Typical Small-Business Ventures Part-2

Retailing is another important industry for today’s small businessperson. General merchandising giants like Sears, Target, and Wal-Mart may the best-known retailing firms, but small privately owned retail stores far outnumber them. Small-business retailing includes stores that sell shoes, jewellery, office supplies and stationery, clothing, flowers, drugs, convenience foods, and thousands of other products. People wishing to form their own business have always been attracted to retailing because of the ability to start a firm with limited funds, rent a store rather than build a custom facility, create a Web site, and use family members to staff the new business.

Powell’s Books, based in Portland, Oregon, is one of the most successful retail bookstores in the U.S. In contrast to so-called “Big Box” book superstores like Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million that use their huge buying power to secure lower prices for large orders and Amazon.com’s well-known high-tech, stock-everything strategy, Powell’s competes by specializing in used, sometimes hard-to-find books. Through its seven bookstores and its Web site (Powells.com), Powell’s serves customers who like buying from an independent store instead of one of the larger chains and we don’t mind paying extra to find something special to read. Their different strategies permit the two competitors to benefit one another. Powell’s buys returned books from Amazon.com at a discount and sells them as used. Amazon fills order for out-of-print books through Powell’s. This strategy will never make Powell`s the largest bookseller, but that is just fine with the retailer’s founder, Michael Powell.

Small business also plays a significant role in agriculture. Although most farm acreage is in the hands of large corporate farm, the majority of farmers still operate as small businesses. Most U.S. farms are owned by individual farmers or families, not partners or shareholders. The family farm is a classic example of a small-business operation. It is independently owned and operated, with relatively few employees, relying instead on the labor of family members. But today’s small farmers must be able to combine savvy business and marketing techniques to thrive, as has California-based Earthbound Farm, an organic grower.