Another Bad Month for Grey's Grocery

well the peppers and the celery and they they bring the cost of the salads up and the oil so hard I want to show you one thing here you know I had that one bread bill that's uh you know it was another one of those heavy days on bills it seems to we pay that more than we took in again I don't know what it is but uh it's prior for the course yeah I know but looks another like another rough month for the grocery store it's getting so we dread the end of the month last week there were two young Norwegian fellas came in and uh they heard that possibly we might want to sell I think we've got to give it a lot of thought I think we just can't uh jump in and say no maybe it's a way out right now I think we just got to have a little time think about it uh when we bought this store almost uh 8 years ago uh we built from that time on a substantial business and uh I think that we we did quite well um the first chain opened and we felt it some but I think that wasn't uh really sort of the payoff punch I think but then they opened another one and another one under our noses here and I think it's [Music] just I was thinking about getting married and I needed some kind of work I started as a clerk in a small store where we waited on people over the counter and then I gradually went into the supermarkets and I worked in different departments and uh worked my up to what I am today to manager of the store before they open up a store in any area they go out and they survey the population and they survey the possible growth as far as new buildings and um this was one of the first supermarkets in this area you supervise everything from every Department uh as far as price and uh cleanliness and uh help doing their job right and things like that it's just a constant you know grind every [Music] day okay right one two three four well when the chains first came in we were concerned you know as to whether we could keep up our volume we were worried about them wondering whether they'd cut into our business but then we hoped our special services would keep the customers coming and um so we started a few things making muffins in the morning and cheesecakes and salads homemade and it's helped we um they they it keeps the people coming in and then of course we've always done the saving papers and doing little favors for people and babysitting and I've thought about owning my own store but not not in this day and age because competition is too Keen today here comes another one of the bread men a lot of these root men don't care about serving the small stores as a matter of fact uh one of the companies said um if you don't guarantee us so much on a delivery uh we're going to drop you and they did we have to discontinue if we don't get net sales of $25 a week without returns uh it's a company policy that uh we this distinguish the count we rather do these people in chain stores believe me when I tell you and I can speak for about 50 drivers if we have approximately 60 that pull out of our plan there's a good percentage rather do stores like this and i' rather deal with these people than anybody down the block any any chain store any City anywhere you have a close relationship with these mom and pop stores hello Hawaii how's the wife how's the kids in the chain store got to run for a manager go chase him he's out for coffee this guy doesn't want the responsibility to sign and the manager's not I don't need that this man wanted me to leave more product and I kept telling him that I couldn't because with my company the policy is 10% stale and then I have to eat half of whatever else I bring back and then I'm out here working for nothing in other words if I buy say $1,000 right and I bring back $150 stale now the $100 they'll take back but the $50 the company charges me back $25 good morning L morning John don't worry how many cups of coffee was made last night I made 60 cuz I worked last night 60 okay listen before I forget too I'm making up the list you might look cuz I got to go get produce if there's anything comes to mind you better run that over we are very fortunate um Barbara and I to have John he really is a main stay here I found 229 okay very good it's very difficult today to find uh anyone who wants to dedicate themselves to a small business like this we we don't have the money to pay big wages and U unless the person likes working in a in the store and meeting the people and being with them they they just don't stay next to myself and Barbara he runs helps to run the show that's all he takes a lot of the responsibility off my back uh with the ordering and so forth anything I skip he picks up that's what it amounts to is my wife and I and he's the sort of the third partner you know right now the store is running into problems basically because of the large chain stores opening up recently and from the time that I started here I found a a great business especially on weekends and during the week of your local people but one of the problems that we ran into was the fact that a lot of the chain stores started dropping prices and when I talk about dropping prices I'm not talking in a fair margin where it should be competitive I'm talking about dropping prices to where the cost of a certain item would cost us more to buy as a dealer than they were selling it to the public for which basically is a an out andout attempt to put the small stores out of business because there's no way that you can compete on a basis like that different departments has different price structures that bring in different amount of profits uh the meat department runs around around 28% and then they have the uh produce department which runs about 33% and the grocery profit which is the lowest profit is about 1 or 2% so different things that are sold brings back a different profit now if you're