I hear this from people who are not anti-business. It is taken as a truism.
I wish there was such a term as ‘falsism’. This idea that big business destroys small business is definitely false.
I have worked with bookstores when Borders and Walden's were becoming a problem. Once again when Amazon appeared to be a problem. I worked with clothing stores and bagel outlets when new chains appeared to be a problem. I worked with coffee shops and tea shops as Starbucks grew and expanded. I also worked with large retailers that faced incoming Costcos and Walmarts.
In each of these cases, without exception, if the management was willing to make the necessary changes and innovations that were appropriate for their clientele, they had no problem continuing to succeed in business.
For bookstores, they were going to lose some of their top 10 best seller sales. But they could much better acclimate their inventory to their clientele, if they knew their clientele. They also began having readings and events that interacted with their customers.
I showed the numeric benefit to existing coffee shops when Starbucks arrived, with proof in an earlier blog.
The same was true for every kind of business. Greater interaction with their clientele community, more selective and highly specific inventory improvements were all that were needed. In a few instances, the local businesses needed to lower their costs by joining cooperative wholesale buying groups.
I saw a few businesses fail. The reason was simple and the public will never understand. These people were exhausted. They were tired of running the business. They did not have the energy to make the appropriate changes.
Big business does not kill small business. It makes it better.