That's why I like HEB. If they say they don't have it, the shelf is empty. They will also offer a substitute in most cases.

I worked for a family owned escape room. And I worked for a family owned Ashley furniture franchise.

Your experience was with your own families business. They can't exactly just get rid of you. Being hired on to someone else's family business is something I wouldn't recommend. At the ashley store, I was only there for 10 days (3 days training and 7 selling). I finished with higher sales than all the family members except 1, but I was let go for "low numbers" even though I was 3rd out of 9 sales people my first week on the sales floor.

The escape room, well, the actual owner was hardly ever there, saw him maybe once a month. My issue with them was the training. They had someone train me as I went, but she just kinda showed me as a situation popped up, not beforehand. The owners would show up and just yell at me for something I had no idea was even something I was supposed to do, and neither did the girl training me. I would get in trouble. She wouldn't. Just showed huge amounts of favoritism that never happens at any corporate place I've worked.

I'm sure some are great, hell, I owned a food truck before, and my wife owned a froyo shop before. but I'm not just going to blindly support a small business just because they are small, I need them to provide something that puts them ahead of the larger competition. This is capitalism. Competition is supposed to be a thing.

As someone who has worked for several small businesses, I can tell you these people are the worst people to work for. I don't feel pity for them.

Instead, they need to have a reason for me to patronize their business instead of buying online. Do they have a unique product I can't get elsewhere? Do they sell thing cheaper? Do they pay their employees a living wage? Is the local community better off with their existence, or are they a burden?

Yeah I stopped shopping in store as soon as the option to buy online came up. The only store I still go into nowadays is a gas station.

That's not Riley Reid

Can confirm. Just had to get rid of 4 at work. Working out of a double wide, they took out 60% of the insulation and disconnected the vents from the AC unit. It cost a lot to get that repaired.