In the spring of 1954, Bill Child was a new graduate of the University of Utah preparing to start a career as a school teacher in a rural town thirty miles north of Salt Lake City. Within weeks, he was running a small appliance business founded by his father in law, R.C. Willey, who had fallen gravely ill and died a few months later. Starting with a small family business that had revenues of $250,000, Mr. Child built an enterprise with sales of $257 million prior to selling the company to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway forty one years later. Read this article for more details.
Expand a Competitive Moat in Retail by Closing on Sundays?
On the surface, the idea of sacrificing fourteen percent, or one-seventh, of a retail store’s potential selling hours seems absurd enough. To do so on a day of the week when most consumers have a day off seems to be even more damaging for the prospects of a retail business. Customers want to purchase goods and services at times that are convenient for them. Many business models revolve around catering to the consumer and this often includes long hours particularly on weekends. Read this article for a couple of examples of cases where a closed on Sunday policy has been successfully implemented.