I used to be a mid level manager at a small regional somewhat-niche retail chain. The last few years they have started to heavily focus on employee knowledge. Hiring full time staff whose only job are to be product experts to help customers, introducing huge amounts of product knowledge courses. They know they can't beat the big boys on price so they are trying to become THE local place you go to talk to someone about this specific niche. It has been working out very well for them.

The niche doesn't even really matter here. It could be car stereos, music, books, alcohol, grocery, whatever. I definitely think the path to survival for small retail shops going forward is going to be expert level knowledge and customer service. The days of people patronizing your store just because its physically nearby are numbered.

edit: Also, and this is totally anecdotal, but I personally shop at several places that aren't quite the cheapest (though none are TOO relatively high priced) but I continue to shop because the staff are far more knowledgeable than I and their assistance is well worth the extra ~10% in price.

Notable that yesterday one of the top stories was that Amazon's major book competitor, Barnes and Noble, just fired most of those exact "expert" staff. That they claim they cannot afford to loss lead books like Amazon does, so they must instead discard their highly paid, skilled workers in favor of minimum wage.

This is the general trend in most of America. Many now fall into one of three categories. Highly rewarded entrepreneur / chief officer, educated and well paid but fiercely worked salary, or minimum wage serf. The bands are also becoming more defined and logarithmically separated. ~$16000 (2^14) [serf], ~$90000 (2^16.5) [educated salary], $500000+(2^19) [wealthy / gentry]

Further, the middle section is mostly bleeding downward due to factors like the above mentioned layoffs (Sam's Club did similar), the increasing relative cost of education / health care / other barriers to entry, and the inflation adjusted erosion of buying power.

Its an argument to say the path is towards expert service, yet with the range of social review / recommendation pages / boards available now (much of which Amazon itself cultivates), even newcomers can quickly become informed if they are so inclined. No wonder many now prefer to use automated isles rather than human checkouts. The staff provide little and often just push annoying suggestive sells.

This actually sounds really great and I would actually go to such a store for certain things.

Yep, recently I've been buying Chess sets and Amazon sucks absolute balls at that, I can't filter the over priced shite from the decent stuff and figuring out who is supplying what is hard.

In the end I just bought from a uk chess specific supplier and all my questions where answered on the page.

Now that's a niche I acknowledge that but still with all their data and product ranges a small online retailer beat them.

Exactly. Amazon's SRPs are an utterly miserable browsing experience because it's so hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. So many no-name Chinese garbage importers, out-of-stock-except-for-gougers, redundant listings for the same product, etc. Stuff you'd never have to deal with on a meatspace store shelf.

> I go to Amazon when I know what I want.

This part is probably going to be Amazon's undoing if they don't change their ways. If I'm buying a charger and know what I want, I really cannot safely buy from Amazon. It is much safer to buy from a Best Buy in that situation.

This is why I go to Ace over big box. I can walk in with 2 parts and say I need to connect these. They'll page the right person and a minute later they will be finding the right parts and get me set in a few minutes. This would take nearly an hour at Lowe's or Home Depot unless you lucked into the right employee. It would be a total time waste to try to do the same on Amazon. I don't care about paying 10% more for the convenience. Ace is also a retail co-op.

Ace is fantastic. Every Ace comes with an ambiguously old guy who knows everything about whatever project you're doing and can advise you about the tools you'll need, potential pitfalls,etc.

I always go to Ace first because of that guy. It's one trip to Ace vs the two+ trips to Lowe's when I'm doing something new.

Amazon can sell the parts cheaper, but the knowhow they can't provide is invaluable.

If you take something like a RC Car store that sells drones, batteries, kits etc. as an example, I think you are right, though those stores still need to keep their prices in check. I have no problem paying more for something local that I can walk out with immediately, but if their price ends up too much higher, I just can't justify it.

>I go to Amazon when I know what I want. I go to a store when I need staff to tell me what I want.

Bring your smartphone with you when you go to the store. That way after the staff tells you what you want, you can order it from amazon without leaving the store.

That's called showrooming and is a serious dick move to do to a small business.

Yeah it is, my parents owned a small business and they got owned by this tactic.

Don't rely on altruism for change. Expect the worst out of people.

> I go to a store when I need staff to tell me what I want.

Or eventually, you and everyone will skip the store trip by asking Alexa on the Amazon Echo in your smart home.