A great little store

Some retailers try to be all things to all people. Others pick a niche and do it really well. headphone bar, a small independent Vancouver retailer, sell headphones and does a really good job doing it. (That should be no surprise to anyone.)

Like most small businesses, the owner of headphone bar knows his stock well, understands his customers, and can make changes as the needs, and opportunities, arise.

I found the store by accident and have purchased a couple of items there. The level of service and understanding about both the products and the customers is refreshing. At the "big box" consumer electronics retailers, headphones seem to be an afterthought. The staff really don't seem to care and would probably rather sell a big TV to score the larger commission cheque.

Small retailers (See my earlier posts on Tall Tales Books) have a tough time, but they deserve our business and they'll usually go the extra mile (or 1.6 kilometres) to earn it.

Revenue to the exclusion of functionality

After speaking to the owner of the headphone bar, I learned that The Georgia Straight charges extra to include display advertisements on the website (I should have realized this.) The paper seems to view the print and web version of the newspaper as seperate entities. The reality is that very few of the advertisiers in the print version of the paper seem to bother to pay to get onto the web version.