Owning Your Own Retail Business - is the Customer Always Right?

When you think about traveling salesmen, it may conjure up images of a person showing up on your doorstep trying to sell you Amway or a new vacuum cleaner. Luckily, my father didn't have to endure the potential humiliation of being rejected on a strangers front stoop. His venue was flea markets and swap meets, and for the better part of twenty years, he worked nearly every large flea market west of the Mississippi.

This was always fun for me as I was growing up. My parents were divorced when I was young and I would get to spend the summers traveling the western United States with my dad. I learned quickly about the ways of business, and that business is often different in a swap meet setting than in a traditional brick and mortar one. You really expect people to haggle and talk you down on your prices; you make deals with other vendors to trade some of your merchandise for something of theirs that you need or want. All walks of life show up at the flea market on a hot summer Saturday, and I feel like I learned quite a bit about human nature just by watching people mill around the open air markets.

Unfortunately, as you would expect, my father has gotten older and is not able to keep up with the often physically demanding lifestyle of the traveling salesman - having to set out and pack up heavy boxes every day just to make ends meet. About a year and a half ago, he decided it was time to settle down and open a traditional storefront. He sells gift-ware items and craft supplies now and his store has been very successful.

When my dad needs to be out of town for a week or two, I run the store for him. I have to admit though, I really can't stand it. It isn't the work that bothers me - having to put out the sandwich-board sign and hang the wind chimes outside to attract customers, or making the rounds inside the store to straighten and fill the shelves. It's not even the nearly overwhelming boredom once that 15 minutes worth of work is done and I have absolutely nothing else to do for the next 8 hours. What it all boils down to, the thing that makes me dread having to go down to the store, is the customers.