings. It had a distinctive smell, that newly cut lumber smell. It was a beautiful place, owned and run by fine people.
Now I have to drive seven miles to Lowes for every little thing. I try to pre-plan but house projects are famous for, "this isn't right, need to take it back".
It's been years since Parks has been gone. I don't cry anymore but escaped sighs of sadness still come sometimes as I am driving to Lowes!
12
On the other hand, when my under counter lights stopped working my super, who’s not an electrician - thought it was worth a try replacing the transformer. He said Google the part number and order one on Amazon. It came in two days, he installed it.
Problem solved with minimal time and expense. Doubt I could have accomplished that at the local hardware.
2
I'm sorry to hear about another small business closing. Small Business Saturday is next Saturday, so I'll consider what I might actually need, and go to a local small business or two to buy it.
Our local hardware chain, Strosniders, has very knowledgeable staff / salespeople. They have a good selection of household goods, including hardware. I enjoy shopping there, and find mega stores like Home Depot overwhelming.
Strosniders is an Ace Hardware affiliate, so they might not technically be "local".
On a perhaps humorous note, I recall how sad it was when The Shop Around the Corner closed, after Fox Books opened in the same neighborhood.
2
No doubt that in Chelsea, it's cheaper and more efficient to walk to the hardware store. For a lot of Americans, though, this does not apply, so let's not be myopic. My rule is, every project involves three trips to the hardware store (at a minimum); and my nearest hardware store is about forty miles round-trip. So, I keep extra bits and pieces about, hit the brick/mortar shop on other trips to town, and order on-line very frequently. The UPS and FedEx vehicles are coming by daily, and it's an extra 200 yards to get to the drop-off point--not the forty miles I'd drive.
All that said: I love the brick/mortar shop, the helpful expertise, the low-low price on bulk fasteners, and the free popcorn...and so does my dog, who enjoys truck-trips for exactly this reason.
4
What a shame. I remember going to the local hardware store (I lived on Long Island) with my father every Sunday to buy the supplies, which were required for that weekends home project. Always friendly and knowledgeable store employees who could answer any question. I could get lost in there for hours being mesmerized by the aisles of all things mechanical. Today, you go into the BIG box home supply stores and no employee (when you can find someone that is) knows anything.
3
Pretty soon the only place to shop will be one big warehouse.
I have lived long enough to remember shopping downtown and then this new-fangled thing called a Mall opened. Most of the downtown stores moved out of downtown to the Mall - the Mall that had it all, people said.
The fact that mom & pops are closed by bigger stores creates a lot of nostalgia for that time. But mom and pop often were very good capitalists: they overcharged compared to big box stores, they kept a low inventory that also helped their cash flow, and if they were really good capitalists they owned their brick and mortar store.
Mom and pops were edged out by bigger-muscled capitalists that were able to charge less because they could strong-hold suppliers of items to garner a better price. They invested in large warehouses where they could retain huge inventories.
They were also able to take advantage of a low wage, low benefit labor force. In fact, they catered to part time workers to justify low pay and low benefits. That’s the big dirty secret of capitalism. A good labor movement would destroy their bottom line.
4
I'm no fan of Bezos, and I see the many harms of Amazon, but yet I shop on Amazon for almost everything.
Why? Because the overcrowded, poorly-planned, noisy, polluted, traffic-jammed, road rage, gun nut (Florida's Stand Your Ground law) urban grid where I live is so harsh that I refuse to drive or shop in it.
When I've lived in intelligent cities such as Amsterdam, Vancouver and Victoria (BC), I didn't need a car. The grid was friendly for pedestrians and bicyclists, and mass transit was professional and plentiful. Small neighborhood kiosks and other boutique establishments dominate their retail landscape.
I could walk or bicycle to shop, and it was a pleasure, not a dangerous, aggravating ordeal like it is here in most American cities.
So I stay safe at home, and order from Amazon Prime. Sad, but safer.
8
Convenience and the internet are candy to a consumer. Consumers have invariably prized it above anything else. Ironically ‘convenience’ has in at least one way been a key contributor to every single rural or urban environment’s decay.
1
Who needs stores like this? We all do and we won't fully realize it until they are gone. Side note: The demise of this country's hardware stores started back in the 1970's, but that is another story with a different set of trends and causes that exist today. It should be a wakeup call to many that a small hardware store can compete in, if nothing else, price with the internet/Amazon and most probably in quality of product and certainly in expertise and service. Although this article is about a hardware store, and thank you Tim Wu for this, this phenomena is going on with many, let's call them, speciality stores.
I own a small retail swimming pool store and the trend for several years has been for many of my customers to purchase many items via the internet, never mind from chain retail pool stores. Just like Mr. Feygin's store, we so often (not on every item) beat the internet and chain stores on price never mind quality of product.
One anecdote- One busy Saturday, a customer said to me, "How much is this, because I want to see if I can buy it cheaper on the internet?" to which I answered, "Let me make this easy for you....."
Mr. Feygin's store might be able to withstand some rent increase if only everyone within walking distance patronized the store instead of some internet business that could hardly care about them.
One a pleasant note- it feels good to help customers out and it's so often appreciated. Thanks, G
5
Amazon, and even lesser online retailers, have mostly killed off all types of small businesses, especially niche clothing, furniture, gift, and other types of retail stores. The effect on neighborhoods across America, in good areas, is dismal. Stores lining the avenues, never mind the malls, use to bring out people to shop, or at least window shop, and actually secured these neighborhoods.
I hope there will be a backlash. Isn't it sometimes nicer to try on shoes, overcoats, whatever in a store as opposed to ordering quantities of things that require you to schlep many back, or ship them back as returns, which in the long run can get you on the reject customer list?
3
Walk through your own neighborhood, one in any large city and what do you see but more and more vacant storefronts, boarded up small businesses. The only ones managing to carry on being restaurants, coffee shops. What this dynamic has accomplished is to restructure the panorama of street life itself and the character of a neighborhood in its entirety. Cities were once distinguished by their unique neighborhoods populated by small businesses who were emblematic of the local community. Customers established relationships with store personnel that served to nurture a mutual conviviality, one where greeting each other by name was not uncommon. Now online shopping, an anonymous way of shopping, has become the standard, so unlike what those now abandoned storefronts once offered a neighborhood. Social interaction.
5
you might end to this litany of woes money printing by the federal reserve. Today, this money printing does not produce inflation in the price of sausage (to the chagrin of the perennial Weimar Republic crowd) but it does produce very real consequences on main street. Amazon is subsidized by this money printing through the stock market. Best paid tech workers at Amazon are paid partly in stock, which keeps rising even though Amazon is not particularly profitable. That insult is compounded by the injury of tax policy, which subsidizes Amazon all over again. And finally, the printed money has to go somewhere. It goes into property prices, which rise seemingly without limit, until they finally exceed all rational levels, which precipitates a financial crash. And then, the federal reserve revs up the printing press all over again ...
1
The article fails to address the long-term consequences of the consolidation of economic power and what will happen when there is no local competition left. While I have succumbed to Amazon out of frustration with local alternatives, something is going to need to be done because once Amazon, Walmart and Target are the only games in town, they will control the market and we will pay more. They already watch each other's prices and charge the exact same price for many items, literally to the penny.
Here is one idea. Local businesses need to create a virtual consortium using the web. In NY they can call it "Hudson" instead of "Amazon", where they can sell items and have them delivered by the closest store to the customer, or the customer can go pick up the item if it is nearby. They can even share the delivery people (and the cost of them). Add something on the service side, like being able to talk to the people at the store with the expertise/knowledge and get advice without running all over town, something Amazon cannot do. I'm sure this will have its issues, and I am also sure that there will be other benefits that are not mentioned above too, but the main point is the world has changed, and local business need to adapt to it and add value in new ways that their new competition cannot or they will not survive. It's not the first time technological change has upended a business model, and it won't be the last, but the internet and online shopping is not going away.
5
"better service, quicker acquisition and lower prices"
Mr. Yu is erroneously generalizing from the specific. His experience in NYC is not mirrored in countless locations across the United States. In my city of 50,000, the last hardware store died almost 20 years ago, before online shopping became popular. The only service available since then is from big box home improvement stores, served largely by hard to come by clerks who know barely more than what is printed on the outside of a product. It takes much more time to drive 5 miles to the nearest home improvement store, find a place to park, find a product in the store, try to find a clerk, etc. than it does to shop online, and provides no more expertise than the reviews found there.
The problem of monopoly capital existed before online shopping and is the result of government regulators abdicating their responsibilities to prevent the consolidation of business and industry into a few small enterprises.
4
I remember the hardware store in Brooklyn where my father sent me on a regular basis to buy a gallon of benzine, or a pipe fitting. I also remember merchants with horse drawn wagons bringing every thing from bleach to peaches to our block. Today I live miles from any store and buy things on line faster, cheaper and more returnable. No cancer causing benzine, though. Some things are better than others.
2
There is a third issue to consider: running a hardware store, like any retail business, is a tough job--only moreso for a business with lots of low ticket items requiring lots of customer service. In the past several years three local hardware stores folded their tents, not because of high rents or competing mega stores, but because the owners were getting older and neither kids nor employees had much interest in buying the business. As one retiring owner put it, nobody wants to spend fifteen minutes for a three dollar purchase.
3
Westfield Lumber was my go-to hardware store from 1986 to this year before I moved. Any question was answered, every paint question was handled, and the same people working there for 30 years.
The nearby Home Depot opened several years into the 1990's, but I preferred Westfield Lumber.
Just moved this summer into a small town in NH, with a local and wonderful Bradley's Hardware, owned by the same family for 2 generations. The store is crammed with stuff, helpful and friendly staff, and open 7 days a week.
So grateful to live near this wonderful local hardware store!
5
Alot of these responses are correct. Competition is good,markets are always changing, Mom & Pops couldn't match the inventory. Convenience in my experience meant items in the $1.00-5.00 range. Paint, or higher priced items the customer was going to the box store. One unfortunate effect of this was the choice of products now available, & the closing or shrinking of manufacturing. Anyone see any Red Devil products lately, McCloskey Spar Varnish ? Home Depot, Lowe's & Amazon control the market. I don't know if anyone is to blame, business is always changing. But please, to the "support local business " people, how many are willing to close your Prime accounts.
2
Not only turned against small businesses, it's the way politicians want it to be.
SO, the next time they're barking about helping "small businesses," remind of them of this: They don't care about small businesses at all.
3
Cheaper and more efficient????
There's certainly convenience in being able to run to a local store in the middle of a project and getting something you need, but in my Boston suburb, the two local hardware stores that shut down were never cheaper than amazon...
Lowes or Harbor Freight can offer great prices, but the guy on main street provided mediocre customer service and higher prices.
Retail in the age of Amazon is certainly a huge challenge, and not every store and small business owner can deal with it.
1
I don’t doubt the local hardware store might be cheaper than Amazon. Than the Big Box stores? Not so much. And you can order from the Big Boxes online as well. They’re also much more likely to have a part you need if you actually go there.
If local hardware stores can’t survive in New York City where a it’s more difficult than average to get to a Big Box and bring home a significant amount, what chance do they have in the rest of the country?
In rural upstate New York, the local Ace Hardware stores fill the niche once held by smaller mom and pop stores. Their chief competition is likely Home Depot closer to Albany For those of us way out in the sticks, it can still be a bit of a drive.
Where Amazon makes a difference for us (and other retailers such as LL Bean) is the ability for my wife to shop. She has a disability and it makes it possible for us to live where we live without piling on the miles and the hours for every shopping need. I wonder if it is also more energy efficient.
4
In the community of 25,000 where I grew up, before malls existed, there were five hardware stores, each with its own personality. The first blow was malls and the coming of chains like Home Depot and Lowe's. The second blow was the gentrification of our local community, with soaring rents and traditional stores replaced by boutique clothing stores, latte shops, banks, etc. The Internet, with Amazon, is really the third step in that process, with the local hardware stores long gone.
5
Makes me sad. I remember such hardware stores where you could always get a knowledgeable employee to help you find an item. Walk into a Lowes today and you might never find the thing you're looking for, although it's probably there somewhere, or a worker to help. The local bookstore is another thing of the past. I hate buying books on line but you often don't have a choice.
3
Independent hardware stores are able to target their offerings to the style and vintage of the local neighborhoods. I lived in a neighborhood in California where the craftsman bungalows were built in prior to WW 1, and the local hardware store carried period hardware. You won't find that at a big box store.
5
I do go to Lowe's/Home Depot/Amazon at times but we absolutely love love love and frequently use our local hardware store, Green's Hardware and Paint! Ace opened up in our town and even though it had ample parking (the one thing Green's lacks) it didn't last.
2
I love local hardware stores, especially Bruce's in minuscule Otis, MA in the Berkshires. But lets not forget the millions of small businesses that have opened up and benefited from the internet. The once impossible opportunities for creative, enterprising people to market their ideas internationally with minimal rent, advertising, inventory and overhead costs has done wonders for ambitious entrepreneurs. Ebay merchants are one good example along with millions of internet sites run by independent business people. The majority of amazon's vendors are small businesses. Capitalism and competition can be cruel. The internet has made for a more level playing field for businesses and consumers alike.
1
I live on the north side of Evanston, Illinois. There is a Home Depot about a 10 minute drive away. My family owns a summer home outside of South Haven, Michigan. A Menard's opened about 10 years ago if I remember correctly. The Tru Value around the corner from my home and the Ace Hardware in South Haven are surviving, but I don't know for how long. I try to patronize each because I hate to see these small mom and pop businesses close.
Future economic historians will describe a transitional phenomenon. They'll explain that for a while after mass manufactured goods and mechanized transport became available, it was a still a slow and costly effort to get them from factory to home in a way that let consumers make good choices. So until that improved, and while the variety of goods on offer was still pretty small, something called small neighborhood retail stores existed and they had an intermediary function. They held a selection of goods in spaces physically near where people lived and shortened the distance between consumers and the goods they wanted, making it possible to have a close look at goods before deciding on them. And when the factory to home system got better and the variety of goods increased, the retail stores naturally disappeared.
The oddest part of this story, as it will be told in the future, is that some people romanticized the retail store and treated its disappearance as a minor tragedy.
1
Small stores are more efficient if they have what you are looking for. When they do not have what you want and when you want it, it is inefficient to drive around looking for the item. The big stores have everything which increases economic efficiency.
Same goes for small bookstores. Quaint but not great for finding what you want.
6
So call ahead?
It’s absolutely true that even though we have laws against monopolies, like so much of the American culture it belies hypocrisy, as is true in so called family and community values America professes to.
I won’t admit to being guilty of buying online, even though I do.
There simply aren’t enough smaller brick and mortar businesses, due to the monopolies, and the ones that exist cannot be convenient to a large population and cannot guarantee to have what I need.
Example. I am a knitter. I sometimes need to buy a knitting needle that may be longer than the most common sizes used. There is only one (1) local yarn shop in Washington DC where I live. It is not convenient to where I live and in all likelihood they won’t have in stock what I need. They of course can order it for me, but I can order it for myself, get it delivered to me in half the time for half the price. If there were more stores I could call a few, one or more would have the item, I could go pick it up, perhaps pay more than online, but I’d have it the same day.
I don’t think the oligarch Bezos would like that.
Nyet, he wouldn’t care for that at all.
1
We live in an old neighborhood less than two blocks from a great, well-established family-owned hardware store. It's super-convenient and often very handy in a pinch, but limited in terms of inventory.
A few times each summer it offers free hot dogs (as means of selling barbecue grills). It also has an in-store, self-serve popcorn maker, complete with those tiny little popcorn bags (so small one may legitimately keep all the popcorn to one's self, risky as that gambit may be).
