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by ameister14 4384 days ago
I disagree with your second statement. If I run a gas station along a heavily trafficked street, is that a mistake? I have one source of customer; people aren't going to be loyal to my services enough to drive for them. If the traffic on the street lessens, I can lose business.

It doesn't mean it's a bad idea to buy or build the gas station there.

1 comments

Yes, if the traffic on the street lessens then you will lose (some) business. But where is the unfairness in that? You don't actually have a right to business.

And if people are not loyal that's a serious problem with either the line of business you are in or your relationship with your customer.

I'm not saying it's unfair. I'm saying you can enter into a business where you have a competitive advantage based on location and run said business profitably, and that's not a mistake.

If it didn't work, we would have no gas stations. I don't know about you, but I'm not so loyal to a particular gas station that I would drive farther to reach it if there were others more convenient to me that offered the same service for the same price. That doesn't mean it's a bad business. It means there is competition with fairly exact substitutes, and location is a big part of success.