Have you ever considered that it’s a front? You may think that store that never has customers is just run incompetent business people, but in reality the real objective is not the one you believe it to be, and it’s actually great if you were to refuse understanding that.

I've found that framing topics like this as primarily a pretext for different motives is a sure-fire way to be ignored by people you may want to convince.

As always, the goal in convincing others is to take someone from their current understanding and bring them closer to yours. You can't get there if you don't start the topic at their current understanding of it.