[blantonl]

there are many businesses around today that you might only once in a lifetime come across - if even at all. Funeral homes, disaster restoration companies, etc. However, they are amazingly competitive industries and have amazingly high margins.

That means they will fight with all means they can to insure that their ability to protect those margins is in place.

[cjdavis]

How can they be amazingly competitive industries AND have amazingly high margins at the same time? I thought those were mutually exclusive things.

[blantonl]

the reason is because of the lack of players in the industry in any given locale.

First, in my examples above, those businesses are highly undesirable industries to be involved in as an owner and an employee, but highly profitable. Second, most of those above listed businesses are family owned with a lot of experience and background in the industry they represent.

Newcomers are viewed as strongly suspicious and since those existing entities know the ins and outs, it is an uphill climb.

This doesn't mean that good innovation cannot overcome the obstacles that these very established businesses have, but you can bet that tradition and experience in those businesses will lead to a lot of ammunition for a fierce fight when newcomers arrive on the scene.

[Joakal]

Or there's high costs to entry and this can lead to collusions "Lets agree on 100x mark up for this suburb". Eg telcos.

[w1ntermute]

> there are many businesses around today that you might only once in a lifetime come across

Another good example is matrimonial services. Companies in the matrimonial industry make a killing, and with the right kind of advertising, the market can be easily disrupted.