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Wallace Meyer Jr., a Kansas University business professor, says a number of factors make it harder for independent businesses to compete with chain-store competitors.

Meyer is director of entrepreneurship programs at the University of Kansas School of Business.

“The real underlying degree of difficulty created by chains and larger entities is the ability to leverage economies of scale or volume purchases,” Meyer said. “Retailers are probably the biggest example, with restaurants right after that.”

Meyer said service-oriented businesses can be among the most inexpensive to start up.

That’s because, he said, you don’t have a huge capital investment, and the business can be run out of one’s own home.

Additionally, Meyer said, “the individual develops a certain expertise,” such as in home repair or painting.

Auto repair is one industry that has “changed dramatically,” Meyer said.

“Twenty to 25 years ago, where you got your auto repaired was at gas station. Not only has that totally changed, the repair itself has been segmented by the kind of repair,” Meyer said. “Those kinds of individual repair institutions are now chain-dominated.”

For example, he said, people go to one chain for oil changes, another for air-conditioning repairs, and yet another for dings to their car’s bodies to be removed.

Even though these businesses are often individually owned, but part of a franchise, they “work in a highly regulated environment,” Meyer said.

The non-chain stores that succeed, Meyer said, “tend to be labor-intensive, where the customer service is the potential differentiator, as important in the customers’ experience. Those tend to be prone for either individual ownership or franchise ownership,” Meyer said.

The ones that don’t succeed, Meyer said, are “where you walk in expecting the lowest price, and are willing to sacrifice service for variety. Those (businesses) leverage strength of purchasing.”

But it’s different when a consumer is looking for customer service or a unique product. Meyer said the need for businesses that service electronics is growing because of increasingly complex technology, while other businesses, such as those that offer shoe repair, are seeing a decline in demand for their services. Society makes it easier to dispose of products than to get them repaired

“The cost of repair is up and cost of shoes down,” Meyer said. “Unfortunately we live in a highly disposable society, to the detriment of our environment.”

“I don’t see a lot of this changing,” Meyer added. “I do think there will be a wholesale changes as it relates to recycling, when you get into personal goods probably.”

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