We buy from Amazon and big box retailers, but actually *look forward* to going to OUR hardware store as much for the people and community.
Not to mention my own bag of popcorn!
2
We heard this lament 30 years ago when Walmart came to small towns across the US. The small hardware stores there closed.
And before that when the modern "supermarket" replaced the local grocer who tallied up your bill on the back of a brown bag using a pencil. Ingenuity, inventiveness, individual initiative and creativity have come miles since both of these. I hope
the author and others don't prevail in finding ways to smother
it all.
3
@Ed But that efficiency, I suggest, is bought at the price of quality of goods (note the cheap Chinese imitations of what were once long lasting plumbing products) and intimacy of community relationships (at my hardware store, an old timer named Tom has saved me thousands over year and is always a pleasure to talk with, whereas at Home Depot I can’t find, much less know and talk to the help, who are quick to run off at the mere sight of a customer).
@Kryztoffer
those folks in the orange aprons always do seem to going the other way
This article addresses one of the prime killers of economic vitality in rural America; more significant than immigration or labor-offshoring, even. Consolidation in farming, retail, medicine, food supply—all this concentration has killed innumerable jobs and businesses and turned small town centers into ghost-towns.
It didn’t start with Amazon. We can thank Walmart and Home Depot: the first waves of the consolidation tsunami. Contrary to what self-serving politicians would have us believe, it is not China, but we Americans, who, by failing to enhance and enforce our anti-monopoly protections, have loaded the gun, aimed it squarely at our own feet...and pulled the trigger.
6
@Wild Ox -we had Woolworth's and other 5 cent stores but they didn't destroy local economies. Walmart stores are killers of local small business. When NAFTA allowed manufacturing to go to low-wage countries that had a huge impact on super cheap items becoming available.
@happy complains about Lowe's and says, "I'm glad I'm 83 and won't have to watch the disaster too much longer."
Man, that's really something. This person apparently thinks dying is preferable to going to Lowe's.
4
@Ed -I want to live but used to be able to go to store and say I am looking for or find it myself. Now the staff know nothing and everything is organized by designer. Really, don't need $200 toaster.
@Ed
He's right.
This article is about 20 years too late. This process started long ago and is not limited to hardware stores. There are still some niche local hardware stores around the country. There will always be some people that like the more personal service they offer. In general people are are attracted to cheaper prices over all else.
2
A 15 mile drive either way, or order on Amazon? Living in a place that is sparsely populated and has no real commerce, means no traffic jams and less stress. The UPS driver has a treat for the border collie, and I have more time to pursue more joy-filled experiences than getting in the car for a trip that at minimum is 40 minutes. But there are times when Amazon is out of the question, because the hardware store has solutions and ideas. I will go there always, and never a Menards or Home Depot.
2
I used to have a neighborhood hardware store I could walk to, and it was staffed with a few lovely people who knew where everything was, and how to use it. They even had a repair shop in the back where a young man could FIX anything from lamps needing rewiring to lawn mower engines. After that left we still have a large ACE store that also has everything, with a large staff of knowledgeable workers that have been there for many years. They pay them well and I'm happy to spend a little more for the service and to keep these fine folks in business. That's what neighbors do.
About 1/4 of our downtown area storefronts are now vacant due to online ordering and greedy absentee landlords who find that raising rents to astronomical levels isn't as good as the tax writeoff for the empty storefront, , so why even bother with tenants? The Sacks Fifth Avenue recently closed, and to add insult to injury, Amazon has procured the property and is putting in an office there. Sort of like the ultimate thumb in the eye for our local retail. We used to have an I Magnin, but that location is now a US Bankruptcy Court.
3
Maybe in New York the selection was better and cheaper, but not in the mom and pops out on Main Street in flyover country. For us, the rise of Amazon and online shopping has been a godsend and opened a wide variety of items up that were previously unavailable without great expense and difficulty.
Retail stores stock what turns over quickly and routinely did not or would not stock anything not appealing to the masses. Want something else and you either paid through the nose or were told it was simply unavailable. In the age where almost the full range of stock of Lowes, Home Depot, Amazon and even smaller specialty suppliers like 475 High Performance Building Supply are now available to everyone. It is the democratization of commerce and looks very different to someone not living in New York or Los Angeles.
In other areas of commerce the mom and pop shops equally did not serve anyone but the mainstream well. A bike shop or an apppliance store or a musical instrument store that did not carry the brand you wanted or some specialty equipment meant you were mostly out of luck. Now the consumer in rural Montana is on equal footing with the guy in Brooklyn as far as access to these things is concerned.
There is a place for small scale business in this economy but the rules have changed and that means the business plan has to change. It means if the local store does not want to bother, you have options from all over the world.
11
You are so on-point! The historical comparison to Amazon is the Sears catalogue. During the decades of Sears catalogue pre-eminence, there were probably lots of complaints of how it “destroyed” independent retailers.
1
There was a TV show tears ago called Dinosaurs. We received it via satellite. It was created and produced by Jim Henson and Michael Jacobs (muppets). It was about the "Wesayso" company that had its corporate fingers in everything. The show centered around its housing division which destroyed the environment and especially the morale of it dinosaurian workers. Henson was making a TV show that was a statement of what giant corporations were doing ... and it was a forwarning of your future in your country. It is available on-line and a gem of a production. It was removed from broadcast because of its political al and societal viewpoint.
3
I can't count the times I've walked into a hardware store with a part in my pocket, looking for a match. Try that on Amazon. Part of the problem for small hardware stores is that people don't do their own repairs. The big box stores have everything the small hardware stores have, often more, but the help rarely knows anything that can help a DIY customer. That's not a problem for maintenance companies, their people do this work for a living and know exactly where to look.
1
Is the Busy Bee Hardware in Santa Monica still open? A tiny old store with wood floors, it had everything.
4
Just another sad example of how the forces of capitalism continue to isolate and alienate us, continue to destroy community. Man is a social animal. Shopping at a local hardware was also a social event, even a learning experience. Please take a few moments today to 'get real', engage face to face with humanity, with real human flesh and blood.
1
@Damolo Face to face engagement is highly overrated.
When are people going to wake up that their communities are being decimated in the choice they are making to sacrifice human connection to convenience?
3
Life in America is increasingly soulless.
Do we really want this? Whom does it actually benefit when you kill your local hardware store, fail to march and vote against rent controls, allow foreign speculators to own your real estate and get your food delivered by a gig worker who just burned the equity in their car to bring it to you way below minimum wage?
Yes, Pogo, we have met the enemy and he is us. Since Reagan, Americans have voted against unions, failed to turn out for elections and failed to vote against dark-money candidates in sufficient numbers to overcome their influence. Mr. Faygen’s friend was right about the money in the street ready for the taking. We everyday Americans dropped it there when we failed to protect the vulnerable and our friends and neighbors by simply voting with a conscience.
5
I order online only as a last resort. The disappearance of small businesses and mom and pop stores negatively impacts the character of many neighborhoods, and gives places a sameness. And that is a shame.
1
Thanks to the New York Times and the columnist for this disturbing but very perceptive piece.
Doesn't this show that Senator Warren is right about breaking up Amazon, Facebook, Google, and anyone else who has such concentrated power, and distorts our economy so much?
4
So just who can move into a 600 sq. ft. retail shop and make a profit while paying 10,800 dollars a month? A hedge fund?
4
Property taxes... You now pay off your home mortgage and then pay rent to the town/city. You never own it. You done pay-they take it away. So now the town workers can safely fake an injury and go on disability.
You needed to expand on this topic. However, what killed the store was the rent.
7
Times change; The Mom & Pop Hardware stores in high price areas like Mr. Feyin's are a thing of the past thanks to the greed of the Real Estate Industry's penchant for killing the goose that laid the golden eggs. For every door that closed, another one opens up, time to give up nostalgia and get over it.
1
Why don’t the liberals do something to help control the rent in these small businesses and the taxes? I imagine that is as big a factor as losing customers. And as the rent and taxes go up the costs have to go up. It seems like preserving the small neighborhood businesses is at least as important as giving rent subsidies to people.
If you want to talk about Amazon. Amazon is making small sellers extinct as well. THAT is a very being story for the Times to investigate. We are banning Amazon, specifically Amazon brands and Prime from our lives and supporting local businesses.
2
Although I am sympathetic towards Mr Feygin's plight. this is not news! This first came on my radar in the 80's when many prognosticators reported seeing this happen in the mid-west with the big box stores. Perhaps on-line shopping will be the ones behind their death-kneel also.
Stay tuned!
2
Dude! Been awhile that the tide has been turning, like 60 years worth of killing the little guy/gal. My grandfather had to sell his small grocery market because of mega merchants way back in 1964! Who’s just noticing this trend and what X-Gen or Millenial rock did they just crawl out from under?
3
Amazon (Whole Foods- whatelse?) is a scourge on our civilization. I don't want to buy from them BUT (the alternatives are often not my local hardware store (more expensive often) but Home Depot- as bad IMO). They pay no tax, use the roads and post office system (undoubtedly at an undisclosed discount-- not cheap for us to mail a letter/package) but the pottery bats (seconds) I bought there were 15$ cheaper than elsewhere.. and I did pay tax. BTW..ditto the red leather gloves would have been almost twice as much at Macy's.
The cost of Prime membership on which one does pay sale tax goes up annually. (one cannot pay with an Amazon gift card.) Synchrony Bank -- administers the credit car- 5% off if one uses it.
Amazon is totally part of the gig economy. In the old days peo0le who ordered from the Sear's catalogue were well poor and rural. Now it's city folk who shop Amazon. Stores close - six last week in Scioto Country OH.. featured in The Times with the horrible result of the opioid crisis as it affects newborns.
But CAPITALISM is a great thing-- Right? The Fed rates stay low to protect the banksters and the Market. Amazon acts like a good capitalist NO? It's OK to have a gig economy- right!! There is a flip side to the coin in terms of the union economy -- pay increases for years on the job- not great.
My fellow Americans seem to not care about their neighbors. they are all successful investors. No Medicare for all?!
2
One partial solution to rising rents is to decompress the urban centers. Develop rapid transit to allow people to take advantage of the cheaper housing stock in depopulated rural areas and still have the access to jobs in the big cities. This would lessen the demands for urban housing and would, hopefully. reduce rents.
1
The author does a whole lot of pointing the finger at Amazon but ignores completely the Lowe’s that opened up 2-3 years ago and the Home Depot that has been there for at least a decade. All about 4-5 blocks from this store and 3 blocks from each other. Unfortunately convenience is convenience and you can’t get much more convenient than two giant big hardware stores in the middle of lower Manhattan.
91
@Chris M I agree completely. Cheaper than Amazon? Ordering from Amazon is FREE so how is anything cheaper than that? And if I need "expert advice" I'll find a video on YouTube from an actual expert, usually a licensed professional, that I can watch while I'm doing the actual work.
10
@Chris M I find that shopping at those giant stores, rather than being convenient, is headache-inducing. Nothing is where it's supposed to be, things are mislabeled, the merchandise isn't oriented to city dwellers, there is no helpful staff. Like Walmart, they drain the life-blood of small towns and urban shopping streets, and once the competition is gone, they can do what they want.
70
@Jeremy Woodoff
I use my phone and the app like a resident of the 21st century.
Also the product mix is different in NYC with more cast iron drain pipe as an example.
In this small and historic city I have a butcher, a baker and a candlestick maker. I cherish them with a zeal that can only come from watching one downtown after another empty out, going through a cycle of decay like a botanical case study of pond evolution. When it’s only hairdressers and Starbucks, you’re in the end stage.
Frankly, I don’t want to be one of those nostalgic old-timers, but there are few trends in American city life to celebrate at the moment. I remember the shops and nosheries of the upper West Side with the same pang as the Old Met.
2
I have to educate myself before I complete a transaction with Amazon and even then I am not as comfortable as I would be if I ask an employee at ACE Hardware, for example, and sometimes Home Depot or Lowes. If I am very knowledgeable, I will often use Amazon but I still sometimes have to return items to them and that is never the case at ACE.
1
In my small town, pop.3500, we have an excellent hardware store that seems to thrive despite the arrival of a larger store which is part of national chain. We also have a Home Depot which is a 20 minute drive away.
The differences in the shopping experience are readily apparent as soon as one walks in the door of the local store. One is greeted immediately & within 10 feet, there is always a knowledgeable sales person asking how he/she can be of assistance. The national chain store has an abysmal sales staff who would just as soon ignore you as help you. From time to time, I do go to Home Depot but simply due to the fact that local hardware folks do not carry a part that I need right away.
Long live the local hardware store!
PS.
I am reminded of a hardware store I visited several years ago in Bonner`s Ferry, Idaho. When I walked through the doorway, I was instantly transported back to my childhood. The smell of oiled hardwood floors, floor to ceiling shelves full of mundane & exotic inventory. The two brothers who owned the store appeared to be as "old as time".....my wife & I spent 45 minutes wandering around in that timewarp. I don`t recall what we bought but we did spend some money there!
174
@Rancher Rick, I could not agree more. It is easier and cheaper and more convenient to shop at a local hardware store and at a big box store. Ordering on Amazon is a nonstarter because you always need the product right away what you doing your job.
I am an old dude. I really appreciate the great hardware store. I hope my grandchildren will be able to experience it.
12
@Rancher Rick
We have two hardware store like the one in the article in Colorado Springs, CO (same owner.) I love "mundane and exotic inventory!" Great gift cards, pet toys and beyond!! Penny candy!
9
@Rancher Rick
Ditto in my backwater, where the hardware store guys know everything. It's my first stop, even if I know the Mega-Lo Mart* probably has it for 50 cents less, because they also sell nails and seed by the pound.
And if you're ever in North Branch, Michigan, stop in at Orr Hardware. They probably still have harness in the back somewhere.
*Hank Hill: "I hate this place."
8
I would argue that the same people who raise rents so high are the ones who own shares of Amazon. The ownership class is putting pressure on people from both sides.
4
Mr. Wu you and I live in NYC where there are many many local businesses. The idea of buying anything on Amazon or Ebay when that item is usually within a short walk is repulsive to me. You must also take into account all the places throughout America that HAVE to shop online. I speak of communities where Walmart has destroyed Mom and Pop businesses. Walmart destroyed those business and after 10 years or so then moved on because business did not reach levels they projected. Walmart has closed over 700 stores in past 5 years. The communities they leave, that used to have locally owned business have no choice but online.
189
@Ernest Lamonica
VERY good point, about having to shop on line. I am in musical theater and when a new cast album comes out that I want to buy rather than enjoy via a streaming service, where the heck do I go to plunk my money down. Certainly no where within 50 miles, probably not within a hundred. Can't even get some music vendor to special order it for me. So its off to compare prices at Amazon and Ebay or ocassionally the releasing label's web site. Reality, guys.
12
@Ernest Lamonica
Walmart did not destroy mom and pop businesses. People as shoppers chose to buy at Walmart. Remember, Walmart began as a small business that challenged Sears, Montgomery Ward, and other megastores. Though Microsoft now a mega company, in the beginning, it had to conquer IBM. Compaq a small start-up went head to head successfully against HP--and prevailed.
"Small can secure customers when those firms offer customers a preferred value proposition. VALUE does not necessarily equate to the lowest price, either.
9
@William S. Oser, might buying from the releasing label mean that more of the purchase price goes to the artists? If so, that would be great.
I haven't signed up for Amazon Prime, because I don't shop there. However, I might just do that, because many promotions at the neighborhood Whole Foods are only for Prime members.
1
The depression and quiet hopelessness I sense from every employee at Lowe’s and Home Depot whenever I go in there is enough to make me avoid those stores.
