What seems weird is that with the massive number of Starbucks closures I've seen smaller indies and local chains open up in the exact same locations and somehow make a go of it- how does that work?
Naively, a small shop only needs to pay on-the-ground workers and direct owners who may be a subset of the first group. Starbucks has to pay the regional managers and their bosses and the shareholders, etc. Also, at the mom-and-pop, no one is screaming “Why is the fourth derivative of profit increase not higher??”
I think that is, indeed, rather naive. Starbucks has an extremely efficient supply chain which ensures its raw ingredient costs are lower than what the small shop can negotiate, even moreso when delivery to the store is factored in. After raw wages, it can also offer health insurance and benefits to its employees at significantly lower per-employee costs than the small shop. It can often get a better deal on real estate, because landlords know that Starbucks adds prestige and enables them to raise rents on surrounding units. And of course, while mom & pop have to spend money advertising to the neighborhood with flyers, direct mail, coupons, etc, the Starbucks just posts that green mermaid logo and lots of people flock to it (and often are willing to pay more for the product).
It's not naive; both posts have correct points. It's the classic little-company vs. big-company scenario. Little companies can move faster and adapt quicker, they don't have the same profit expectations or overhead costs as big companies (upper manager and CxO salaries), however the big company has big advantages with economies of scale, name recognition, and access to capital. Some things for the big company may work against it: some people may go out of their way to avoid Starbucks (or other big name-brands) due to some bad experience ("it tastes burnt!") or association or simply disliking bigger companies, for instance.
Your post - which at least attempts to list some of the advantages of a small shop AND some of the advantages of a mega-chain - demonstrates why kevinventullo's post is, in fact, naive - because he only mentions the disadvantages that Starbucks might have, without considering any obvious advantages it has, like scale and brand recognition.
If you want to be pedantic about it, the post I was responding to was asking how a mom-and-pop might survive when Starbucks didn’t. Thus, I only felt compelled to name some possible advantages on the one side. It was not intended as an overall analysis. Obviously Starbucks has some other advantages over a mom-and-pop, or else they wouldn’t be everywhere.
Different types of business owners want different kinds of return on their investment.
Small business entrepreneurs might be perfectly happy just turning a profit a few years into the venture. In contrast, a stock trader only turns a profit when the business gets more valuable, which requires growth. The business has to make more profit than it did last year. A third place might turn a profit but not provide growth for investors, so they're not going to fund it, they're going to destroy it.
This gets even crazier with private equity, because the fund managers are incentivized[0] to spike growth as quickly as possible. If you ever notice a business rapidly deteriorating, it's because private equity is sucking the blood out of the company. Run.
[0] The split between fund investors and fund management changes once the fund meets its hurdle: an arbitrarily-set amount of profit. After the hurdle is met fund management gets every penny.
Starbucks reacted to the covid-19 lockdowns by closing many of their non-drive through locations, regardless of their potential profitability when no longer in a lockdown.
This obviously isn't true unless you think half the population is "evil". It doesn't help anyone's cause when you try and position it as "us vs. Them, and they're wrong"
They may or may not be wrong, or evil, but they are almost certainly not going to take your opinion into account if they win.
An election is fundamentally binary: it has one winner and everyone else is equally a loser. There are other structures that don't fall prey to that, such as multi member districts or party lists. As long as the election has a unique outcome, everyone else is equivalently irrelevant.
SQL is really close to a natural language that's unambiguous, there's a few rough edges but it's not bad. Anything more natural requires a lot of context and needs to solve ambiguity.
"Anything more natural requires a lot of context and needs to solve ambiguity.
this is precisely why we created Dataherald-- to make it much easier to add that business context so that NL to SQL could actually be good enough to get into production
while i agree, there is clear demand for people to use natural language to SQL. we have tremendous conviction around the desire for natural language tools, but of course the technology and product need to deliver desired results.
I don't think I have a problem with the concept, but do with someone who feels this is their only option, organizers making money off of this and viewers who would demand this and pay for it. Individuals taking extreme personal risks? No problem with that.
It doesn't have to be this way though. Women's basketball doesn't have as much violent contact as the men's game but is a better spectator sport IMO. women's hockey is also great without the crushing blows and no fights. Flag football is fun to watch as it's all about the offense and big defensive plays, not the crippling Hits. Aussie rules football has hitting but nothing like rugby or American football and it's a superior experience for the fans. I like the NFL and UFC but there are options if you don't.
Everything you say is true, but where the financial success comes from is leveraging this (well earned) reputation to support high, no negotiation, take it or leave it prices, and often mandatory financing. We'll see if the market continues to support fixed pricing and turning away cash buyers.
Toyota has a built in customer base that is growing. With the exception of Tundra trucks, their parking lots are usually empty while Ford, GM, and Stellantis have new vehicles stacked all over with no buyers.
Of the 3 Toyota dealerships I worked with during Covid, not a single one of them charged over MSRP, even for in demand vehicles. I was at the local Toyota dealership a few months ago, and they had a long line of new vehicles parked out front, all with large SOLD signs in the windscreen. Toyota has learned from C19 and not to overstuff their dealerships with products that do not sell and cost dealerships big money in floorplan financing.
It is a similar story at the 2 Honda dealerships I've dealt with in the same time period. MSRP sales, new vehicle lot empty because vehicles are sold before they arrive.
In my country, Toyota dealers (there are two) have the same price for cash than for bankloans. It is not mandatory to use financing in here, but the last three times I have asked in showrooms, across some 15 years, the assistants have no idea how to process a full payment. They always took 30-60 minutes to ask around.
The price is pretty much fixed, except for cars which weren't sold after receiving a downpayment for them.
I also bought a RAV4 Prime in April of 2022, when they were very hard to come by. Arranged my own financing with a credit union at 1.99% (really got in under the wire with low rates). Dealer argued that I should at least try applying for Toyota financing but when he admitted they’d never beat 1.99% he relented and took my check. This was in Maryland, US.
Would really like to hear of a situation where a dealer literally refused a cash or outside financed transaction.
I had a dealer refuse to sell me the car I wanted at the price they listed online. I was required to use their financing and spend $4k on service plans for that price. It was a $12k used car. This was one of the largest ford dealerships in Houston
Generally, Toyota buyers don't like to stick out in a crowd. They do have a new, reasonably priced Land Cruiser coming out, which is styled after their older, very popular Land Cruisers.
I would'nt be surprised if they come out with a 2-door version of such to fill the long vacated slot left by the FJ Cruiser.
