Flatirons Locksmiths: Where have all the Locksmith shops gone?
One phenomenon with the modern age is that small independently owned specialty retail shops are disappearing at an alarming rate. This is due mostly to the fact that a lot of big box stores are now offering more and more services that these smaller shops did. You have probably heard this before but this post is dedicated specifically to the effect this has had on locksmiths and lock shops.
All but gone are the days when you used to be able to go down to your local lock shop and get a key made or buy a new door knob, pad lock, safe etc. With Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware and even some others now offering key cutting services, locksets and other hardware as well as safes and the like the old local lock shop cannot justify the high expense of a retail location any longer as they cannot compete with the giant department stores. That coupled with the cost of a key duplicate being only a couple of dollars it just doesn’t justify a shop any more especially with the high cost of retail space.
So what have they done now? Well, while anyone can duplicate a key (One might think!) a locksmith still has a special skill set that sets him apart from any big box store and that is not only his skill but the fact that he can come to you. You see, for years locksmiths have been mobile, they come to you when you are locked out of your home, vehicle, business or safe and so now locksmiths are leaving the key cutting and hardware sales to the competition and going completely mobile without a retail presence. This has allowed them to lower overhead, be free from manning a retail shop during business hours and just go on the calls when they come in.
There is one drawer back to this, with the lower overhead and upfront cost to getting into this business it has attracted many inexperienced people in to the business who are less than professional when it comes to reentering your property. So be very careful who you have come to your home or locked out vehicle as they may not take the care that they should and may not have the skills to do the right thing. All of our techs are trained and have a level of experience reentering a home or vehicle that meets our standards and those of the industry and all of them have the right equipment to get the job done right. Give us a call and put us to the test.
Flatirons Locksmiths operates in Boulder & Broomfield County in Colorado, answering calls to Boulder co, Broomfield co, Superior co, Louisville co, Lafayette co, Erie co, Niwot co & Longmont co. We look forward to serving you! Call us at 303-586-6496.
Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware are registered trade names of their respective owners and are only used in this post for the purpose of examples, Flatirons Locksmith has no affiliation or connection with them. All rights reserved.