going to go into specials you have to try to offset your specials by pricing other things to coincide with them and try to get a overall basic uh what they call a mix they call it a mix they give you the the basic profit mix so it come out even for the whole uh week weekly scheduling of your produce and your meat we can't do it we we don't have the time would we don't have the Machinery uh that's this is done for them the store managers don't have to uh worry about what the markups are that's all told to them by the computers you know they got a print out sheet and that's what it is I I'm not uh that fortunate uh when when when my goods come in no one tells me what I must sell it for to make the profit or what I've got to sell it for to move it that's my uh own choice so uh the apparent thing always is that that we're um scalping everybody and yet we're not we we sell many many items for much less than than uh you'd have to pay in the supermarkets uh basic difference is money you know I mean it's cheaper to shop at a big grocery store than to go to a smaller place you know their prices are marked up much higher the selection you know a lot of lot more selection in a bigger store that I shop in a small store for convenience sometimes when the bigger stores are closed prices are a little bit high but it's the convenience that makes up for it I think they're all right for small items or for runouts or things that you need in the middle of the week but usually when you come for week shopping or big shopping you're better off in the bigger stores the milk and some of the items are probably better priced here than they would be at the supermarket pricewise it's um hard to go into a small store and by the time you shop especially if weekly it's going to cost you a lot of money and with everything going up I don't need that nowadays people are doing the bulk of their shopping at the supermarkets um it used to be that we had several people many people that did the entire week shopping here at Grace but um time times change and they're so they're so positive they can get better Bargains at the supermarket that they do all their shopping there now and do the the odds and ends here uh we still act as a check cashing service for everybody um they'll come in with this car loaded to the gun Wheels with groceries from the A&P and cash a check and do nothing here which I suppose is a thing you have to put up with when you're a small store uh and I can understand in a way I'm a consumer too and um things are tight nowadays and if you can get a better buy down there we try to compete but sometimes we just can't it's a it's a problem it really is the problem is when you can't get First Rate produce in a little store to offer the people you you can't sell it and I was getting all that was available to me really was it it was junk that's all I I wouldn't use it I wouldn't take it home home in my own house and I certainly wouldn't try and sell it to anyone uh if if I can get Prime produce I can put a price tag on it that's necessary for me to Warrant handling it and I can get rid of it I have no problem none you know it sells itself 12 limes okay one strawberry that's the idea when you see something that looks real luscious you know you you don't have to have anyone standing there giving you a sales pitch you okay JN uh what we basically are our lobbyist organization on behalf of small business who up until now really haven't had a voice of them great extent we now represent uh close to 450,000 members and uh the way we go about it is uh besides letting them know what the laws are we ask them to participate and give us their opin opion on bills coming up before Congress you could be voting for someone who's trying to knock your brains out legislative wise without even knowing about it so we give you a scorecard on how these people voted these legislators and it's quite a simple thing this is in the house and this is in the Senate every item in the store must have a price tag on it uh to uh handle a big shipment of soda or beer or whatever when it comes in or the milk before it can be put out for sale it's got to be priced and when you're in the store by yourself I don't know you know no way can you do it it's impossible well as you know they have it in New York City and they had to ease off on it because we prove certain things but the small businessman it's impossible for him to do it and if he had to do it all he would have to hire extra help which of course creates higher prices more inflation than all the rest of it you've got to realize that this country was founded on small business and uh they are the on that's paying more taxes than anyone else they don't have the loopholes that some of the bigger guys have they don't have the attorneys or anything else like that so therefore uh they are taking a heck of a shellacking and unless the small guy gets together like they did in France a few years back and they did something about it they got tax reform for the smaller guy and to give him a fair way of living and don't forget small business hire 60% of all private jobs in this country and when the we had the recession the small businessman still maintained in there many of the big guys were going out of business we have a bus stop and we watch children make sure they say we get in the bus so the mothers don't have to and this one babysitting deal we had a little girl was alone 20 minutes a day and her grandmother was supposed to pick her up her mother had had a baby and Gray's Market Babys set for 20 minutes each day it's whatever happens we do it's very difficult living and working 24 hours a day together if he makes a goof I know about it family life um it's almost non-existent uh even though we're pretty much together seven days a week 24 hours a day it um uh it's like ships crossing the ocean I