1
We had a local hardware store and a Home Depot nearby. I tried to patronize the hardware store, which I liked. But when I needed to return something, invariably they would only accept returns with a receipt, within 7 days, and only for store credit. At Home Depot, returns are accepted for much longer, no questions asked. I was even able to return a thermostat which I'd had to cut out of the clamshell packaging, thus damaging the packaging, but not a problem at Home Depot. Ultimately I have to go where it makes most sense for my pocketbook! And yes the local store closed.
5
Most people are not aware that the game Monopoly was designed to teach people the dangers of monopolies.
Somewhere during the eighties the Republicans got the idea that deregulation and consolidation was good for America. That bigger was better. Crushing competition was always the goal.
Billionaires, financial wizards, corporate raiders became celebrities and greed was good.
So thirty years later here we are. We've been here before.
6
Important piece. At some point, New York City will lose its preeminent allure.
3
We, too, lost the neighborhood hardware store that had been a mainstay in our DC Brookland neighborhood just a few years ago. The store served locals but also hired and trained youth in the neighborhood. When Brookland was a struggling neighborhood plagued with crime, Howard's store, Brookland Hardware, stood out for its commitment to Brookland. Then Home Depot moved in, Amazon became a mainstay and rents soared. Howard's closed.
And the great irony? While the building is now---finally---occupied again, the building actually stood empty for nearly two years after Howard's closed.
62
@Alexandra M. Lord
"While the building is now---finally---occupied again, the building actually stood empty for nearly two years after Howard's closed."
This is part of the equation which puzzles me; i see fallow properties in my town too which is also experiencing extreme rental cost increases. How do the property owners benefit from the higher rent on properties left empty? Does the higher rent, if and when the property is eventually rented, make up the difference? Do they benefit enough through other properties they own in the same market?
Something else?
...Andrew
7
I could be wrong but I think they are writing off the loss so benefiting on taxes, and with no tenants to respond to. It's the same business model as hotels that have drastically raised prices, fill most rooms only on weekends, but don't have to pay the same number of staff during the week. For landlords, it's sitting on land, parking money in something that will appreciate.
8
Every election cycle politicians extoll the virtues of small businesses. They are the real job creators. They stabilize neighborhoods. Many are economic entry points for new immigrants.
All true. But the the big businesses get all the tax cuts. The small businesses get little to no support from any branch of government and are left to fend for themselves.
The biggest problem for small businesses in New York is exorbitant commercial rents. But this is a David and Goliath story except that Goliath always wins.
The small businesses in New York desperately need commercial rent control. But the powerful real estate lobby is dead set against it.
Those same politicians who say they support the entrepreneurial spirit of the small businesses want the campaign contributions of the real estate industry even more.
This is one more example where the community need is clear, the people support rent control, there are no technical obstacles but big money trumps democracy once again.
3
Tim, one gigantic fallacy you present in this article comes near the end, where you equate the just-post 1990 Russian economy with today’s American capitalist economy- in Russia, the means of production were owned by the centralized State for more than 70 years, and there was no such thing as “wealth”, whereas here in the UXA, wealth is concentrated, and is continuing to be so, in the hands of the rich. They keep luring unwary immigrants here with the “streets are paved with gold” carrot. When the means of production here are owned by the State, small business owners dreaming of being billionaires, and the billionaires, will all have their dreams come true.
Sad, impractical with many hidden costs. Bog box DIY requires a lot more: driving to a yuge mall strip, traffic/no traffic, parking in a yuge parking lot, walking into a vast building where you may/may not find someone to help you... and, gads, what if you have to go back because it's the wrong part or you forgot something? Back into the car, into traffic/no traffic...
And from a health perspective? All that duff time, gaseous idling time, and near nil benefit of the rich social rewards of the agora. We're all in our own little big boxes these days, like stacks of Amazon boxes.
This is easy. Quit running to Amazon for every little thing. It’s bad for the environment, it’s bad for its workers, and ultimately, just bad.
6
Not just online monsters, but big box hardware stores, bookstores (chain or independent), chain hotels, etc. They are all impacting on small business. My neighbourhood used to have its own hardware store, family-run restaurant, bakery, shoe store, hair dresser, tv repair shop (way ancient but yes) and so on. Smaller communities are losing their historic downtowns if Walmart comes in or even nearby. (Have 2 Walmarts within 5-10 minute drive). Know of only 1 independent vendor who runs hardware store in mall. Trade agreements have undermined price of basic household items now sold at dollar stores. Some items are so poorly made they are unusable or break as soon as you try to use them. But they have no exchange, no refund policies. A Canadian dollar store Dollarama is even on the stock exchange! They sell some items which are not safe and improperly labelled (items that "may" contain latex). This was never an issue at local hardware stores. They sold reasonably priced items which were inspected and safety approved. Now there is no inspection and the safety labels are just copies of real safety tags. We give up service, product knowledge, being able to speak to the owners, etc when we patronize only big box stores. [Once bought an online item which was defective when we opened the box. Had to get permission to return it. Had to send pictures, etc-they had a Return Team-took over a week????] We need to restore the human side of shopping.
1
@ibivi
tell you one thing , go to yard sales for good tools
We are lucky to have a great hardware store, Landrum Hardware, where there are people who can help you with what you need.
When I lived in Georgia, there was an incredibly junky hardware store in Senioa (home of the Walking Dead) that had anything and everything you needed. You just told Mr. Hutchison what you wanted, and he could put his hand on it immediately. No going back and forth to Lowe's or Home Depot a million times.
I liked to walk around in there and try to see if I could come up with something they didn't have.
Sad to say, the store was closed after he died. But it was an institution.
1
There is a hardware store similar to the one in this article on Yonkers Ave in Yonkers. It’s been there forever and does a fairly brisk business. I love going there because it doesn’t take me forever and they have most everything I need. But the pure laziness and lack of sociability (not social media) of the younger generations is driving business to the internet.
1
Many commenters have suggested that the customer feedback on Amazon and Google searches solve the problem of the small store expert.
I highly disagree.
Have you looked at the customer feedback? It's a lot of gripping or shameless promotion mixed with a little sober feedback—navigating the reality of what your reading is very difficult. Google searches find you with the same morass of diaspora and shameless corporate goo.
How this mess is preferable to a single person, standing in front of you and explaining (with years of experience and confidence) what you need to fix your sink, is quite beyond me.
The small store expert was and is a sometimes thing. From your auto to a guitar pick a lot of people just see a job and no little other than what they have been told to say by the owner.
50 years ago the person running the store often knew the business but had limited stock and ordering anything out of stock was expensive and quite often a slow motion exercise. In this online world you can go around the middleman and buy direct. A German language DVD of a program I wanted could not be found anywhere in the US, but in the online age I was easily able to order it directly from the company in Germany. In the early days of consumer drones, the one I wanted was perpetually sold out, but using online and translation tools was easily able to order it directly from China- and for less than the going retail price in the US.
These are the good old days.
@David Gregory You are relating an experience where you know exactly what you want. I agree the internet is far better for that, but that is not my point about struggling with internet information diarrhea. You have ironically illustrated my point by not addressing the problem I bring-up and side-stepping to something you care about.
The feedback is heavily manipulated by bots and sweatshops of fake reviewers in India. It takes skill to pick out the real ones, time better spent walking to your local emporium. Caveat emptor.
Online life is about as innocent and believable as the waterfront when my great-grandmother emerged from steerage headed for the Lower East Side. She knew better than to let those shysters give her directions or carry her bag, and so should we.
The professor gets an A for explaining the reason customers prefer Amazon ("clicking on a product from the comfort of your couch seems more convenient"), but, gets an F for explaining the tremendous rental increase.
@GGOGOS1
I'll help - greed
How much of the rent increase is due to money laundering? This is a serious crime that is destroying us all, people.
No, my dear, nothing so complicated. Just plain greed.
Robert Bork and his many acolytes were wrong. We should have been rigorously enforcing our anti-trust laws all along simply to prevent rampant gigantism, which brings overweaning political influence and a host of other pathologies with it. We should start breaking up big businesses as soon as possible.
3
To bad you didn’t write this article a year ago. Might have saved him! Here in Bellingham, we have one of the wonders of the world, Hardware Sales. Multiple buildings with hundreds of thousands of tools and supplies for sale. Family owned and going strong! I take people from out of town to visit!
And when all the competition and connivence stores are gone, and the rents and taxes are so high, the family farms gone, the only option that will remain is to eat the rich.
There is a reason Elon Musk just introduced the “Cybertruck” - with armor plated glass... the collapse of civilization as we know it is summed up in this story about the closing of a neighborhood hardware store.
1
I actually live up in the Rocky Mountains in a funky little mountain town with 5 bars, 2 gas stations, 1 grocery store and 8 churches for 1,500 people, not Denver anymore. No hardware store, but a NAPA auto parts store. Don't even need that, since I order my auto parts online and get better parts for a lower price. The nearest larger town is thirty miles away, 10,000 people and no hardware store, but a Tractor Supply and Big R, for the farmer's needs. Don't need anything but Amazon. I take my time on everything, plan better, order exactly what I need, and it is shipped straight to me instead of being shipped to some middleman who marks it up a bit more too. I do not miss 'Americana' of the little stores, Mom and Pop, of my childhood.
These extra buildings damaged the environment and let Mom and Pop raise kids to help overpopulate the planet, leading to the climate catastrophe, all of it interwoven for failure. We do not need more people, but fewer and smarter people, along with better robots to do the heavy lifting, so these extra people do not spoil my Rocky Mountains or my Precious Colorado Plains. But it will all fail anyway because of overpopulation, the populace in denial to the end, like the Republicans with Trump...
Oh yeah? Whose gonna build that road that the Amazon delivery truck gets to you on? Whose gonna trek out there to fix the automated delivery truck when it breaks down or drives itself off a mountain road? Go ahead, man, try to live a life completely devoid of human contact. Just don’t get sick and need medical care.
@Jim
the overpopulation is , I agree , job 1 . here in the USA , not so much .
Africa and India are growing at a fast rate - they don't have cars or even street addresses
look out
ZPG ?
Excellent article - as we have come to expect from Mr. Wu.
It would have been interesting to compare the corporate taxes paid by Mr. Feygin's hardware store, compared to Mr. Bezos' Amazon.
3
Large business? Small business? What about America? We were great(est) when government and capitalists cooperated. That's what we need. Don't pit one against the other, that's partially how we got into to this mess we've in. Make America Great again should not be a mere slogan that a self-serving con-man can abuse for his own interests. This so-called class warfare we've entered into is a smoke screen for the money addicts everywhere who are destroying the planet, not just our really useful hardware stores.
1
I go out of my way to support local businesses. I’ll pay a bit more to know that my money is directly supporting locals. It’s a conscious choice. I’d rather support the local guy than the monster companies that operate at an unfair advantage, don’t pay their fair share in taxes (zero for Amazon and FedEx) and abuse workers. Also, the amount of waste in packaging and transport is obscene.
3
I remember back 20 years or so shopping in a local mom and pop sporting goods store in small town Louisiana. The owners enjoyed a virtual monopoly, service was terrible, selection was lacking, prices were outrageous. I once blurted to the owner that if an Academy franchise ever located here he'd last five minutes, he arrogantly laughed me off. However I was wrong, an Academy did finally come and he lasted 5 1/2 minutes and he wasn't btw., missed. Let's be honest about it, those "Mom and Pop's" usually weren't that great or they'd still be here. "Creative destruction" is only relevant when what is created is the better alternative to what is destroyed.
38
@John Donovan: Your comment touches on an important point. The article's analysis works for high rent cities, but less so for suburbia. Also, the demise of small town stores is due to a different reason - the lack of a sufficient customer base.
9
@John Donovan
The national stores aren’t above outright cheating and abuse. Case in point is Walmart a few years ago in the small town of Harrisonville, MO.
The week of the Walmart opening, somehow the weekly ads from the existing, local grocers were left out of the Sunday paper. The Walmart ad ran.
Go figure.
17
@John Donovan Totally disagree. Those stores know you, keep records of what you bought, give personal advice, and have that certain needed something. It's the sky-rocketing rents and competition from Lowes, which can charge less.
10
I use Amazon for many things, but I still patronize my community's small businesses because it benefits my community. Unfortunately, I believe I'm in the minority. Ironic that his son is part of the problem which drives under small businesses.
“American capitalism has turned against small business”. Maybe it’s the American consumer who has made this turn, not the always evil capitalist system. We all have many choices of where and when we shop. Many seem to favor actions that involve a screen and not another human being. But strong local businesses adjust and survive while those who don’t adapt fade away. NYC, SF and other urban areas with very high rents, taxes, and regulations face the most pressure, much of it from local government and not the capitalist system.
1
I frequented this hardware store when I lived around the corner several years ago. When doing a project and needing a tool or fastener, I would pop over, look at the Russian dolls in the window, enter the jam-packed store. In no time I had what I needed. I would never consider Amazon for that. When I first moved into that neighborhood, the store was in a different larger location but was forced to move because of rent, so this is his second displacement. I believe that there is a real demand for local hardware stores. It's the outrageous rents in NYC that are killing small businesses.
2
Brick-and-mortar outlets should serve as feeders for online shopping. The only sensible time to order online is when one trusts the completeness and accuracy of the item's description to match one's needs; either that, or the costs of buying the item speculatively (shipping delay, discarding the item or returning it if not suitable, and so on) are acceptable. Otherwise there is no substitute for seeing and assessing an item one's self.
1
It’s not just hardware stores. I live in a small suburb outside a major city with high rents and high property taxes. A lot of the new construction is condos and apartments. The ground floor of many of these buildings, for some reason, is designed to be retail. Most of those spaces are empty. The only small businesses I see now are those you literally must go to to get what you want—restaurants, hair dressers, nail salons, gyms, bakeries and pastry or coffee shops. The empty storefronts are numerous. There are no more craft shops, card stores, book stores, clothes stores, toy stores, hardware stores, kitchen shops or whatever other type of small shop you might like to name. All gone.
3
This is an urban tale.
Out here the hardware store, like the Post Office and grocery store is a social center and information node (including fix-it advice and who can do the job, if you can't/don't want to). Home Depot, which we use too, is 70 miles away. And then the internet for specialty items.
We lost our hardware store some years back before another took its place about two year later. It was devastating and, literally, put the town on the bubble. The nearest hardware store was 20 miles away.
At least for me, when there is a choice of cheaper price or more choices at HD vs supporting the local, I go local. Its more personal too. I get "Howdy, what do you need today?" vs "In aisle 14, bin 4" on my smartphone.
1
We have several local hardware stores, they are open and I suspect will never close due to the support of the communities and trades people. But our location is more remote, supported by seasonal wealth and remarkably focused on the small things in life.
2
Fortunately, the community I live still has a family owned hardware store that offers a myriad of items homeowners find necessary, often at he most inopportune time. Just last weekend a corroding trap in my kitchen sink decided to completely fail. With dinner guests expected later in the day wandering around a big box store searching for the correct parts and someone knowledgeable enough to offer installation advice was out of the question. It took all of 30 minutes to drive to the hardware store, speak with a retired plumber they employ, purchase the trap and washers needed for the repair and get back home. That level of service is something Amazon or the big box stores will never be able to match.
5
40 percent of the stuff I buy online has something wrong with it. It either is the wrong product or it breaks quickly. I have to wade through a TON of wrong search results to find anything like what I want due to the gaming of online search results. And I don't talk to ANY humans in the process of acquiring this junk. A lot of the stuff I see in the process of searching for stuff looks like it's designed solely for the purpose of just being acquired and then set aside.
5
Then why do you keep shopping online?
The event that has destroyed countless local downtowns across the land was the "grand opening" of the new Walmart "superior center" out in the (former) sticks on the edge of town. There is a good reason why Vermonters fought for a decade-plus to keep Walmart out of the Green Mountain State, and the giant retailer's penchant for fueling sprawl development and putting the locally owned and operated shops of true New England towns was the chief reason for that opposition. The community stalwart hardware store was among the victims.
