Why Are Dealers Like This?

Why are so many dealers so absurdly behind the times? How do they stay in business like this?

This isn't the only example that I've seen, but it's one of the most blatant. Nothing against the dealer, I'm not even going to list who it is unless someone asks, I just don't get it. A long time ago, I ran across this dealer at a show, bought a couple of things from him, he was a nice guy. Then, it must have been a year or two ago, I saw him advertising. I went to his web site and it hadn't been updated since 2020. His list of shows that he was going to hadn't been updated since 2019. His online store is broken. It's just a blank page. I figured he died or had gone out of business and forgot all about it.

Yesterday, I got the most recent issue of The China Clipper and he's advertising in it on the very first page. I went to his website and it hasn't changed in *4* years! Everything is still broken, yet he's still trying to send people to a page that doesn't work and isn't accurate and you can't even buy anything from!

Wouldn't you assume that if he's not going to maintain a web presence, he'd just take it off of his ads? I had to go back and look and while he hasn't advertised in every issue, he has done so sporadically. I just want to know what he's got and his physical store isn't anywhere remotely close to me.

How do these people stay in business, since this isn't remotely the only dealer that does things like this? I don't get it!

He may be receiving the ad in China Clipper for free, and they reuse the same copy without checking with him. Editors of specialty publications often will do this to avoid the negative appearance of blank page space and lack of ad support.

Some solo business owners rapidly get overwhelmed with maintaining a website with current inventory. They're doing fine with sales at shows, someone convinces them they need a website, a buddy sets it up, then it languishes because they never learn how to update it, or the web platform or editing software loses support and isn't maintained, and they don't want to upgrade to Drupal 64 or whatever.

There's a YouTube channel I watch and part of the tagline on every new episode was "We're on Twitter" even though it had been literally years since they had Tweeted but they kept it out of habit even while acknowledging they were not actually on Twitter and it took months and months of actively trying to change it to actually change it. If this dealer has trouble maintaining a website, it is probably also a technical challenge for them to update their ad. Or maybe they want to keep just the address because you're "supposed" to be online (like the YT channel was 'supposed' to be on twitter). There are lots and lots of people who still use the internet as nothing more than lead generation, and don't seem to realize that you can use it to automate inventory and fulfillment of orders, marketing, support, and basically every aspect of your business. I'm definitely not defending being in the stone age technologically, but dealers like this will be around for decades to come.

How do they stay in business? Simple, they cater to a customer base who isn't online. Personally I purchase material exclusively online (ebay, hipstamp, SAN and the various proprietary auction platforms) so whichever dealer this is isn't getting any of my money.

They make sales.




Here is how they have stayed in Business for over 150 years and how you continue to do business as what you purchase isn't sent as electrons:









Speaking of being behind the times I must ask, "What is Twitter?"

(whisper, whisper, whisper)

Oh that was before X and similar but not as good due political bias and willing censorship. That was so last year.



Edit: As great of a customer we each may be, not every dealer needs us or even wants us as the dealer is doing just fine without us, thank you. Edit #2 to put a space in maybe.

And this shows how little the dealer understands about advertising.

This all reminds me of a joke I saw in MAD Magazine in the 1970's:

"You're telling me that Paul McCartney was in a group before the Wings???"

Never try to parse another's stupidity it'll only drive you mad. Just today I went to a coin store in my area (they also sell some stamps though I have to beg to see them). I've been trying to ease my way into the worker's good graces to get him to show me more stamps. On the walls are albums, stock binders, red boxes. I ask, "what's in those? Coins or stamps?" He says oh that's stamps but we haven't looked at those in years. I ask, "I couldn't maybe look could I?" He promptly shuts me down. "No." I have cash literally burning a hole in my pocket and this guy blows me off. Needless to say I'll expend my efforts elsewhere

The tech revolution was a tough paradigm shift, even for a lot of otherwise very smart people.

For someone who owns a business, of almost any kind now, to not embrace technology will obviously cost them. I am sympathetic, to a degree, since technology did introduce such a paradigm shift in how everything is done. Some people simply won't ever adjust. "C'est la vie" (such is life).

I agree with much of what others have written above. For me, the paradigm shift was literally over a generation ago (25+ years) so I no longer think it is a good justification.

At this point it appears to me that it is more about not wanting to learn and/or change.
Don

I'm not saying that he's stupid, in fact, he's a really nice man, that's one reason I didn't link to his stuff because I don't want anyone making fun of him. I'd love to do business with him, but since I'm not going to drive a thousand miles to go to his shop, and I can't even plan to attend a show that he's going to be at since he doesn't update the shows he's going to be at, there isn't much I can do.

I think we all have really bad stories out there. There's a "local" stamp and coin shop, almost all coins which makes it pointless to go to, which is locked up so tight that I honestly wonder if it's not just a drug front. The doors are always locked, you have to knock and wait for an armed guard to come and open it up and then he stands there and watches you like a hawk. It's not like it's in a bad area or anything, they're just ridiculously paranoid. Besides, you can't find anything because the inside of the store looks like something exploded. It's your worst packrat nightmare realized. Stuff just piled all over the place and they are rude when you walk in the door, like they don't want your business. It's why I figure they're counterfeiting something in the back or whatever. Yet they've been there forever, even though I don't know that I've ever seen anyone inside buying anything. Who knows?

Or maybe he's been dead for years. Someone else said that maybe the magazine was just filling space with ads for free. Who really knows?

No email address? No telephone number? No mailing address? I'd try to reach him and ask if he has a preferred method of dealing with customers who aren't face to face. You have nothing to lose and you might find out that he sends out email offers. I bought some lovely things from a bricks-and-mortar dealer with a myspace-era website, who also sent out regular email offerings.

My small town local coin shop which started and grew from a display in the town's bowling alley Had a nice shoot out with the owner coming from nowhere in the back firing an AR-15 at the criminals who fled from the wife manning the counter. The days are long gone where your valuable gold and silver inventory does not have to be behind layers, as in many layers of security.

The shop is still open and run by his widow after he passed from cancer.

So does his widow come busting out with the gun now? Maybe she has insurance to cover her losses.