So Medved had an author of a book about Walmart not being bad on his show today, and i got to hear it. I thought it was an interesting topic, and would like to ask the board... what think ye?
Is Walmart the devil?
--Ray
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In two seperate communities in my city, I've observed the effects of Wal-Mart moving in. Small locally-owned businesses like hardware stores and produce markets don't last long--they usually close within a few months. Traffic increases exponentially, which means an increase in pollution and a decrease in safety for pedestrians and cyclists.
All of this is true for any Superstore, not just Wal-Mart. In this aspect, Wal-Mart's not evil--it's all just capitalism. But it's capitalism that I intend to passionately crusade against if it ever tries to invade my community.
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I shope regularly at Wal-mart as well as several other places. That habit hasn't changed as long as I've been shopping. I do not think Wal-mart is evil, nor Target, nor K-mart, nor Sears, nor Home Depot, etc. and etc.
Traffic increases exponentially, which means an increase in pollution and a decrease in safety for pedestrians and cyclists.
I don't "buy" that. Rather than drive to numerous locations to shop, one can get most of it in one place thus decreasing the amount of driving around town. Before the Wal-mart opened that we shop at currently, we had to drive further to a K-mart or another Wal-mart. One can easily circumvent the location of a Wal-mart for walking and riding a bike. Wal-mart stores are usually located on already heavily trafficked areas.
Small locally-owned businesses like hardware stores and produce markets don't last long--they usually close within a few months. Such creatures were rare before we even had our Wal-marts and did not go away once our Wal-marts started to open up. Non big-box alternatives were and are few and more expensive but provide unique service that some still find more attractive and enough so to patronize them. Thus, they still exist.
Do you actually live near a shopping center or area that has a big box store?
The sheer volume of traffic in the area does increase (maybe not exponentially) because instead of everyone going to the smaller stores (which are typically closer to home), they congregate from a larger cachement area to the big box locations because they make more 'practical' sense to shop at instead of all the little trips. But, the reality is, consumers are so used to shopping, that the overall number of trips are not less. They go to the big box locations as frequently as the would non-big box locations.
Big box retailers go into a great depth of research to determine where to open up the next store in their chain so that they won't adversely impact sales at their other stores, but will be able to compete against the competition already there or gain the advantage of being first to the area.
At least around my area, part of the a community's decision at allowing (or zoning for) a new retailer to come in is traffic studies, where they determine what the current traffic flow, volumes, and patterns are like, compare it to what the anticipated will be and if the road infrastructure can support the increase.
Before the national / international big box retailing concept, there was the department store. That is what we all most likely grew up with knowing. And there was a definite difference, even if from a consumer standpoint it appears the same. Outside of say Sears, JC Penney, and Kmart, department stores were local or regional. Are there many local department store chains anymore? I can't think of any. Even the regional ones are basically miniature versions of the national Big Box model (e.g. Meijer, The Andersons...). But the local and regional department store chains could not compete as retailers started consolidating and the bigger players experienced economies of scale the smaller ones couldn't achieve. Today, even the "local" chains we may have known, if they still exist, were bought up by large conglomerations and are really only a division or something that carries the old namesake.
Smaller retailers are increasingly being forced into the specialized niche markets.
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Cat Herder wrote: Do you actually live near a shopping center or area that has a big box store?
The sheer volume of traffic in the area does increase (maybe not exponentially) because instead of everyone going to the smaller stores (which are typically closer to home), they congregate from a larger cachement area to the big box locations because they make more 'practical' sense to shop at instead of all the little trips. But, the reality is, consumers are so used to shopping, that the overall number of trips are not less. They go to the big box locations as frequently as the would non-big box locations.
Big box retailers go into a great depth of research to determine where to open up the next store in their chain so that they won't adversely impact sales at their other stores, but will be able to compete against the competition already there or gain the advantage of being first to the area.
At least around my area, part of the a community's decision at allowing (or zoning for) a new retailer to come in is traffic studies, where they determine what the current traffic flow, volumes, and patterns are like, compare it to what the anticipated will be and if the road infrastructure can support the increase.
We live a few blocks from the newest Wal-mart in town (opened in 2005). Prior to that store opening there were not any little shops located closer - they are pretty sparse in our area of town. The store is located next to a highway and a major road. The route I take to and from home for work goes right by the store and is the same route I took prior to the store opening. Of course, traffic is going to go up but I have no more problem with traffic congestion than I did before the store opened. The fact is, the location was heavily trafficked before, now more people have a place to stop on the way home or from home to shop.
Our Wal-mart stops have increased but we are driving less in doing so because it is often on the way to or from somewhere. The same goes for a new Home Depot that opened up last year that is most often on our way to or from somewhere. Before that we had to go out of our way to either go to Wal-mart or Home Depot or an alternative.
I'm sorry. Didn't mean for that to sound the way it probably did. I don't think any of us who live in the city or suburbia are going to be very far away from one.
We won't necessarily see an increase in traffic congestion during rush hour. It will show up in the non-rush hour times... sometimes to the point there is hardly a difference between rush hour and non-rush hour (if one is not normally driving in the area in particular). I've noticed it in our area where there are greater concentrations of shopping centers congregated along thoroughfares. So, yeah, one or two "big box" format stores by themselves aren't going to make a huge dent, but put in whole shopping developments (which at least around here is the norm) that are anchored by these big box chains, and whoa nelly, the roads are gonna get busy from early in the morning with rush hour until the stores close at 9 or 10 at night.
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It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
I used to like going to Walmart when we had the small walmart store. Then they built the superwalmart and I now go through the side entrance through automotive directly to the ammo section. In our area, Walmart hasn't really had much of an impact on the small mom and pops because if people wanted to go to Walmart they just drove an hour to the next town. The new superwalmart is too big and items I need are always on opposite ends of the store or I cannot find them. The walmart workers have no clue where anything is. I sent my wife in for a USB cable the other day and I had to describe to her on her cell phone where it was because the walmart worker had no clue. The sporting goods section is no where near as good as in the old walmart. During Christmas I actually drove to an old style Walmart in a neighboring town over an hour away and they had less people and I was able to find what I wanted quickly. I spent less than an hour in the store. If I went to my Walmart I would have been at least in there twice that long.
I don't think Walmart is evil. They are the 800 pound gorilla in retail so they get the blame for everything and are targeted. They also don't have union workers so the grocery and retail unions are constantly targeting them with bad press and charges of worker abuse. If Walmart is so bad for workers how come thousands apply for the few hundred jobs whenever one opens. How come people are constantly applying for jobs there. I don't think that Sam Walton would like the current look of his stores or the corporate philosophy but I'm inclined to let the market decide. Personally, I would rather shop other places but Walmart is often open when others are closed in the evenings when I have free time.
Rather than drive to numerous locations to shop, one can get most of it in one place thus decreasing the amount of driving around town. Before the Wal-mart opened that we shop at currently, we had to drive further to a K-mart or another Wal-mart. One can easily circumvent the location of a Wal-mart for walking and riding a bike. Wal-mart stores are usually located on already heavily trafficked areas.