1
@Alan C Gregory Sounds like Walmart is where people want to shop. If they preferred Mom and Pop stores, the Walmart would have closed.
Out here in the sticks of Tallahassee, FL we long since lost all of our local hardware stores (ACE still has a limited footprint but it's part of a semi-chain) mostly due to Lowe's and Home Depot. I hate to say it but I've had a number of occasions where I've ordered hardware (as in fasteners) because those 2 big box stores don't carry what I need and even worse don't have a clue what the common fasteners I need are. I long for the days when you could walk into a REAL hardware store; discuss what you need to do with a knowledgeable person; and get exactly what you need even if it was covered in dust and had a 1950 price sticker.
3
I live in a small town with an ace hardware and small local grocery store. If those two places went away it would completely change the town and not for good. I am sure it is the same in NYC the loss of that store is sad and irreplaceable.
3
The Christmas shopping season is upon us and I have a choice of either: (A) Driving to the local mall, trying to find a parking space, dealing with mobs of rude shoppers, wasting untold amounts of time trying to locate specific items at a decent price, waiting forever to check out, lugging shopping bags and boxes through the malls back to my car which hopefully was not dinged by the bozo in the next space who chose to park 1 inch from my vehicle.
or
(B) Do all of the shopping at Amazon at home, stress-free and have everything delivered to my doorstep the next day.
I know its a close call, but I reluctantly choose B.
94
@mpound I use Amazon. Many of the products that I buy are supplied by small businesses who contact with Amazon. My brand new Iphone case, ordered on Amazon, came from a small vender in Reno.
2
@mpound
There are enjoyable facets to shopping in person, especially if one skips the mall and big box stores in favor of local merchants, artists, and artisans. Many downtowns and shopping districts are a hub for the latter.
Free parking is often available a couple blocks away, increasingly with a free shuttle. Or, one could even walk. A nice lunch or coffee from something more than a chain outlet, jam-packed food court enhances the day.
The more relaxed vibe can foster actual conversation if one is shopping with friends or family.
11
@mpound How wonderful for you!
5
Another thing about the small shopkeepers, who generally were relatively affluent compared to their neighbors, was that they lived in the community. People saw them at church, at civic events, often at their kids' schools. There were enough interconnections that people weren't completely isolated from other segments of society.
Now the owners of the stores are gazillionaires off on their yachts, or wherever it is that those people congregate. We don't have any connections holding a community together. This is part of the reason our politics has become so very bitter.
7
For many small items, I find Amazon way cheaper than either my local hardware store or the much further away big box chain. And my local store is still a two mile drive each way. The UPS and USPS trucks go through my neighborhood daily, so when I can plan ahead I let them do the driving. I agree that Amazon's packaging is wasteful and Mr. Bezos could spend some of his billions to figure out how to reduce it. On the other hand, the stinking light bulbs still come in some form of plastic packaging even when bought locally. And, I imagine, they get trucked to the local store in a big cardboard box with bubble wrap.
I regard my household as a sort of small business and try to be cost effective productive, and efficient. At the same time, nobody should be wasteful; the planet can not afford it.
It is difficult to figure out how to be a responsible consumer, and "consume less" is not always a choice.
2
These city neighborhoods are getting wealthier. Renting is prefered over homeownership. Both situations mean less and less folks interested in old adage, "tool around our store so you'll have tools around your home." Sorry, the quote was from the great Norman Lear, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman" spinoff, "Fernwood 2 Night."
Ace Hardware has come to realization that the younger generation is less about Do It Yourself and more about Do It for Me. Ace is teaming up with handyman contractors. So is Home Depot. Even IKEA realized that folks don't want to do too much anymore so they'll send contractors to assemble stuffs for customers. Folks are all too busy streaming 1970s TV shows after sitting in front of a computer screen all day to fix something that's broke. That was a joke.
51
Instead of malls, the heart of America is in the downtown. Many Main Street chambers of commerce host holiday shopping nights with extra services helping with gift wrapping and package carrying and the warm glow of supporting small businesses.
Malls are probably dying. Go back to the downtown, and buy from your neighbors, and in NYC, support the small local business. You may be comfortable with not caring about them, but a callous world will someday not care about you. Help end the growth of alienation in society by shopping small and local.
15
@Michael Berndtson: "Folks are too busy... to fix something that's broke"
There are fewer and fewer things that you can fix yourself anymore, and being equipped to fix those things that can be fixed at home requires a whole shed full of tools.
13
@Michael Berndtson
People who hire others to do things that they could do for themselves are creating jobs, spreading the wealth around, and are good for communities and the economy.
Laziness might be a good thing after all.
But not all people who hire others to help are lazy.
They may not be capable of assembling ikea stuff and the like.
I wonder how many homicides have been linked to do it yourself projects.
It would be an interesting statistic.
5
This article is just another example of this country's need to tax Data. Just like pumping energy into your car or burning it when you fill on a switch, the tax helps to balance the inequity of capitalism. The simple fact is that Amazon removes money from local economies and downtown retail helps cycle it through the economy. The data tax would realize this and balance the playing field for both types retail. The data tax would also help insulate humanity from the onslaught of robots coming for our jobs. Lets get ahead of the curve!
2
After reading again and again how the internet is disconnecting people from each other, nature, communities and obviously making us less well informed I'm reminded to what native Americans said about the watches that Europeans carried with them applies to our "smart" phones. They called them, "the thing that tells white men what to do".
2
Aww the good old days where you actually meant people got advice and walked out the same day with what you needed. Maybe stopping for a soda at Woolworth’s counter on the way home. Time marches on and here we are. I noticed they are trying to bust into the grocery store delivery act. Perhaps the final frontier of online shopping to be conquered. We all need food so if the grocery stores fail I don’t know what will happen. Perhaps we will end up as depicted in WALL-E. As for me I’m guilty of Amazon shopping for convenience but when I need solid advise and my part in hand ,my little town hardware store is my first stop. I do miss getting a Cherri phosphate at Woolworths.
45
@J Clark
"but when I need solid advise and my part in hand ,my little town hardware store is my first stop"--
No offense, but you have just stated the reason small stores offering service cannot survive. Their customer base more and more becomes the high-intense time -eating customer. Or worse, those who burden the store for advice--and then buy at a lower price online or at the mega store.
Fair trade pricing prevented such unethical shopper conduct--but then the courts struck down fair trade pricing (sometimes called retail price maintenance.)
And people complain about how the mega stores killed small retailers. Customers, look in the mirror.
9
I find it hard to reconcile the acceptance of Amazon compared to antipathy of Walmart
Reading these reader letters reinforces my opinion that we live in a celebrity driven economy where anything goes as long as there is a rich fashionable white face pushing the product. Here in the Midwest I have seen a resurgance of smaller hardware stores albeit with name recognition such as TruValu or Ace.
1
A bad thing for America, the loss of small businesses in large cities and dying small towns. We live in a small (and thriving) community 20 miles north of Tucson and our Ace Hardware is thriving. The staff can get you right to where your needs are and someone on staff, often the owner, can answer all questions. And they take back what doesn’t work. A real gem we have.
2
Spot on. A small window into the process of consolidation of businesses since the advent of the railroad.
Small farms - general stores - grocery stores - restaurants - hotels - local manufacturing, and so on. Rent increase and consolidation are different sides of same coin. Even where the service is local the availability and cost of capital along with the large "entry costs" drive consolidation further.
This is capitalism in action. This is the system; its outcome predestined by our choice of organizing functions of our society.
This is written down in the many great works like these from Adam Smith or Karl Marx. As we know too well government interventions have not been adequate, communal ownership has not been adequate.
As far as we know there is no competing organization of society that can solve this problem.
But the Internet also provides new opportunities as wll: Ebay, Amazon in sales, Vimeo, Youtube in entertainment and advice, AirBnB in lodging, Uber, Lyft in transportation etc. create possibilities for individuals at local levels.
2
Alas, these “possibilities” all too often sell a fantasy of profit to people who far too often bear an unfair share of the hidden costs and all the risk. They are exposed without the protection of labor and consumer laws, to boot.
Beware the hype. No corporation built on the backs of independent contractors and gig workers is much different than Amway.
1
Our local hardware store here in Jackson Heights (Roosevelt Avenue near 85th Street) closed recently, and the store, its owner and the services he provided are all sorely missed. Its owner, a bright and cordial Chinese-American, carried an inventory that could meet any need, and, on the rare occasion when it could not, he might even manufacture something for you on the spot (like one time when he put together a window screen for me to fit an oversize casement opening). His check-out counter might also serve as an operating table for a mechanism in need of repair and the banter that accompanied his service was always a bonus. There are times that not a day goes by now where my neighbors and I don't have to change direction as we set out for the hardware store after recalling that it is no longer there.
2
I love local hardware stores and visit mine whenever I can. But shops like the one in this story arent the victims of Amazon.
I think it is fair to say that people don't go to Amazon to buy screwdrivers and lightbulbs. And even if they did, the local hardware store offers much more than just those items. These stores, like thousands of others, go out of business because rents are too high. Yes, there is a slowdown in sales due to the ease of online shopping. But Home Dept and LOwes have played a much, much larger role in these stores closing than Amazon ever could.
3
@Ben M
Amazon, big box stores and slothful American shoppers are bearing the brunt of criticism here. Fact is, landlords, property owners frequently raise rental rates so much that small businesses die out.
I know nothing about the specific store in the article, but in my experience most of the stores that have gone out of business due to online shopping deserved it. By way of example, there used to be many hardware stores in my area; several have closed, but the ones that survive have done so by providing knowledgeable and polite service in a neat and clean environment. The ones that closed stuck to the old ways, thinking customers would put up with the way business was done in the past. It’s too easy to get misty-eyed about small business: some small businesses are good, others are bad, and the good ones can survive and prosper in the Amazon era.
4
@Paul S. Try doubling the rents and taxes on those polite store owners and see how they do.
I made a decision a few years back to buy all my hardware supplies from my local hardware store. It is not cheaper than Home Depot or the other big box options where I live (not cheaper than Amazon, either), but I can count on finding someone who knows something about what I need, even when I don’t. In our local big box store in Minnesota (Menards), finding a salesperson, much less a salesperson who has a clue, is like finding Big Foot: I have heard of sightings but never have made contact with one myself. If my local hardware store (which is owned by a local family that has a dozen or so in the metro which I presume is how they stay afloat), I’m not sure what I will do.
13
I do both and it works fine. The wheel turns and things change. I was self-employed for 40+ years and my son's a COO and my daughter is determined to save the planet. All good.
2
@D
I beg to differ. It's not all good.
It is not a natural progression that the "wheel turns and things change" when that wheel crushes communities and quality of life so that the few billionaires can get richer. Laws, taxes, how GDP gets measured, bureaucracy, regulations get manipulated to put the finger on the scales in order to favor particular ways of doing business over others. What if we valued small businesses over large businesses and taxed items that had a larger carbon footprint --including packaging, transport and the distance that the item travels to the shopper--over those that generate lower carbon emissions? What if we gave tax property tax breaks to small businesses instead of the gigantic ones (like Amazon)? Sure, Amazon provides jobs, but so would more small businesses if done neighborhood by neighborhood at the same scale.
We, as a society, could favor commerce for the common good. However, the system that has been created by us favors what is good for the wealthy few.
@D
Great comment. My daughter is also determined to save the planet!
I worked in an old-fashioned hardware store in a one-stoplight town after I got out of the Army in the late 1960s. It's long gone. I see in the photos with the article that Mr. Feygin sells Frost King Air Conditioner Weatherstrip for $9.99. Amazon sells the exact same item for $5.59 or another national brand for $2.48. While shipping and taxes will change the final numbers, I'm not that sentimental when I could save enough to pay for the paper version of the Sunday NYT.
2
A big part of the story for this and other small retail stores is who owns the storefront. Any retailer who had the money, opportunity and foresight to buy its storefront years ago is sitting pretty if in the high-property inflation coastal and Southern city areas.
Even if business has gone away to the internet, they could sell the property at a nice or great profit and retire comfortably.
Bottom line is those who saw property inflation decades ago and could act on it could be sitting well.
Not to blame the others, just that has been one of the dividers between rich and not so rich since my young adulthood as a baby boomer.
2
I went to buy replacement shoelaces at a local sports store. The shoelaces were white, for sneakers, of standard length. The store didn’t have them. I went home and ordered from Amazon. This lesson has been repeated so many times that using Amazon is now my first choice. I know it is a vicious circle - retail stores are in such bad shape that they can’t afford to have inventory. But I can only take so many wasted shopping trips.
Coincidentally, my local hardware store is a notable exception, although it is inaccurate to say it’s cheaper.
5
Earlier this month the NYT had an article on the loss of local grocery stores in small rural communities. This article notes an analogous process in a densely populated urban area. It’s sad to see institutions that were recently invaluable fade away. But societies eventually let go of things they view as of little or no value regardless of how beloved they once were - well, at least American society does.
Many of us have a Kodak projector, a Betamax VCR or an adding machine in our basement or attic. They are often reminders of fond memories so we keep them around. But after we die our grandkids are going to toss them while grumbling about all the junk we accumulated.
We have to take such things with a sigh of resignation, accepting that obsolescence is an inevitable part of progress.
1
I lived in Chelsea during the 70’s and early 80’s on West 22d street a couple of blocks from the hardware mentioned. This is what happened. Started raising a family and almost bought a vacant brownstone on my block for $110,000.00 A few years ago saw a real estate ad for a floor in that brownstone for sale for $2,500,000.00.
5
I think ultimately Andrew Yang might have it right. Automation + AI might equal the death of jobs and ultimately communities, especially when you add in Amazon. In our search for perfect convenience, we may just extinguish anything we may understand as organic communities. Well, except for billionaires.
9
I live in a rural area and have difficulty finding certain types of goods within 25 miles of my home. So I confess: I use Amazon quite a bit. However, I never order any “hardware store” items online. Need a nut for a 1”x1/4” bolt? Good luck finding one with the right threading for your bolt on Amazon! I know that the Naum Feygins of the world will help me find what I need! Also, more and more, I order online directly from the company that makes the product, even if it’s available on Amazon. Most of the time, it’s about the same price, and my dollars go directly to the small (at least not megalithic) businesses that need those dollars much more than Amazon does.
5
The slow death of local, family-owned hardware stores began way before e-commerce. My family owned a hardware store that sold everything from three-penny nails to refrigerators. I loved the distinctive smell of it and playing house with the plastic food in the refrigerators. It was always bustling until Ace opened a store on the highway out of town.
My aunt, who ran the store after my grandfather died, decided not to join up with the Ace "family" co-operative, as so many others did, and ran it on her own, but the volume of business she did was not enough to keep up. She was old at the time, and stayed open mainly to get rid of what she still had in stock. The advent of Home Depot sounded the final death knell.
There's a local hardware store not too far from where I live now, affiliated with Ace, that will still fix a lamp for you or rig up a part for an old appliance that can no longer be ordered. Whenever I drive by and see the barrels of rakes and brooms on the sidewalk in front of the store, I am transported back to my childhood. Pure nostalgia.
I don't know how that store is doing financially. I have to hope though, that Ace has afforded them the economy of size that will enable them to stay in business. I know there are people sill around who don't need to make hedge fund bucks and are content to serve the community as long as they can do a little more than get by. I hope that they, unlike my aunt, will be able to stay in business by offering more than efficiency.
7
@Elizabeth Fuller in my little town we have a true value hardware store owned by long time residents of the town. they could not survive without the true value network of suppliers. this store is far more like your grandparents store and the store in this article than big box. it is not as cheap as Home Depot (80 miles away) but everybody knows the owners are honest and good so it continues to thrive..... with a lot of hard work from the owners.
