On the business path: Retail-13

A small business owner has to compete harder against the well established and funded competitor and if he does not make a memorable first impression, he/she will lose sales for a long time or sometimes forever. If you have a small store, you should know the prices of the stuff that you are selling as I have seen many small business owners more knowledgeable about their products, prices and where they are located and if they are out of stock or not. I know that it is easier for them to see where the products are and since it a small store, it does not take them much time to replenish their stock and even tell their customers all of the above. But once you cross the threshold of being a small business owner (if you have the ambition to grow that is) then it becomes a bit harder to know your product knowledge. And hopefully you are one of the owners who would want to grow business from a small store to a bigger one and that means you have to think big also. You would need more financing and as compared to the small operations where you can ask your wife or your relatives to help you and pay them less money, when you have a bigger store, you would not be able to keep up with all the inventory and store maintenance and that is where you would have to hire somebody else to help you manage your store. And hiring an employee brings with it other set of problems which I will discuss later on.