The Conduct of Business

Part I: The Right Way to do Business

About two weeks ago, Kathleen and I stopped off in Intercourse, PA as that she saw some handcrafted mailboxes for display in front of an Amish house/farm. This was alongside state highway 340, about four miles east of Intercourse. We had just priced the same style of mailboxes at a store in Intercourse, and now we wanted to know how much these were.

We were soon greeted by an Amish housewife who had at least four children, all barefoot, and all wearing the same color of shirts. She invited us into the upstairs of the barn where we could look at more mailboxes. There were several to choose from and the prices she quoted were significantly lower than the store back in Intercourse. We decided to buy from her.

We asked about shipping, and she told us her husband would take care of it for us, but would need some extra funds for the shipping. No big deal, I had the cash. I handed her the payment for the mailbox and payment for the shipping. She asked me to write down my address on a post-it note, which I did.

I then asked for permission to get a close look at the buggy that was parked in front of the barn. She obliged, and I studied the dashboard (nice handcrafted wood) and the interior. I saw that it had been equipped with battery-powered turn signals.

After my examination of the buggy, I thanked her, whereupon Kathleen and I drove off.

I remarked to Kathleen how I could feel comfortable trusting the woman to the point of handing her cash for the mailbox and shipping. I didn't ask for receipt; I didn't feel the need to. The Amish are a very religious people who can be trusted to keep their word. Others may look down on them but I won't.

Would you hand $80 over to a complete stranger on a promise that they'll ship the goods to you? In most circumstances you wouldn't, and neither would I. But with the Amish, you know that you can count on them to keep their word. It makes me wish that all businesses had the same set of ethics. The mailbox arrived via UPS a few days after I got home.

That's the right way to do business.

Part II: The Wrong Way to do Business

Basha's is a chain of supermarkets that operates stores throughout most of Arizona. They also own and operate AJ's Fine Foods, which caters to the upscale market, and Food City, which caters to the Hispanic market. But their main chain is Basha's, and they have been in the business for decades. They have good meats and good produce. At one time they had good service but they decided to abandon that a few years ago.

Their nearest store is at Broadway & Houghton, which is a short walk from where I live. I used to go there when I first bought my house in May of 2000. About two years later, Safeway opened up a store across the street from them, and I was impressed with the level of service there. The cashiers there went out of their way to be friendly and to "care". Now you can make the argument that they had to since they were an upstart entry into the business complexes at that intersection, and you'd be right. However, over the years they maintained their friendly attitude and you felt good shopping there.

Meanwhile the Basha's across the street started to change. If you went in to buy only a few items, you would have to wait in the lines behind the big buyers since they wouldn't open the express line anymore. I even wrote an email to the store manager, which he indicated he would then try an "experiment" and keep the express line open during non-peak hours. Over the course of time, the "experiment" was abandoned as that Basha's would never open the express line even during the peak hours as I found out one Saturday morning some eight months ago.

I fired off another email to them, wondering why they would only have one register open while fifteen people were waiting to check out. Three times the cashier looked up at the long line, and would not call for help (I'm now thinking that there wasn't any other staff available to help). I got a response from the district manager that essentially denied that there was a problem. Fine, I don't beg people to take my money from me. If someone doesn't want my business then I won't give it to them.

Three or four months ago, Basha's announced they were going to close some "underperforming" stores. Those stores have since closed. Last month they announced they were going into Chapter 11.

Today they announced that their Broadway/Houghton store would be closing too, along with some other stores elsewhere in Arizona.

I don't think the problem was with the Broadway/Houghton intersection. This part of Tucson has grown since I bought my house, and even within the past two years we've had two banks open at that intersection. It's a good neighborhood. There's no reason why two supermarkets can't make it at Broadway/Houghton.......unless you consider the possibility that the Basha's there alienated a significant amount of their customer base which in turn is now shopping at Safeway.

I brought my issues to the attention of Basha's last December. They denied that there was a problem.

That's the wrong way to do business.