I was in Malaysian Borneo back in January, and there the small towns have shops~! Densely cluttered hardware stores, dark in the back, with everything imaginable packed in and hanging from the ceiling. And the clerks can find what you want. It's wonderful! There are similar shoe stores, clothing stores, and also groceries with some things stuffed and perched where you can't possibly reach them, but they'll get it down for you.
Let's hear it for Tuaran, Kota Belud, and Tamparuli~!
3
Mr. Feygin, my deepest sympathies to you for the imminent loss of your valuable service to New Yorkers. I'm so sorry.
In my city, I live close to a third-generation hardware store that is still in business. But I'm always, always holding my breath.
Through this store I've not found not only material goods but referrals to local workmen willing to take on small jobs such as repairing a front step or removing seasonal window air conditioners.
That said, I have also enjoyed online orders for the variety of options and for home delivery, which saves me running around.
There is also a longtime independent (and delightful) bookstore near me. It survives, but what is their future, I wonder?
Bottom line: I want you all in business but am enough of a realist to know that is not a sustainable arrangement long-term.
1
In every product I can see, Americans greatly prefer sterile, large chains and businesses over anything small and local. This includes food, hotels, clothes, coffee, anything really. Americans crave uniformity. I do not understand it. I love the small shops elsewhere in the world, even though they occasionally add challenge to shopping. They more often add variety and individuality to shopping, which is so rewarding to me. I live in the wrong country.
7
So let's talk carbon footprint, climate change and time. Buying on line checks all those boxes. The big box stores are easy to get in and out of and are usually concentrated in shopping areas. Going to a local hardware store means fighting to find a parking place and then finding what you want can be a treasure hunt if someone's not available to help you and selection is limited. If you live in an apartment in the city then the local hardware store is what you've got to live with, but to those of us who live in the flyover states making the 15 mile trip into town to get a plunger makes no sense when one can be ordered on line and delivered the next day. Time better used to slop the hogs and shoot guns.
1
@Kurt Pickard, a couple of thoughts. #1 If every online order reflected the 'carbon emissions' impact associated with next day delivery of that e-commerce order before we hit 'checkout', the economics might sway how we look at the tradeoffs. The data is out there now on GHG impacts for nearly every product supply chain, from source to use. But that cost isn't itemized on any online order form I've used or, for that matter, the receipt from my local family-owned hardware store. #2 I dare say we've saved hundreds of hours because our local hardware store wisely stocks and their staff knows just where to find that one vital thing we've needed to get a project done same-day. (Shout-out of support for @PageHardware in Guilford, CT)
What a shame. I love my local hardware store. It's not just that it's less expensive and more convenient than ordering stuff online, but you can actually get advice! From people who know what they're doing!
3
Capitalism seeks financial efficiency, and the big box stores have an advantage over small operators, and Amazon has an advantage over the big box stores, because the inventory is concentrated or near-line, as opposed to guessing who will buuy what and stocking a lot of unused inventory.
But.
The bigger issue is that Home Depot, Lowes, etc. tend to stock a lot of imported, low spec, badly made, junk. Questionable alloys in quite a bit of their hardware, lamps that barely meet electrical hazard specs, etc.
Small local operators can't get away with that.
The issue with financial efficiency is that it doesn;t account for minimal quality standards. The assumption is that the consumer will enforce them by buying good stuff.
But when the big boxes have run the small guuys out of business, the garbage they carry is all thaat's left.
County and local municipalities are where the defense of the local economy must occur.
6
We're reverting to the days of catalog shopping without the local cobbler. Online convenience disappears when you need specialized parts or service that are only found in our local stores staffed by knowledgeable people, our neighbors who used to earn a middle class income.
3
@Keith
One problem is that those specialized parts are these days rarely available in stores, only online. The stores now stock only the most requested or most immediately needed materials. For anything else, Amazon. In recent weeks, my local hardware store, easily a century old, couldn’t supply a 2-prong Tensor bulb, a 75 foot hose, an all-cotton string mop head, or a 12-foot phone cord. I’ve taken to calling them first or simply heading direct to the internet.
At what point does it become an anti-trust issue? Clearly we can see that monopolies exist everywhere now.
Independent businesses competing for customers is what true capitalism is all about, and it brings out the best value and service. What do you think will happen when Amazon is your “only choice”?
This will end just like a game of Monopoly does.
6
Reading the thought provoking comments and experiencing the emotions of those who took the time to write and capture their memories and experiences that only can be had at such stores as these no matter the city or town, I suddenly had a concern about the driving force.
Amazon is referred to often in these comments, and writers pleading for locals to support these kinds of stores, but then I recall hearing that municipalities were falling all over each other clamoring to GIVE Amazon tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in tax and other breaks to have a new headquarters located in their city.
We are GIVING enormous amounts of money to attract more Amazon headquarters, distribution centers and support while our small local businesses go under.
If Amazon is so darned good at generating billions of dollars in profit (at least for its owner) then Amazon should bear the costs of it doing business.
What a strange and convoluted world we have created, and allowed the super rich to shake down the municipalities.
18
This is capitalism without conscience. We can blame our tax system as well as greed at the higher levels. It wasn’t so long ago that small business was the heart of our country, with 85% of businesses owned by small business owners
If you want that experience now it is hard to find, even in small towns.
8
@Jean Z A large reason that those taxes are so high is that people like Amazon, arguably now the wealthiest company in the world, pay zero income taxes. They've been very aggressive at shaking down communities for multi-million dollar tax rebates which means that everyone else, i.e., you and me, have to pay more to make up this loss because our communities still need those services that are provided by local governments in order to make our communities liveable.
1
@Entera
I agreed
With your attitude towards the local businesses, I’m thankful you don’t live in that neighborhood. With that aside, neighborhoods and their businesses are community. And with community, comes strength and security. That, is worth more than a paltry $175.
Buying local whatever the community is something we can all contribute to.
3
I love Amazon but I rarely buy hardware items from them. I go to my local Ace, which I drive by every day.
Mr Wu should write a follow up article about how long the space is vacant and what eventually happens to it.
2
When we lose small businesses, we also lose a sense of neighborhood and community. Small businesses are nodes in our community that connect us even if only in passing. Tall luxury buildings with transient tenants, anonymous online shopping. More and more we become alienated from one another.
11
@Dog Trained
I agree with you whole-heartedly but since I live in an assisted living facility I have no choice except to go on the internet to attain things I both want and/or need.
@Dog Trained This is a society that is "more interconnected" but far less connected to those immediately around them.
Mr Feygin really understands the crux of small locally owned businesses. Often it has less to do with the products they sell and more about the interaction I have owned and operated small stores in NYC for almost 30 years and have understood that there is an "unwritten social contract" that exists between me and my clients. they supported my stores and in exchange, I listened to their stories, donated to their schools and houses of worship and provided a unbiased ear to vent or just share. As I prepare to close my store for similar reasons to Mr Feygin, I have no regrets or bitterness. I would still love to run a store but I also realize that the landscape has changed and that what I want to do, does not have the same value anymore. I wish him the best, as he has earned it.
13
@Michael Eigen
The value of what you offer has not reduced - it is the quality of human beings that is being steadily undermined and eroded, generation by generation. It has come to the point that many young people have totally bought into the nightmare they have been sold, or can't imagine any alternative. Many will be uncomfortable if you strike up a conversation with them in your shop, the sort of thing your older clients would welcome and expect.
It is not totally their fault - the capitalists have invested a lot of time and effort to reduce human beings to machines, so that they can eventually be replace by - machines.
2
@zauhar Your point is well taken. I am slightly less cynical, but only slightly.
I like local hardware stores, but mine is NOT cheaper. Quite the contrary. I may pay 10% to 20 % more for the convenience of only having to drive a mile instead of seven to Home Depot. I use online services in order to get things I cannot find locally. Maybe there is a store that has what I want, but where is it? Online investigation does not tell me.
Maybe being in New York City is different, but where I live in Colorado local is not necessarily cheaper. Your article seems very parochial to me.
8
There is a gem of a hardware store in my area that carries just about anything you need, even for your older items. I have an older house, and this hardware store is my go to store. Home Depot and Lowe's just do not have this kind of stuff. Homage to the old fashioned hardware store. These are the owners who know what to stock to sustain your household needs. They have the knowledge on how to use the items and how to fix a problem, and what to sell you. They do not have this at Home Depot and Lowes. Very sad what things are coming to.
7
Former capitalism made us consumers. New capitalism makes us anonymous consumers. No human contact please. Alienation to its best.
4
@Roland Berger And automation and AI are now making humans unnecessary too. Pretty soon we won't be needed to produce anything, as it will be done by machines and the thinking and designing will be accomplished by computers. I'm pretty sure the plan for our ruling class is to eliminate most of us and just keep a core group of essential underlings around to provide those dwindling services that machines can't duplicate. Heck, have you even seen those shockingly realistic, compliant "sex dolls" being churned off of assembly lines?
Was down in Miami Beach,Fla doing some visits. Central Hardware, on 41 Street (a/k/a Arthur Godfrey Road) is now in the process of closing. I don't know the reasons why, but for lightbulbs and basic hardware- this place was the best.
@Barry That store was a mainstay of my childhood. Great memories.
And so it goes.
Well on Amazon and eBay a small retailer can stay in business by going online. Here in the UK I buy many things from small outfits especially on eBay, such as car lightbulbs, glue, specialist screwdriver bits etc - I try and avoid Amazon. There are also several hardware stores nearby, large and small, but they often don't have the specialist things like a torx bit with a central pole for getting into Apple computers (and therein lies another tale of built-in obsolescence, which we should be regulating on).
3
The rest of the US does not live in that neighborhood. My time is too valuable to waste 15 minutes to drive to a storefront, 10 minutes finding and paying for items, and 15 minutes back. Plus if the item is heavy, I have to carry it in. In that 40 minutes I could have earned over $175. Therefore, why would I not be willing to spend a few dollars extra for the luxury of having items delivered to my front porch? Time is the currency. The only items I purchase at a storefront are perishable foods and I shop for those at 6AM so I don't miss work. BTW, I really enjoy my work, telecommute, so don't think I am being enslaved.
7
@Eli Nice that you're able to earn $175 in forty minutes. Most Americans make waay less than you, and along with the decreased income we seem to have retained some feeling of appreciation for our fellow humans who own and work in those little shops, who have the knowledge and experience to actually HELP us personally with our needs, and do so with a SMILE and warm THANK YOU, actions I don't detect in your attitude.
1
OK for you, but the rest of us don’t earn $250 an hour after taxes.
1
@Eli What you're missing, Eli. Wake up and smell the hardware. Look around, man, inside is a garden of utility.
I NEVER purchase ANYTHING through Amazon. One of its aims is to destroy publishing houses. Another one is to completely monopolize online shopping. I make it a point of fulfilling my hardware needs in a local store. For certain items, it may be somewhat more expensive, but so what? how often do we squander our money on completely unnecessary things? We might as well drop some of that money on the counters of our neighborhood stores. I also avoid as much as possible the big box brick and mortar stores, unless I can’t find what I need anywhere else.
Amazon is a gargantuan cannibalistic monster. I don’t wish to bestow respect on its owner, a man whose hand I would not shake: one is the company one keeps.
23
@citizennotconsumer
Publishers had years to form a internet cooperative to deliver books through a central internet portal like Amazon. Why did they not? Perhaps an amalgam of greed, lack of vision, and/or lack of marketing competence. Clearly the
a passing fad. The handwriting was on the wall. Bookstores were closing. eBooks were in the horizon.
Record companies were in the same condition. Their greed and lack of marketing vision overshadowed the reality of the internet. They we so successful in using CD's to replace singles and charge exorbitant prices that they refused to consider any other form of distribution. Apple and other streaming services ate their lunch by satisfying the need to customize music selections.
Every new technology pushes out the old unless the old can adapt and reinvent themselves. Every new technology has unforeseen issues. That doesn't mean we owe the old technology continued relevance.
1
@John NJ
This was true also of newspapers, now going under. Even now I'm perplexed over why news media thought it wise to put their products online free? Who thought that up? Why didn't news people see the writing which literally is now on the Internet wall?
1
@John NJ How about Borders having Amazon run their online business. Not a smart move.
This article is the epitome of the American dream. Life is almost always incredibly hard for first generation immigrants. But look at what America has delivered for his son. Boom. What other country can do that. God bless America. The dream is strong. Full disclosure I am a first generation immigrant.
3
@Andrew Bartels yes indeed, the father has fostered a business and made money honestly from something. The son is in a hedge fund making money from nothing - essentially gambling with the money of others and taking a percentage. Getting rich quick and providing nothing tangible for it: truly the American Dream.
2
@Andrew Bartels
His Dad was fulfilling a useful role he could be proud of. He was providing necessary goods and services to his community, and benefitted his customers outside his role as a businessman, by supporting local institutions, and just by providing conversation and companionship.
In one generation, his son is reduced to job that I bet he cannot defend the purpose of. He works for his masters for a paycheck. The investments he makes may be in the service of war, construction of private prisons, or gentrification.
Would it not be ironic if the son's fund invested in real estate developments that drove up the rents so that his Dad can no longer afford his shop?
Indeed, the American dream. Boom!
@Ralph @zauhar Hey love the comments but seriously compared to what this father and son would have been looking at in the former Soviet Union there is no comparison. All the American dream is about is an opportunity. Nothing is guaranteed. Based on that definition the Dream is alive and well. Sure you can disagree with how it was delivered but that's a difference of opinion. What is without dispute IMO is that the opportunity was offered and this individual who probably arrived in this country with nothing has prospered. How the world makes a living changes continuously. We no longer plow the land and die at 47. The economy changes. Huge commercial malls replaced high streets. Amazon has now supplanted malls. I noticed that Lowes and Home Depot somehow escaped blame in this article. IMO we can disagree on hedge funds but in terms of the American Dream oh this is evidence that it is alive and well.
Mr. Feygin's story has a lot to do with where he preferred to live and work. He tried from the beginning to find a means of making a buck in NYC until he decided to buy the hardware store. The small independent hardware store in my rural mountain community was my lifesaver so many times. It was convenient because the big box stores were a 50 mile round trip. It was friendly and the workers there immediately greeted me and took me directly to the item I needed. It filled a niche BECAUSE of its location. However, Mr. Feygin was facing high costs of business where he was, particularly rent. If he wanted to keep an independent hardware store, he would have had a greater chance of survival outside of a large city. Like many others who live in NYC or San Francisco, they really want to live in the city and some businesses just are no longer viable given the economics. New business models emerge and the abandonment of a "bricks and mortar" store for an on-line store with next day shipping has grabbed the market share. Those who do not adjust to the new business climate or refuse to relocate, fail.
1
I LOVE my local hardware store. I don’t have to buy two dozen of something If I only need one, and it’s not packaged in lethal stiff plastic sandwiched in thick cardboard. I can ask which version of a product is best for my job. It’s only two blocks away, not a half hour plus trip across town each way. A few years ago this store moved into smaller quarters, the result of rising store rents. A second hardware store closed.
I miss the bakeries that used to offer solid breads and rolls, luscious pastries, only to be replaced by banks and drug chains and fast food joints. The quality of my neighborhood has deteriorated; so much of what remains is irrelevant and devoid of character.
I don’t want to shop online. I hate the packaging, hate breaking down the cartons, hate having to return or exchange most of the merchandise, hate the absence of personal contact, the forced isolation, feel guilty for the pollution the shipping produces. Can’t order clothing or shoes online: what is the fabric, the texture, the real color, does it fit, how does it feel?
Can’t something be done with zoning and rental regulations to solve this?