don't get to talk to him and he doesn't get to talk to me and uh there's one good thing about it we see an awful lot of our son uh he we're available maybe not that instant but he knows where we are and um we live right across the street so that is a good thing Josh uh stocks the shelves he waits on the counter and does very well even though he's only 13 um it's helped him too because he was very shy and couldn't talk to people and when he's behind the cash register he knows more than they do and he feels quite at ease with him it's been a good thing for him very good thing I'd say my working day consists of 700 in the morning till 6:00 at night on uh 4 days 3 days a week and the other two days I work till 9 p.m. and I I work about 60 70 hours a week and I don't see much of my family except in the evening when I go home at night you know it's a long long haul but uh I've been doing it so long I guess uh even on my days off I get up early because I can't sleep you know I'm acclimated to this type of life we can't uh plan our life the way we would like to have it and uh because his job is so demanding and I have to plan around it and we've had a lot of disappointments because of it the chain started to open on Sundays that was the bad that did it it's really cut down on our Sundays although they they still come in but not the way they used to the law states that uh uh if you are a certain size or certain number of employees that you may not open on Sunday yet they flout this thing they've been going right on and that cuts into me that cuts into all the little stories that used to be our day that was the day that we slaved 90 hours a week to to maybe reap a little profit uh but there's nothing done they they certain what and and if a big store gets fine $50 what what you know that's cheap advertisement for him for the day uh I think that one of the things that can be done about it number one is the enfor the enforcing of the Blue Law which prohibits the big stores from being open on Sundays uh as you see these stores are opening up regardless to what the law is you know you uh run a business for many years you find out that the big stores are gradually taking away your customers and by the time that you realize that you have to do something your stock is down because you're using the income from your stock to replenish what has been taken out which means that your Capital that you would have to work with is basically depleted and uh when it comes down to advertising you're talking a small advertisement could run you anywhere to $200 to $11,000 depending on what size ad you wanted in a newspaper so you're talking a lot of money when you talk trying to advertise and cut some of the big stores out in this area I don't know the answer um maybe we're not doing something right but we do everything we know how to please the customers and to give them what they want and we do try to compete with the prices as best we can with the supermarkets we certainly give them way more service and uh uh little things that they could never get in in a supermarket but I don't know something's got to be done or we just can't survive and I don't think we're alone either well they may not realize it now but but we'll be missed if our store closes if we're gone it's fine with me top I think they're ripping everybody off well they do charge you know like I said you know some things are 20 cents more it's ridiculous uh I wouldn't like it because it's much easier to you know to stop into a small store you could leave it you know the child in the car because you can see the child you know from inside the uh inside the store and just running and get your milk and whatever and be out in a few minutes I don't know I I still think we need the small stores because many times the small stores are open later when the larger stores are not the small stores are sometime more convenient because they're right around the corner you're buying something more than just a product when you deal in a local small store you have the friendship and the Personal Touch to it which you don't have any a s in the so-called supermarket store which is more or less a like a factory deal I'm not now that this store is open on Sundays it's not a big problem but before that it would have been a problem if the small stores closed this kind of almost has the General Store quality not quite the way it uh it was many years ago but it still has some of that flavor which I think is very pleasant in a community I think a community prospers more if uh they have a bigger store than a smaller store I think that um that they um that they wouldn't miss it I don't think they would miss a small store in a community if they had a bigger store to shop in you know they'd probably feel better that uh that they had a big store with a bigger selection of things you know cuz the small store really puts them down to where they can only get certain things at certain times and things like that one reason that uh Barbara and I are in business I guess is because we like people and we've made a lot of friends uh while we've been in business and when things are going fine of course it's a great place to be and it's nice to work here and we enjoy the whole thing and uh we a matter of fact one time thought of expanding but uh decided against that because we were afraid we'd lose the personal touch and um this is not the way you run a business like this uh uh we called the fellas who were interested in buying the place and told them no we're not going to sell it just uh we'll sweat our way through the thing and do the best we can uh and try and leave um something to the community when we do finally quit and real let people realize that we maybe served a purpose that uh U if we were in their places I think we would be glad that we had a store to come to like ours [Music]