Entrepreneur.Com predicts big changes for some popular businesses

Kirk Jones said he has heard the experts and seen surveys for years about how telemarketing is a dying business.

"The business is still going strong," said Jones, director of fundraising for the Alabama Fraternal Order of Police call center in Florence.

Telemarketing is one of 10 businesses predicted to be extinct or reinvented in the next 10 years, according to Entrepreneur.Com.

"We do 1,000 calls a day all over the state, but we have rules," Jones said of the FOP call center. "We call only between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. and do not call on state holidays or Sunday.

"There is a place for this type of work, especially for the nonprofit organizations like ours."

Other businesses the Entrepreneur.Com survey predicts will be short-lived or reconfigured include record stores, camera film manufacturers, crop dusters, used bookstores and coin-operated arcades.

Dr. Lou Marino, professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Alabama, said change caused by technology is evident in most businesses.

"It's called creative destruction," Marino said. "When the first auto came out, who would have thought at the time that the horse and buggy would be replaced? But the automobile caught on and things changed."

"Creative destruction" is having a strong impact on the camera film industry.

"We just don't get a lot of requests for film like we used to," said Autumn Owen, manager of Wolfe Camera in Muscle Shoals. "That's because more and more people are using digital cameras.

"The variety (of film cameras) are very limited. Most of those are used by beginning photographers," she said. "People can take photos and then download them on their computer and have a print all from the convenience of their home."

Home convenience and the Internet also have impacted the record store business.

For 30 years, Wanda Cooper owned and operated a record store in Red Bay but closed the business in April.

"We started out with albums and eight-tracks," Cooper said. "We just couldn't compete with the larger stores. We were hurting before technology advanced and everyone went to the Internet and MP3 players and downloading songs."

Pegasus Records in Florence, which has been operating for 28 years, is now the only independent record store in the area.

"(The business) is never going to be like it was in the 1980s and 1990s, but there will always be a market for tangible items such as records," owner Eli Flippen said. "We still have thousands of records, and we have people who like to just come in and browse."

Flippen said the majority of the business revolves around CDs, "but a lot of people like the vinyl records as collectors items."

Flippen said much of his business is for special orders and out-of-print items. "Plus, we give people that personal touch, something they can't get on the Internet."

Charlotte White said having a niche is one thing that keeps customers coming back to her used bookstore, the Book Lion Shoppe, in downtown Florence.

"A lot of people shop for books on the Internet or larger stores, but we try to have old books, a lot of children's books, that other stores might not handle," White said. "Plus, we handle a lot of local historian authors.

"We're not in competition with the larger stores; we're just trying to find our own niche to be attractive to shoppers."

Entrepreneur.Com placed crop dusting on its list noting it is a business that has declined because new technologies have made crop dusting less important.

Lindsey Barber, director of communications for the National Agricultural Aviation Association, said there are 3,200 crop duster operators and pilots in the U.S.

"There are a ton of new pilots getting into the business," she said. "It's always going to be around in some form."

And while arcades made the list, Edna Goldman, who owns Power Play Inc., which operates a number of coin-operated arcades in the U.S. and one in Regency Square Mall, says change is the key to survival.

Goldman said arcades have been hurt by home computer games.

"Game rooms in malls aren't as popular as they once were," Goldman said. "People want more activities, and we're seeing more family entertainment centers popping up.

"There will always be a need for the arcades, we just have to change with the times. We've gone from pin ball machines to computer operated machines and now we're changing to redemption type machines."

Kerry Gatlin, dean of the University of North Alabama College of Business, said technology will continue to transform businesses.

"Some businesses will be effected more than others and to survive, businesses will have to change and adapt," Gatlin said.

He said individuals, too, will change, somewhat.

"I can remember when I didn't want a microwave, cell phone or computer," he said. "Now, I don't know how to get by without them. It's all about fast, easy and convenient, that's what we're all looking for."

Marino said some businesses that the survey predicts could become extinct, will survive "just not in the broad base that we once knew."

"Who we are as a society changes and our needs change," Marino said. "There will be businesses survive because of niches and nostalgia.

"But I wouldn't put any stock in pay phones."

Tom Smith can be reached at 740-5757 or tom.smith@timesdaily.com.