15
I wish we had a local hardware store. We have Ace, where everything is more expensive, and they take advantage of the fact that other options are too far away to be convenient. I hate that store, and try very hard not to go there.
3
@ChesBay
I dislike the local Ace Hardware because they follow me around, preventing me from browsing.
3
I have an Ace hardware half a mile from us. I'm there constantly. And I go there because I want them to stay. it's small and packed with everything. our 90 year old house requires constant upkeep, and our local store is invaluable.
1
@ChesBay T
Ace is also not just “a little more expensive”. Last time I went there they wanted $45 for the exact same thing Lowe’s was selling for $15.
3
It is a consumer's choice - convenience, less time used to purchase, better selection, no driving, often lower prices vs. useful advice, hands-on shopping, an often enjoyable excursion from the house, interaction with friendly strangers.
I would like to see some real data on the environmental costs. There is a presumption that Amazon delivery is wasteful compared to driving to the mall, etc. Is that backed up by real evidence?
1
Try to explain this to young people and you'll get OK Boomer.
I rarely use Amazon because I live in SF, a walkable city with ample public transportation, and on principle. The irony here is that we worked to keep out chains and big box stores only to have our city hollowed out by Amazon and delivery culture. There are more and more empty storefronts here and it seems like our business diversity has shrunk down to nail places, exercise places (of every type), restaurants (expensive, mainly), and bars. And now with same day delivery there are more vehicles on the streets than ever - and don't get me started on all the packaging. Why reside in a city when you aren't going to go out and live in it?
23
@Sam Francisco as a former San Francisco resident (left for a job, now can’t afford to live there so we live an hour north) I totally agree with you. I walked everywhere and always used my tiny local hardware store a few blocks away when I needed anything. I loved living in SF and would be there now if real estate prices weren’t so high - we were always out and about in GG park, the beach, presidio etc. i also wonder why people live in the city if they are commuting down to google/etc., working long hours and spending time in traffic and then getting everything delivered. A favorite restaurant just closed because they said all the independent delivery services cut into their profits too much (maybe their fault a bit but they were once thriving so it’s hard to see). I miss my city.
1
We have a local hardware store here in our neighborhood. I always go there first and they usually have what I need. I only shop Lowes and HD for big items like drywall, plywood and then online for things I cannot source locally.
The biggest thing we should fear is the continuing Mauling of NYC's neighborhoods by chain stores that may fill the void, but are not truly community based businesses.
Interesting timing on this article as I'm currently in the middle of reading EF Schumacher's "Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered." Written in 1973, the book is very relevant to what we are living through today and could have been written last week.
4
See farms, restaurants, and every other "family business" endeavour. They are being squeezed out by the cost efficiency of corporate scale. And we can't blame corporations, the public has done it through personal choices. Also, regarding this case, supers and others that have significant hardware needs have better online resources than Amazon or eBay. I'm in and out of Home Depot in under 10 minutes on a regular basis. and I doubt this store can offer much selection or match prices on bigger items.
@Chris People shop where they want to shop. Price and selection are primary drivers of retail sales.
1
@Chris
When you say the public has asked for this due to personal choices I would have to point out in many cases, they have no choice. Wages have not kept pace with inflation, housing, food, utility costs and other necessities. So for everything else that must be purchased, cost becomes the main driver. People, especially families in my area, often would like to go to the department stores to buy quality clothing for themselves and their kids but can't afford it. Food as well. So off to Wal-Mart they go, like it or not. Now you say, well, Wal-Mart drove a myriad of stores out of business through economies of scale. True. But they helped create a type of capitalist economy where it's the only place their employees can afford to shop.
The other thing is obvious and also sad: local character is wonderful and desirable to overall public well-being but it also priced out of most people's budget.
Those who would never read the NY Times would be the first to tell you - we don't have choices. We have survival.
Once I got lost in our city’s Home Depot. Then I tried to locate an employee to help me reorient. No such luck. After too many minutes went by, I managed to find the front door, walked out, and never returned. But guess what? I’m fine. We have three local hardware stores within a small radius of my daily treks in town. They never fail me. It is a win-win situation. I get what I need, and I am helping the small business owners and their hard-working employees. Oh, and I never get lost.
8
@Kathy Lollock
And even if you find an employee who is able/willing to interact with you, my experience is that the quality of their advice (if only for finding a specific item you name) has plummeted since 10 years ago.
@Kathy Lollock
While I empathize with your unsettling experience my own dealings with two local Home Depots has been very satisfactory.
1
Ever since I had ordered from a catalog, or eventually online, without knowing exactly the item I needed, I've had more than my share of disappointments in the quality or 'heft' of the item I was buying. Many times, holding and feeling of the item lead me to choose one over the other, or sensing what will fill my needs. This can only be done at a local store.
As I near my seventh decade, a neighborhood store such as Gambles in my youth, or more recently (the last 50 years) a Ben Franklin (Five and Ten) turned Ace turned Variety has now shuttered, not due in as much to lack of traffic, but lack of passing this kind of retailing on to other younger family members. It is 6 if not 7 days a week. But the proprietors were always people people, greeting and laughing with old and new customers.
While we marvel at the thousands of items on Amazon, I have only been skunked three or four times when John or Tom didn't have the item I wanted, or something very close to and serviceable for my needs.
If the owners did not have ownership of the property, too, the increasing rent makes it hard for them to survive. Just take a look at mall rentals to see how much income is needed to keep the doors open, and it is little wonder that there are so many dark storefronts in them.
Good luck to all the owners. Hang on for as long as you can and if a young person or family comes along who will run the store for another decade or more, be ready to turn over the business to them.
Minneapolis has a great network of locally owned, incredibly run hardware stores with great service. I haven’t been to a Home Depot in years let alone ordered the stuff from Amazon. We vote with our dollars, folks.
5
Yes, we do vote with our dollars. Hence the size of Amazon.
It used to be the ONLY place to get hardware was a hardware store. Wood screws and glue but no lumber and limited brand selection. Great for emergency fixes and fixing screens. High mark-up.
Then the box stores offered one-stop shopping. These were great at first because you can work on your own house and get everything in one trip. They dictate which products they feature. They cover too many household trades and we end up with low priced garbage. Soul-sucking shopping but the hours are great.
Now we have build, amazon, wayfair, and thousands of small manufacturers that can sell directly to the public. With a little planning I can order tools, parts and specialty items from home.
The local specialty suppliers have limited hours, high markup, and are on different sides of the city. What a waste.
Through Amazon, I can research and buy equipment from the manufacturer. Small manufacturers can market their american made tools to us.
My point is- brick and mortar, box stores, and online shopping all have a purpose. Its not all or none. At least in my world. We all have different needs.
One of my earliest childhood memories is of going to the hardware store on Saturday morning with my father. There were 2 within 8 blocks in our neighborhood in Queens. My father had preferences based on what he was looking for and the areas of expertise of the respective employees; sometimes we went to both. I would walk around the store looking at all the items I did not recognize. I found the bins of various sizes of nails interesting for some reason. Why were there so many different kinds? My father spoke to the men behind the counter for varying amounts of time. He learned how to do many different kinds of home repairs and woodworking. In addition they would talk about current events, politics, elections. They didn’t always agree but the level of mutual respect was quite high and quite obvious. They took each other’s views seriously. We have lost these kinds of exchanges now. They are vital for a democracy like the New England town meetings. The loss is both the cause and the result of our increasing polarization as well as the changes in the nature of the economy that the author speaks of. We need to find a way to get it back.
5
@CassandraRusyn That ship has sailed.
I'm not sure Mr. Woo has the story straight. First of all, the owner can't be offering expert advice across a thousand different tools especially if his background is not in home repair, which it is not. Secondly, the stock of Home Depot has risen over the past several years because data shows people do NOT order such items online (mostly). So perhaps the enormous rent increase is really the culprit, and a transforming neighborhood.
5
I blame the bailouts and the cheap money for the high rents. This is what re-inflated the real estate bubble. Combine that with the tax cut for the rich and corporations like Amazon not paying enough taxes, and you’ll get a perfect storm. Good news is that this bubble will burst too, but unfortunately agin the wrong people might have to pay the price.
1
@heinrichz
Extremely cheap money and tax avoidance are creating lots of distortions in our “market economy” now.
The other part of the picture as described by Professor Wu is our infatuation with the apparent convenience of just a few taps on the phone screen producing delivery to our door in not much more time than it would take to go fetch ourselves. In the infatuation stage we sometimes are blind to danger, in this case what can happen when there’s too much concentration, i.e. when we end up getting everything from Amazon and there's no other place to get anything.
In downtown Portland, OR we are losing our beloved “Byways Cafe” at year end. It sure wasn’t for lack of customers. Just another victim of rent increases in the upscale Pearl District. I’ve been taking my daughters there since they were little, and still do 20 years later, every chance I get. Karl Marx understood this well. It’s all about the rents.
1
It’s called “creative destruction”. Markets adapt to consumer preferences. To suggest capitalism “failed” is ridiculous. Malls replaced Main Street stores, and now Amazon is replacing malls. This is simple market evolution and progress. Of course other businesses will fail in the process, but that too is part of economic evolution.
2
@Tom Kelley
Not everyone worships the market. Or cares to live with the unforeseen consequences.
Commercial rent control is no more an imposition on freedom than local police preventing looting of the drug stores and bank branches which have taken over the city.
5
We started buying cheap clothes from Asia and our textile industry left the country. Americans started buying Japanese cars and the auto and steel industries wilted. Our demands for cheap food has driven family farmers to sell to big Agra Business and factory farms. Local hardware stores, bookstores, and others are closing. Some main streets look like a Hollywood backlot that was abandoned years ago. This is like a Dr Seuss book. The maniacal drive for ever cheaper goods will drive away all the good jobs, until we have no real money left to buy cheap goods. Good jobs created the middle class, and without them that will fade as well. We will be right back to where we were 150 years ago, when most scraped out a basic living and the few extremely wealthy had everything. I feel like we’re living out the Lorax.
11
@VIKTOR
Americans began buying German/Swedish and Japanese cars in the 1960s and 1970s because those were better made and safer automobiles.
American unions became highly corrupt and political, thus are what drove manufacturing overseas in the 1970s, just when they ought have had the vision to grasp the global economic shift to tech at theor doorstep, imperiling their catbird seat.
This story once again illustrates that many of the problems with American business are business decisions, not government decisions. Although government often gets blamed.
2
You have to specialize or offer convenience to make it in small business. In the cities, the wealth concentration is a boon for artisanal craft makers. You can’t compete head on with Home Depot or Applebee’s 1-1.
Small business still exists and thrives. It’s look is changing. They are more specialized in their offerings. Places like “Do it Yourself” workshops, boutique clothing, and creative menu offerings. Don’t forget those entrepreneurs in advanced fields like pharma research and Silicon Valley.
1
An almost parallel situation exists in healthcare. Almost all medical offices are now run by huge companies, sometimes hospital conglomerates and even insurance companies. The "physician extender" will see you now.
8
I am willing to pay more at my local hardware store for many items because of the excellent advice they provide on the home repair questions that arise. This is something I cannot get from on line merchants. They also do repair work on and sharpen my mower blades.
6
@Sam Grossman I feel exactly the same way. And fortunately there are still some local hardware stores here, although fewer all the time.
2
@Sam Grossman
Unfortunately the only times I have asked for advice or a small service at such a store, I was told they didn't know. Most of the employees are minimum wage workers which means they don't know much about anything. Mom and Pop stores are not always staffed by Mom and Pop. Virtually any home repair question is addressed by numerous Youtube videos.
2
I feel I am guilty of contributing to the demise. It's all too easy to hop on Amazon, order the thing and have it at my doorstep in two days or less with Prime and never really have to think about it. Time is a limited commodity. Who wants to get in a car, park, go into a hardware store, talk to a clerk about the inane, proper widget, pay for it then drive home when there's Amazon? Sorry, but I'll take the latter every time.
3
@Mark
Then change your habits. Seriously, people think it's such a big deal to actually shop. "My time is so valuable", etc. I live near a new Amazon distribution center and the number of vans on the road is crazy. Not to mention all the packaging required. Or contributing to the richest man in the world at the expense of other companies. This new mindset will not end well.
@Mark You'll live longer if you get out of the house. You know, exercise, talk to people, get some sun, etc. LOL!
We still go to ACE Hardware locally. I give Amazon as little money as possible. But I know I am a minority.
7
@Calleen Mayer
I'm with you. I don't do Walmart either.
Mr. Wu finally hit on the correct reason at the end of his article. The drive for immense accumulation of capital bleeds into every sector of America. Consumers would rather get a cheap product they can order from and get delivered to their home -- just as businesses would rather process their purchase online and ship from a warehouse. That is the new efficiency. An incorrect product will be returned or thrown away.
No one cares about getting expert advice any more because consumers trust unverified user reviews far more than a shop owner's advice. We are entering a period of idiocracy in America, where we trust the wrong people, simply because they look and sound good.
7
@Brandon J Who verifies the shop owners advice?
First, one of my many happy memories as a child consisted of wandering behind my father at a local, wooden-floored, stacked to the rafter with cardboard bins hardware store. I still remember the creak of the floorboards, the smell, and the pride accompanying my daddy in this important task. And as a girl, no less! He patiently endured my curious questions, answering all, intent on making sure I could grow up and not have to depend on a man. There was a progressive hiding in that war veterans body, and I am eternally grateful for that.
And, systems have limits. Beyond the limit, they break down, they collapse. We are living in a sad time of bearing witness to multiple systems brought to their limits. The planet is one. And capitalism is another. The seeds of capitalism contained its own eventual doom. The planet, however was a perfect closed loop. Until, of course, the evolutionary mistake with the upright stance, large brain, and insatiable greed came into the picture.
8
I love lots of things that the current version of Wall Street directed capitalism has destroyed, like actual book stores. Borders always had lots of customers and business, just not enough to satisfy the rapacious vulture capitalists. Same with Sears, at least before its owners intentionally destroyed it. Good, local hardware stores are another favorite on the endangered species list. What’s next? I will refuse as long as feasible to accept deliveries from drones, but it may become impossible to avoid, just like becoming compromised and forced to participate in the offshoring of American businesses and jobs. I also despise not being able to reach and talk to actual human beings when calling practically any business, including media companies. I long for the days when you could dial (now punch in) a number and another biological person would actually answer and say, “How may I help you?”
9
Out here in the hinterlands we still get very good service from our local Ace Hardware stores. They are adequately staffed and very helpful. I know Ace is a national chain, but that's of little concern if I get what I need at a reasonable price and expert advice. As for NYC, it is sad to see these kinds of places close. A few years ago I was in the city and my daughter's wheelchair needed a part. To my amazement, there was a hardware store in midtown that met our needs quickly and efficiently. I don't remember the name of the place, but hope it can still operate given the economic realities cited in the piece.
4
In the city of Amazon, I am very grateful to be able to walk or bike a couple of blocks to our neighborhood hardware store.
They have everything, including an adaptor for installing a dishwasher—which we had to do ourselves a couple of years ago on the day before Thanksgiving.
I invariably run into a couple of neighbors there, and of course kids adore the place. There are usually a couple of teens I know doing part-time work there on the weekends.
Amazon can be convenient, sure. But it’s no substitute.
5
Doubling of rent in a short period strikes me as a failure of government to regulate rents. At current levels of inflation which should be the main driver of store rents, it would take 25 years, or more, for rents to double. Here, the finger of blame must be pointed at NYC and NY State governments. True, they probably are captured by literal rent seekers, but government must step in when markets fail to self regulate, as in this case. Stronger rent protection laws would have prevented Mr. Feygin’s rent from nearly doubling so quickly, allowing him, and other small businesses, to stay in business. Small business benefits, but so do NYers, who are fed up with NYC independent stores being taken over by high-end big corporations, turning the city into something grotesque like airport duty free mall that never sleeps.
