I suppose you could say writing & selling games solves a problem such as how do I spend some free time? Or, how do I unwind? I don’t consider those problems as much as I think of them as attention getters; capitalizing on one’s time (free or otherwise).

Anyway, I was in a small shop back in my home town some time ago. The shop owner knew all his customers by name, the products they purchased, and their frequency. He would say, “Howdy Eric, be the usuall today?” And I’d say, “sure Bob” followed up by “See you in a few weeks, Bob.”

Small must mean your local art store that’s larger than the small I described. Miller’s is a popular art store here in Michigan. They are located within a few miles of most University campuses that have an Architecture program. I bet they could use software like this!

I’d say don’t lose hope. Instead focus on solving people’s problems, and satisfying hungry customers. Your competitors cannot possible satisfy everyone’s hunger. They either have to get too big which we know slows companies down, or there will always be hungry people.

Looks like someone read my blog this morning and stole my idea, beating me to market by several months.

Those bastards.

Unfortunately, there website doesn’t seem to contain any pricing information

What if I discovered that artists who buy the most expensive paints tend to buy second-best brushes? Do people who buy acrylics also buy watercolors? How often do customers return to refill their supplies? Which types of customers are the most profitable? Are there certain kinds of customers who only buy low-margin items, without ever making up for it by buying high-margin items?

Even though my examples were from grocery stores, I think the same analytic principles could be applied to pretty much any retail store with sufficient sales volume.

Of course, you could argue that the retail marketplace no longer includes small businesses. The only stores left are WalMart-style superstores, and privately owned merchants are an anachronism. Maybe that’s true.