Kentucky.com:
Everyone is talking about the tough times that have hit our economy. For small business owners, tough times have been here for awhile. The credit crunch is just the latest assault on the mom-and-pop shops that make up the backbone of our economy.
To see what is happening to small business, just take a drive from Evansville, Ind. to Mayfield. Mile after mile of big national chain stores have replaced independent businesses.
In this big-box retail era ruled by giants like Wal-Mart and Target, it’s heartening to know you can still find mom-and-pop stores like mine. Many of us now reside online, and we’re just a click away.
But recently, I and millions of other small business entrepreneurs have come under attack by the big boxes and other retailers who are running a multi-million dollar scare campaign designed to keep you at their cash registers rather than my online store.
Portraying online buyers and small business sellers as crooks, the big-box lobby is demanding anti-Internet action by Congress and state legislatures. They want laws that would make it illegal to sell certain products online, and they want a disclosure of personal information from anyone who sells online. In other words, they want to reduce consumer choices and invade the privacy of the sellers. Some of the measures would outlaw online marketplace sites from allowing sellers to offer items anonymously.
At a recent hearing before Congress, a spokesman for the retail industry, which represents the behemoths, drew parallels between the habits of online sellers and those of drug addicts and criminals. He warned ominously of “organized retail crime.”
It is not criminal to provide consumers with the most options at the best prices. Neither is there anything unseemly about a small retailer wanting to preserve privacy. The mega-retailers want to hassle competitors, not ferret out wrongdoers.
The people who are trading goods in the bustling world of e-commerce should not be hobbled by unnecessary regulations. And they certainly do not deserve to be maligned as criminals.
Photo by Unkle_Cheese.