14
@dt What we get is empty store fronts. It’s high time we establish a vacancy tax for those greedy landlords.
Excellent article... I worked for the past decade for an organization that advises on cooperatives. People across our midwestern region, in many sectors, rural and urban, seek to rescue small businesses by converting to cooperative ownership. But the coop cannot in most cases rescue a business from the market changes described here. It has been painful to do business plans laying this out for those seeking to keep a small business alive.
That being said, there are large purchasing cooperatives for Ace and Do It Best stores that have kept the small stores competitive. The stores, independently owned, are the coop members and they have a central purchasing organization. As Mark, my local hardware owner says “when I buy a hammer to sell, I am buying one of 5,000” and this the coop members get some of the benefits of scale. But this can only go so far. Amazon he believes is eating away at them.
Another article perhaps.
7
Interesting. I would never even remotely consider using amazon for my hardware needs. My local hardware store is busy as can be, although I live in a more rural area. Amazon is way too slow and inconvenient.
6
2 severe flaws with this article -
1) the assertion that "it's cheaper and more efficient [to buy at a local hardware store] than ordering from Amazon.
HUH? With both price & convenience, I'm afraid that Mr. Wu is ... mistaken. I happen to live in NYC, where a somewhat extortionate local hardware store (high prices and stock limited to the 500 things most likely to sell - obviously, online there may be a million corresponding choices) "competes" with a couple of big box stores that all but require a car or Uber/Lyft to patronize.
So, one is convenient but often charges 2x Amazon prices, and the other is neither a small business nor uniformly offering lower prices than Amazon.
Part of this, of course, is the "death spiral" that figured in early analyses of Obamacare - as good customers (both "pros" and diy-ers) turned more and more to online, the stores "had to" up their prices to reflect their much reduced "volume." ... And that led to more defections. [Repeat!]
2) American capitalism hasn't turned against small business, as the article asserts. CONSUMERS are short of time and have made a choice NOT to "buy local," because ... what's the point?
I'm not a blind "fan" of "disrupting." Yes, NY taxis outdid even the US Postal Service in demonstrating what little thought any monopoly gives to "customer service." The local stores that sell wine & spirits survive because they've all but bribed elected officials.
One "feels for" the victims, but this story is a fairy tale.
6
Perhaps this is part of what makes Portland "Portlandia," but I regularly go to my local hardware store (Hanks True Value) where everyone is helpful, whether I am buying an expensive tool, or a 10 cent bolt. Oh... did I say I ride my bike there?
4
Even the few small businesses that succeed and grow cannot do so in perpetuity. They can only get so big before they have no choice but to sell to a large conglomerate monopoly.
The loss of anti-trust government policies, as much as globalism, have destroyed regional chains.
Little big companies used to thrive across this country. Regional hardware stores, supermarkets, clothing, etc. used to be the norm.
Now you sell-off your company, your employees take the hit and lose their jobs or face salary cuts and "redistribution."
We live in a financial economy. Stocks rule. Businesses are only there to fuel the stock—a shocking reversal of what stocks were made to be in the first place.
5
@Bartleby S That why we need Bernie or Warren for president.
I moved to Hyde Park in Chicago a couple of months ago. I can't tell for sure but its high streets (I love that term) seem full of mom and pop stores. There are precious few big box stores, even Target is little bigger than a 7-11. The produce market is a stand-alone and filled with lots of choice, there are all kinds of not very good mom and pop restaurants selling cheap student fare and some stalwarts with storied pasts. We even have an old hardware store, several bookstores and a vinyl record store.
Maybe Hyde Park has become Chicago's retro neighborhood but I'm very curious to know how this happened. Because it's so walkable? Because the neighborhood flouts the advice of University of Chicago's econ 'gods', the community really is a together place with a good alderperson? I can tell you the mom and pops seem to help preserve the architecture too.
6
The Amazon vs. Local Store cost calculations depend on the value of a given person's time. This writer seems to not realize that it takes a lot of time to get into a car and drive to, or for urbanites, to walk to, anywhere not close to one's computer.
Amazon is successful, and local stores are closing, because for a critical mass of people in the U.S., it is NOT "cheaper and more efficient" to go to a local store instead of clicking on Amazon.
Who are the people who power Amazon's success? People who are fortunate to not be on 40-hours-per-week, fixed incomes -- that is, people who are able to convert more than 40 hours per week of their time and attention into higher incomes.
This population is not just fat cats -- it includes millions or tens of millions of small business owners.
Amazon's success is itself the clearest proof that, for a critical mass of the U.S. population at large, it is not "cheaper and more efficient" to shop locally rather than at Amazon.
4
No, the small stores are not “cheaper and more efficient.” If they were, they would still be around. The consumers decide what’s cheaper and more efficient.
8
@Rebes He also seems to forget Lowes, Walmart and Home Depot which are the real reason small hardware stores have been going under for the last 40 years.
@Rebes You must have missed the part about the rent doubling. If its like the trend in Atlanta, that store will sit empty when he leaves, and that's useful to no one.
@Rebes Exactly! People shop where they want to shop, not where they are told they should shop.
Tim Wu, loved your brilliant column on Naum Feygin, Soviet emigre to New York, his story about the Chelsea Convenience Hardware Store and the kudzu growth of e-commerce that has wiped out his great endeavor. Indeed, Life and Death of the local Hardware store all over America! Sad, this terrible change in America's new normal.
4
I'm certainly sympathetic to small entrepreneurs and still enjoy what has become essentially nostalgic visits to these businesses. Amazon, Walmart and Home Depot certainly contributed to the closing of many of these stores. And IKEA and Nebraska Furniture Mart did the same for many furniture stores. However, we are now a global economy and if Amazon was not around we would most likely all be much more familiar with similar services from other countries such as Ali Baba. So, at least some of the jobs are preserved although almost certainly at lower income levels. Until there is an international trade law limiting the size of companies this may be the best we can hope for.
I have recently visited my old neighborhood in Manhattan's Upper West Side. So many of the stores are gone. Even the friendly Greek Deli. Delis used to be among the last ones to close and leave so it must be very hard for the small stores to hold on and stay in business. I hope that at some point people will understand the damage done to themselves by avoiding these stores for the sake of the giant onlines.
9
My husband and I started a small chain of urban garden centers, with the first location opening in 2002. There has been a sea change in retail since that time, and it sure hasn't been good for small businesses that support the communities in which they operate. We survive mainly for two reasons: first, we sell a lot of things that are hard to buy on line (houseplants and very heavy bags of soil, for example);and second, we're a source of expertise on the often technical hobbies we support (organic gardening, hydroponics, home brewing). Even so, it's been touch and go as more and more people just want to point and click. We have customers tell us all the time they can find something cheaper on Amazon. But does Amazon donate gardening supplies to each of the local elementary schools? Or buy ads in the high school yearbooks? Or hold fundraisers for the local hunger-relief organizations? Or spend half an hour with them answering their questions at no charge? We have people coming into our shops with their kids to introduce them to gardening, on dates to discover a new hobby, with their elderly parents to pick out a birthday present for friends. All of that will be lost as local retailers continue to die off at the hand of the God of Convenience and the pursuit of monopoly power.
34
@AMinNC
Urban people, who used to value community, are becoming as short-sighted as the rural people who flocked to Walmart.
You can vote with your dollars. You can pay more for something for value—people pay twice as much all the time for handbags and clothes with a small insignia on them.
Isn’t preserving a community of small, involved businesses worth paying for—even more so that having certain initials on your handbag or a certain embroidered critter on your shirt?
4
In Philadelphia, the exact opposite is happening. In the last three years a series of small neighborhood hardware stores have opened to great success. I believe they are ACE franchises run by individual owners. The one that opened across the street from me 6 months ago is busy all of the time(and has saved me dozens of trips to Home Depot) It is amazing how they seem to have everything you need(if you ask) in an 800 sq ft space.
10
@Edward The Ace Hardware stores in my area are also great. The people working there are uniformly smart, know a lot about hardware and are willing to take the time to explain how to use their product.
3
You could have just been describing the local hardware store that used to be right around the corner here in Midtown Atlanta. Piled to the ceiling in what appeared to be chaos, yet the employees who greeted you when you entered knew every inch of it. It closed a couple of years ago, and I find that I miss it quite a bit. The biggest shame of it all is that the space still remains empty...just sitting there, waiting for some developer to gobble it up for another bland strip mall or something worse.
2
@Scott Having product piled to the ceiling in a chaotic fashion is not the way to succeed in retail. The presentation matters!
@Scott
The store you reference was cool and had everything, as did another nearby in VA Highland - if you had the time to browse. And you needed a car to get there and back. Those hardware stores are victims of changing intown commercial and residential real estate.
They benefitted for decades from Boomers in the 1970s+ buying decrepit but architecturally interesting intown old homes no one wanted and which now have been renovated to the hilt. A plumber frien noted to me several years ago that he learned his trade by replacing all the Midtown/VA Highland lead plumbing pipes with copper and PVC. There's no call for that anymore or in newer homes, so he shifted to the more lucrative, steady sectors.
Hardware stores depend heavily on the trades, not on the one-off homeowner buying some picture hanging wire or occasional gallon of ceiling paint.
"American capitalism has turned against small business."
Is it American capitalism or is it American customers?
By pretending that capitalists are in the driver's seat, we prevent solutions even while giving us a useful scapegoat.
4
@Ludwig It's not capitalism. It's our refusal to regulate capitalism. Unregulated capitalism is nothing short of dystopian for everyone but a very small slice at the top.
14
@Ludwig It's a mistake to think of "capitalism" as a group of wealthy individuals holding the levers of power; it's the whole system including the very wealthy, the workers living pay-check to pay-check, and the unemployed.
This fascinating story isn't entirely typical of the American economy: by the 90's, a lot of small businesses had already been driven out of business or swallowed up by chains. The classic "main street" had been dramatically transformed, and Mr Feygin was lucky and resourceful, to carry on some aspects of it.
1
"He works for a hedge fund." In other words, moving money around, creating financial instruments that few understand, but pay hefty fees to use, is where the bucks are at.
I wonder how long my local drug store, which has more things than I can count, will last, too.
3
I think a lot of people are forgetting that your local hardware store (or bookstore, or appliance store, etc.) can order things they don’t always keep in stock. You may not get it in 2-3 days, but you would be supporting your local business, and likely cutting down on wasteful packaging and shipping (if they combine it in their “regular” order).
Can’t you wait a few more days if it means the survival of local businesses and the survival of competition in the marketplace?
15
@TJ Go to a store to order online? No thanks, I'll do that from home.
1
@TJ I've traveled extensively around the world, and everywhere I go I hear the same thing from people there regarding Americans -- the main thing we care about over everything else is CONVENIENCE.
Pretty sad, really.
The other impact of the death of brick and mortar stores along with the changing landscape of consumer capitalism as represented by Amazon is the devastating impact climate change. Fast Prime shipping means a larger carbon footprint. Increasing the numbers of delivery trucks and the waste in the form of packing materials in our landfills. The anti-trust violating monopoly of Amazon is literally closing Main Streets across America. They need to be reigned in before it's too late. It's a problem that is having devastating consequences for people like Mr. Feygim and most Americans. And really only one candidate, Elizabeth Warren, has addressed the dire need to tackle this issues. Which is why corporate interests, media, and complicit centrists are doing their best to destroy her candidacy.
5
@MarkusA Wrong! That delivery truck is already driving down my street. Look how many car trips one delivery truck can eliminate.
@Ron May
Yes, you're right. In lieu of one delivery truck carrying 150 packages, there would be 150 cars clogging streets, spewing pollution, fighting over parking. A mess!
I found Mr. Wu's piece very engaging.
I'm finding the comments to be even more engaging, and enlightening. Great points being made from all angles of a very important issue. - Thanks all, my faith in common courtesy and intelligent discourse has been made stronger today!
5
This excellent piece humanizes, but should not obscure, the impact of bad monopoly policy. Why should Amazon have a hand in most transactions occurring today?
3
How many second or third generations actually want to run the family hardware store? Or grocery, locksmith, auto repair shop, office supply store, tire shop, plowing/landscaping business or appliance/electronics service? Everyone thinks they should be a business or finance major or doctor or lawyer. Try finding someone who can do taping and mudding who isn’t backlogged a month or more. Try getting a plumber for less than $90/hr - a direct result of a shortage. Whatever happened it a son following his father’s footsteps into the same trade?
2
@From Where I Sit until there is social value in these jobs/professions, there will until to be a shortage. Ask a doctor is they want their son to be a plumber or daughter to marry one—-at least not in the beginning.
1
@NYC tax payer You make a good point. Trades people are looked down upon by many and the degree is the be all and end all. I can tell you I know a lot of people running around with degrees and no job related to their chosen field of study. I don't know too many people in the skilled trades who are sitting idle.
Whatever the reason the store is closing, it is a big loss for the neighborhood. These types of "third places" that foster important social connections are vital to having a healthy community.
In "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (1961) Jane Jacobs talked about her local Greenwich Village hardware store and the important role it played in the social fabric of her community.
8
. . .local Greenwich Village hardware store and the important role it played in the social fabric of her community."
Local hardware stores, if they are a franchise of True Value or ACE Hardware, can survive, and they still serve as important community meeting places. Our ACE ("is the helpful place") offers free popcorn, and someone is always a few steps away to help, unlike Lowe's or Home Depot, where finding a person to help can be a challenge. Neighbors see neighbors. The cashiers and sales associates know you by name. You know them by name.
And if the local stores, pharmacies, etc, go back to the old tradition of offering delivery, they can beat the Amazon and other online models.
3
Just a small different story. I lived in a suburb of San Francisco when we first moved to California and there was a terrific hardware store in town run by a brother and sister. After some years when rents began to rise like crazy, they decided to close. I can’t remember how many small businesses moved into the space and closed-at least three or four-and all of a sudden the hardware store is back and has expanded! My husband goes there for almost everything because he can buy one or two if something not 15 or 20. Clearly the people in town are supporting the store. So maybe it’s just large cities like New York and San Francisco that are losing their small stores.
2
@Pragmatic I agree. In my area people are hugely supportive of buying local. We have a terrific small hardware store in town that is always busy. It has just about everything you could possibly want.
1
@Pragmatic I just wrote the same thing. In Philadelphia, we are actually experiencing a small hardware store boom and they are busy all of the time.
1
Location is a critical factor for success in retail. Manhattan is not an ideal location for a hardware store. Most people are renters who have relatively no need for tools, nuts, or bolts. The landlords who need them own multiple apartment buildings, and would rather buy in bulk from Amazon to enjoy both volume discounts and convenient delivery at their door. Understandably, the failure of Chelsea Convenience is not so much due to retail consolidation - it is more due to poor location.
2
Not so! It is not the landlord, but the super or the contractor working on renovations who needs that emergency piece. And even renters want to work on projects.
@Sharon C. Landlord as the owner and the super as his employee are the same. And so also is the contractor. The volume of work they do does not justify running to the local store - they pre-stock by buying in volume to derive scale-economies. And as for renters taking projects, it is all few and far between. In short, for a Manhattan store with a $10,000 rent per month, volume traffic is needed for survival.
Living in a small upstate city (pop less than 10,000), we see first hand how the closing of small businesses affects the local economy. A giant Wal-Mart opened. I guess it sells everything but I try never to shop there. I try to shop at local, small shops but it is becoming harder to find what I need and I rely more on Amazon than I would want.
One thing we have up here is very low rents. Some young people are able to open shops and businesses because of that BUT there are not a lot of people (see our population figure above) to sustain them and then there is Amazon.
