Try Charging More

How can a can a small coffee shop owner hope to compete with Starbucks or a mom and pop pizza restaurant with Dominos?

Scale is often the secret to retail.  With scale comes efficiency, which drives down prices and increases sales.  This results in cut-throat corner cutting that small operators can only match by working long hours for minimal returns.  It’s a race to the bottom.

But what if instead of charging less they charged more?

What if they say “we’re always a dollar” more and they spend that dollar, all of it, on their staff?

Or on their coffee producers in the third world?

What kind of person buys the cheap coffee produced by subsistence farmers or the pizza made by the stressed out crew on minimum wage?

Some people will always want the cheapest, regardless of what it costs them in the end but in market after market there are organisations who proudly charge more and who are worth it.