Customer's expectations

[Ric2013]

Pin the letter up.

Why? It's a private matter between me and him.
In any case, the letter obviously calmed him down seeing as he's still buying his magazines from me.

 

[Knappers]

I had a customer with a nice 4 bed house once that scoffed at my rates for a few hours work and said "that's ridiculous, it's more than I get paid!".
Despite being offended by her attitude I politely pointed out that my rates also pay for: my van, my petrol, my insurance, a guarantee, equipment, uniform etc, and also have to cover my pension, holidays, sickpay, downtime and admin (and explaining to dim customers how the world works!).

 

[gmartine]

Why? It's a private matter between me and him.
In any case, the letter obviously calmed him down seeing as he's still buying his magazines from me.

Partly the same reason you wrote it and posted it here... to vent and let people know the true cost of running the place and what services they'll be losing when you eventually do close it. It's barely a sustainable business as it is and the villagers appear to have other choices too. I'm not saying you need to put a name on it to embarrass just remind folks not to take your service for granted if they want it to continue.

I've had nearly all the pubs (4) around me (10 minute walk) close bar one and turned into residential, folks tried and tried as every year or so management/ownership changed but in the end not enough folks used them. Between lockdowns I was walking the dog and thought I'd pop in for a drink in the immediate area's remaining drink hole. I held the dog up in the window nodding to the bar staff to see if I could enter, nope no dogs allowed. It was early evening and the bar was empty, feck'em they really deserve to close.

 

[Ric2013]

Partly the same reason you wrote it and posted it here... to vent and let people know the true cost of running the place and what services they'll be losing when you eventually do close it. It's barely a sustainable business as it is and the villagers appear to have other choices too. I'm not saying you need to put a name on it to embarrass just remind folks not to take your service for granted if they want it to continue.

We have around 50 loyal customers who buy everything in our line of business they can from us and never complain about prices. In any case, the bulk of our products are newspapers and magazines which are fixed-price with a 20% gross margin, so there's nothing you can do about that. When your customers have known your family for 3 generations, putting up a letter like that publicly would not go down well, and would only be read by people who shop with us regularly in the first place.

The shop has only been made sustainable due to tourist revenue for at least the last 40 years and so the real problem is lack of tourists, resulting from general village mismanagement. The latest news is that the president of the local cooperative supermarket (which is already teetering on the brink of bankruptcy) has decided that when we close she is going to start selling newspapers (because what her shop obviously needs is another expensive to manage and low-profit product) just to prevent my customers from going to the other newsagent.

There's a joke that someone in this village once found a jinn in a bottle that offered him anything he wanted on the understanding that his neighbour would get double what he got. The man eventually asked to be blinded in one eye. I can't wait to get out, frankly.

 

[gmartine]

I don't mean to be cruel or unsympathetic but times have changed probably irreversibly and it's costing you or your family to stay open, their pensions/savings and what little income you take. Your loyalty is honourable but that's all it is and by staying open your diminishing theirs and your standard of living.

Your old clientele will go elsewhere or do without and sadly after three generations the shop will be forgotten about as they move or pass on. Unless you can comfortably lose money keeping it open I'd be winding up the business today and giving notice.

 

[Ric2013]

Thanks for that Gmartine, but I was already ahead of you. As far as the village is concerned, the issue is that community here seems to be more defined by nostalgia and xenophobia than by a real sense of togetherness. More isolated areas than this in North Wales have opened their own community services along cooperative lines and seem to be doing well, and if the locals want a newsagent, book, gift, and very well-stocked stationary shop then they need to work for it - or they can choose to do without and that is entirely up to them and not my problem to solve for them.

There were some legal issues that prevented me closing at the end of March. Otherwise I would have done this. These should resolve within a couple of weeks.

Now there's the summer season which is the one time the shop does actually make money, so it may be worth hanging on a little longer. When I say the shop has lived off tourists for a very long time, that's not to say at all it's been a hard few decades, and this shop was a gold mine until around 2005. Staying open may make it easier to advertise the building for sale. I doubt it's worth much, but rather than maintain and pay tax on it...

The intention therefore is to have a discussion with my commercialista (kind of an accountant, but he deals with all the mindless bureaucracy) in the next few days and decide, based on what information he can give me as to what the procedures are and how long things take, as to when to close.