I’ve read that young people are looking for small, walkable cities, I’m very far from young so it will be incumbent on them to close their computers, walk downtown and get to know the merchants there. They usually know ‘their stuff’ and will help customers make good decisions that save money, they are generally price competitive AND they are your neighbors. Shopping can be a Social, even fun experience.
4
I walked two blocks to Seitz-Agin Hardware in Cleveland Heights, OH quite often as a new father and homeowner. Joel, the owner, was about my age and had just purchased the store. All the staff knew the trades. I didn't just buy stuff. I learned to sweat pipes, wire fixtures and repair most everything in the older house.
We moved away. 35 years later, when visiting my aging mother in her Cleveland Heights house, she asked me to fix a leaky toilet.
I walked into Seitz-Agin and Joel casually said, "Hi Steve." The only thing that had changed was our hair color (and amount!).
Seitz-Agin closed in 2011.
Something important is indeed being lost.
25
I too have fond memories of Seitz-Agin on Lee, and of Lou Groza’s cleaners, and Bonn Drug. Lee road had almost everything we needed, and I walked by these stores daily on my way to Heights High. Now, they have restaurants, bars, and fancy pants places, and no Joel.
1
I once owned a small town hardware store, the 3rd owner since it opened in 1917. Business was good, then the Home Depot and Lowes opened just down the road, 60 miles but in New Mexico that's the usual for a once a week shopping trip. I lost about 25% of my business to them. Not the end of the world....the end came when my main hardware distributor sold out and my secondary distributor went out of business. I was left to buy the usual, not such good quality junk from a mega distributor selling the same stuff you can buy at the big stores. I have such fond memories of customers coming in for a lesson on how to(s) or the thousands of KW1 house keys I duplicated sometimes from a broken, bent key. Try that at Home Depot. Watch batteries replaced for under $5. Custom cut and threaded pipe for a song. Lawn mower (small engine) repair or tuned up in a couple of hours. Too bad America, the small home grown store is about history and its replacement isn't pretty or helpful or friendly or sit down with the you to have a cup of coffee over a how to do anything.
20
While I sympathize, I have to recall that 20 years ago I couldn't find a paint sprayer at my local hardware store. The owner said he wouldn't sell them; they were junk. I went to Home Depot. A year later my hardware guy and I were talking; I mentioned paint sprayers. He gushed. He'd used one to spray shutters and loved it. Turned out he didn't sell them because his wholesale price was higher than big box retail price. Five years ago the sprayer finally died. I looked at the big box stores but went to Amazon to order a brand I'd never heard of or seen at the stores. It does a better job. Online offered me variety I couldn't get at my local store. It's not just convenience.
13
We have been watching these forces since we moved into San Francisco in the 1980's.
We had a two movie theaters, two sporting goods stores, a camera shop, three independent hardware stores, two full service dinners, a full size Jewish Deli, several locksmiths, several shoe repair stories, a couple of small appliance stores, more gas stations, and a mix of low and middle restaurants.
Not to mention housing (granny unit) that a recovering alcoholic cab driver could afford, housing that young kids like us could afford, and the up scale housing that some could afford.
Most all of that is gone. Rich here in one of the best neighborhoods of San Francisco. Today it is an economic mono culture.
A bunch of junk low end restaurants, almost all run by families to get out of the labor costs and a few high end restaurants that cater to the well to do that are the only people that can afford to move into the neighborhood.
We are down to one hardware store.
The complexity and diversity of our city in business establishments has gone, leaving a sad landscape.
When I talked with the business owners the same theme. Leases went through the roof or their labor costs got so high they had to shut down. In both cases the root cause was the increase in value of the property and the owners want or need to feed that value.
In the end, the owners of property are draining San Francisco of its economic diversity and that will in turn drain all other diversities of this once vibrant town.
11
@JD everything you present here was true in Russia until 1917. Then, after that, there was no such thing as “wealth”, or greedy landlords. I welcome monopolies like Amazon: when the means of production are owned by the American State, it will be sooooo much easier to assume control of the concentrated monopolies.
I bet his health insurance costs were another factor. And if you are employed by a big company, it is provided.
The majority of employees at the big box stores are part time and thus do not get benefits.
3
This article reminded me of how my (now 100-year-old) aunt always found Christmas shopping a chore - until she started buying her presents at her local (not big box) hardware store. The first year, she gave everybody giant Maglite flashlights and packs of batteries. It was hilarious and great. I still have my flashlight.
15
Thanks for this concrete example, Tim, of the Capitalism in the 21st Century.
It was capitalism that lured Naum Feygin into business, and it is a more evolved version of capitalism that is driving him out of business.
Thomas Pikkety, the French economist wrote the book, "Capitalism in the 21st Century" to describe this very phenomenon you've captured in the article.
And Pikkety recommends a relatively low "tax on capital" as a lever to level the economic playing field.
Curious to hear your take on such a tax as a remedy for what our great system has become.
3
I'm absolutely fed up with the greedy, monopolistic empire building of the corporate retailers. Many years ago a big-chain drugstore pressured a local pharmacist into selling out to them by telling him they had purchased a real estate parcel close by and would open a new store and drive him out of business. He could sell, be an employee, and get a reasonable salary for a few years, or he could just try to compete. So he sold out.
Then another independent pharmacist opened a shop in a corner of a local supermarket near the big-chain drugstore. He was an old fashioned druggist who got to know his customers personally. He also knew all their medicines and all their doctors.
Big Chain would not abide competition. They offered the supermarket three times what the independent pharmacist was paying to lease the space. The market's proprietors thought Big Chain was going to open a little satellite for the convenience of the market's customers. They didn't. They dropped the lease after a year. Then Big Chain had no local competition.
They also didn't have my business. I found another independent local pharmacy 15 minutes away. The first time I went there with a prescription, I told the druggist why he had a new customer, and that I would recommend him to everyone I know.
Every time I go there, the druggist and his employees greet me like a member of the family. Big Chain cannot compete with that.
8
Of course they did. You and other who patronize then are putting their kids through college.
Why is no one mentioning the Q’s and A’s on Amazon as well as the user comments? These have been very useful for me in picking a product. Plus there is Google to search for reviews as well as instructions. I think people use online because it is convenient but also because it is just better.
2
@Gerry The majority of Amazon reviews are fake, including the question and answers area. There are fake review farms on Facebook that Amazon has done nothing about. I never trust Amazon reviews. Additionally they flooded the site with cheap, poorly manufactured, often seconds goods, unless you are buying from a niche company. Amazon did this to themselves.
When they were newish you could trust Amazon with quality, no longer. Support individual websites and businesses!
15
@OhMy
Point well taken, however, Amazon now identifies verified product purchasers in the reviews. Also, I depend more on the negative comments than the positive ones. Plus there is the internet to search for other input.
@Oh My
Yes, caveat emptor has been the watchword for Amazon reviews.
Before hitting the "buy" button, we always go to reviewmeta.com to check the pass/fail of products sold on Amazon. The number of products on Amazon that are fake/counterfeit and with paid for fake comments is staggering.
And Amazon is fully aware of this.
The future model has to be different. If the landlord (rent!), the city (taxes!), and core customers (supers) all felt that they had a share in this business perhaps they would behave differently - reasonable rent, taxes, and guaranteed baseline business. Instead of being stakeholder/ shareholders, they all just see this as an opportunity to extract. And, they'll all miss this business when it's gone.
5
@peh: the q & a online are generally answered by users and not always accurate. They also conflict. I at least try Home Depot (no hardware store nearby) for someone with some possible knowledge for hardware projects. If wrong, it takes 10 minutes to exchange something. With amazon, am likely to just toss it in the trash if it’s inexpensive.
Tremendously important article.
The continuing consolidation of the U.S. economy is a defining issue of our time, as is the growth of automation.
The winners: big business and its executives.
The losers: small business (with the exception of niche luxury purveyors) and rank and file workers, especially those employed by the gig economy.
Very few are addressing what needs to be done to ensure adequate employment and household income as these trends continue.
One possible fix: higher tax rates, a more progressive tax structure and an additional shift to taxing capital more intensively than labor, with the resulting revenues directed to employment programs and income support.
12
Capitalism isn’t intended to benefit labor. That’s a fundamental tenet of communism. Capitalism succeeds because, like nature, it is cold, harsh and often brutal. The problem with yeh left is that they refuse to accept this and believe that every issue is a problem, that every problem must be solved and that the best way to do that is through big government. The fact is that for every Jeff Bezos, there will be 10,000 homeless. Liberals refusal to accept this fact doesn’t make it any less true.
@ANetliner This article is forty years too late.
Sources for self-reliant repairs have been contracting for years. The selection of those unique pieces and parts wax and wane with each passing day, even at the sole surviving big box stores. The disposable economy appears to have been fully embraced and the MBA chant of more " return on RE investment" have enjoined to provide Mr Feygin and others dream destructive suffering. Online sources will soon realize that economies of scale will contract their sources for commodities as well. Estate sales and garage sales that still harbor those treasures of completeness will eventually be void as well. The return of the junk wagons and traveling hardware salesmen of long ago may return for those wishing to restore what once was, affordably.
2
Isn’t there a problem other than where you get your goods? Isn’t there a problem with a system that depends on people spending — and at best spending more than is necessary — in order to thrive?
And isn’t there a holier-than-thou attitude about having the time and even desire to drive to multiple stores for small purchases? Think of the convienience for working parents to be able to order school supplies and household necessities online: the ease alone frees up time better spent on activities a lot more important than shopping, activities that might involve, say, family.
I would love to live in the Jimmy Stewart world of friendly neighborhood retailers, small food markets where your purchase comes deftly tied in brown paper, and you and the person behind the counter ask after each other’s welfare. But the local retailer is usually a franchise, and that franchise is replicated in one shopping complex after another. Plus, prices at that franchise are in fact higher.
The system needs to change. And not with more shopping.
13
@Denise Eliot
It’s actually not that hard to visit several shops, especially if you aren’t doing it at chain stores. It’s just as important to ‘get away’ from the kids for a spell and give them some ‘un-parent time’.
Shopping at a small shop is enjoyable-and why wouldn’t you take the kids with you. It’s time not spent in front of a computer - for YOU AND THEM.
@Maxi , not If you are in a power wheelchair! Or are simply elderly, have a reason to need a cane, etc. We are the invisible ones. Thank you for your service? HA !
1
Small business owners used to be a foundation of the GOP and the GOP relentless pursuit of "free markets" and against government "interference" in these "free markets". I bet they love the Trump GOP's rhetoric now, but they brought this problem kn themselves.
2
If a small business can't make it, then who will pay that high rent for a 600 sq ft retail space? Can't have all of them occupied by restaurants!
14
@jrh0 Many restaurants can't pay their way either. Diners pay their staff by tipping them. Without tips many earn $5.00 or less per hour.
@jrh0 - Someone will buy it and rent it out as an Airbnb studio for $500 a night.
I think this story shows a strong parochial NYC perspective. Sure the hardware store was pushed out by higher rents. And that is certainly a factor in the large coastal cities.
But step away from those areas by 100 miles (you are still in NY, MA, PA, etc.) and there the battle is the small store versus the big box store.
The small store owners do not face high rentals but rather the lower prices and broader selection of the big box stores. But their advantage can be the ease of getting there and having a smart person behind the counter.
13
@J Fogarty
That’s what I find in my small city. Rents are low but there are too many empty store-fronts. Downtown streets used to crowded with shoppers on Thurs and Fri evenings. Now they are at Wal-Mart.
I try my best to shop at local stores. I enjoy the experience but often can’t find what I need so I go to Amazon. We need more shops and they need more shoppers. I don’t know the answer.
2
@Maxi There are PLENTY of small stores opening up. I can attest to the fact that my niche product is going out to small town gift stores! This is good!
You DO NOT have to go to Amazon. Individual websites abound and offer excellent service and will go above and beyond Amazons throw your stuff in a box routine.
I know all my customers and they get what Amazon could never provide from their fulfillment centers.
Additionally Americans need to stop the obsession for instant gratification with good. Shipping a toothbrush via UPS via Amazon is not good for the environment, and a waste of gas and resources.
Behind that box is someone packaging that toothbrush to ship it to Amazon, who pays someone to package it again, to send to a center, to send to a truck and use up gas. No one thinks about this chain of events.
1
As much as I feel for Mr. Feygim and value the presence of local stores like his, there is another side to this story. I recently needed a small torque wrench to change the oil on my scooter. None of the local stores had anything like it. Amazon sold me the right tool for $20. The point is that local stores cannot always offer the diversity of products that good online sites can. So one gets used to looking online first.
13
Same here. Everything that isn't duplicating a big box is 'we can have it next week' or 'the owner is in Florida, I'll have to wait until he calls in to tell you what you what the item is made of (ie is the high price I"m paying getting me the quality I need), can you come back later? ' ; in other words the person on the floor has no item description but will order it and I can spend more gas picking it up at the store next week and hope I"m lucky that what is in the box is what I ordered. On the other hand, I can order online and get what I need delivered to my door, which is handy for heavy things, and return it the same way if its not as described.
1
Mr. Feygin has my sympathies, and I wish him the best in whatever he chooses to pursue next. I ran a small indie record store through the 80s and 90s, even in the face of domination by the big-box stores, and mostly by dint of upwards of 70+ hrs weekly in the shop, but post 9/11 the inexorable rise of online shopping convinced me that it was time to call it a day. Despite the cheap rent I enjoyed (due to a less-than-ideal and rapidly weakening location), I'd seen sales and profits tumble for more than a decade and finally bowed to the inevitable. I see very little hope for small retailers these days, but will always give them whatever business I can whenever possible, out of solidarity if nothing else.
20
American capitalism isn't the problem, it's the American consumer. Walmart, Amazon, et al succeeded while local stores failed because consumers changed their buying habits. The new stores were either cheaper, more convenient, or had something else that led consumers to abandon their local stores.
9
@J. Waddell - Just want to let you know that what you describe is American capitalism. Adam Smith 101.
Mr. Feygin, if your store was in our town, I'd be in there at least once a week and my husband would be in just about every other day. I don't know who this 'wonderful' economy is working for, but it isn't working in my area.
23
The article is missing one very important premise... the landlord who raised the rent must think that he can find another tenant who will pay a higher rent. Otherwise he would have worked with his current tenant. So maybe this location has more potential as a different business. That’s called an efficient market in economics.
10
@Pedram Pourmand
If that's the case, if there are another tenants who will pay a higher rent, why are there so many empty storefronts throughout greater NYC?
29
@Pedram Pourmand Interestingly, on the same block as my small local hardware store (an ACE franchise) there are so many empty storefronts that we in SF are considering a vacancy tax. Landlords here can hold out forever if they want to because their real estate is so valuable and they drive out small businesses to do it. What is efficient about that?
1
@Pedram Pourmand Greed. Pure and simple. The hallmark of capitalism. Since like anything else greed becomes more prevelant and eventually will lead to the down fall of our democracy.
1
We chose to live walking distance to our town center 25 years ago. We could walk to a hardware store, two smallish groceries, and two pharmacies. They are all gone now, replaced by trendy restaurants and condos. I have a car, and parking is not an issue here, but I would much rather walk. It’s a bummer.
31
Just to add to the stories about the value of the local hardware store, when we lived just outside of St. Louis our local hardware store had everything the houses in our area needed: parts for the plumbing, bbq grills in the backyard, even the soap dish in our shower, Lowe’s who put it out of business never carried them. In St. Louis when we took over running my mother-in-law’s house, the local hardware had the correct gas couplings for the stove in a 60 year old house, it also carried the webbing to repair an old lawn chair. Now in Elgin, the local ACE gives excellent advice and has what we need for our house 2 miles away. No need to drive 9 miles to Home Depot.
12