Reminds me of when I worked at MVC, a music and movie store in the UK, and they were a fine company to work for, if you had an interest, you'd be assigned the 'expert' for that genre, I was the go to guy for gaming, you'd be encouraged to talk with customers, put forward your own recommendations, not just go with whoever had paid for the chart placements that week, and generally it was a good place to work, and we did a decent amount of business.
Then we got bought out.
New management scrapped all perks, told us to effectively shut the hell up and get behind the till and SELL. Anyone buys anything, push preorders, offer them a range of crappy dvds for another three quid, do the bare minimum of customer service, as refunds etc cut into our bottom line, etc.
We shed customers like hair off an Afghan hound, and of course each month the figures came in and head office would tell us we're not trying hard enough. Regular customers stopped coming, new customers were obviously going to Tesco or online to save a pound, and sales were dwindling, along with the staff, as they quit to go find a job that wasn't feeding off their souls suddenly.
Entire company hit the wall about six months later.
I just hope Steam will become a sign of how to do it right ( tho I admit their customer service wasn't up to much a few years ago, but I hear it's improved over time. )
What the brick and mortar stores keep doing wrong, and I'm no business expert, but my father agrees with me, is you can't beat online for price in general, you've got too many overheads.
Offer service, care, and expertise, online can't do that half as well as a real person. Hire people who give a damn, and pay them enough to keep them giving a damn.
My parents often pay over the internet price for things, knowing that if there's a problem, they can walk right back into the store and see a real person, and that attitude won't change until online can offer the same levels of service, I think.
