Efficiency

I own a family chocolate shop. It’s been in the family for three generations. Sometimes people ask if it’s difficult to make it as a small business in a world with global economies and giant factories. The answer is, yes and no. I won’t deny that a franchise like Walmart puts a lot of pressure on us. But there are advantages, too. I paid my daughter thirty dollars to design a website where people can buy our chocolate from anywhere in the world, and we actually pull in quite a few sales from it.

The efficiency of factories also increases my buying power; I understand that. I needed to do some work on my old truck, and I was able to snag the Toyota parts I needed online. They ship obscure Toyota accessories to anywhere in the world. And genuine Toyota parts are a lot less expensive than you’d think, too. Factories where robots do the welding and hard labor can produce goods for a small fraction of the cost of hiring workers to do everything by hand. I shop at Walmart myself, and it makes it a lot easier to get by on what I make from the chocolate shop. The truth is, there will always be a demand for the personal human touch, even if it costs more.