SL Sex, Lies, and Mind Games

Tesco in the UK does exactly the same, and they have a deservedly bad reputation.

The funny thing is, they only people here that Wal Mart has put out of business has been the pricey chains at the mall. With 2 Wal Marts and 3 big box hardware stores the only two grocery stores that have closed did so because the owners retired and their children were doing other work and didn't want to carry on. The only local hardware store that has closed was part of a local 3 store chain, closed because the owners were getting older (and one went to prison for hiring a hitman to kill his wife) and they couldn't manage 3 stores any longer.

I swear you live down the street. I'll probably run into you at Wal-Mart later today. Christmas Shopping.

I see exactly the opposite effect. The Wal-Marts in this region tend to attract other businesses. Far from being a "kill zone", the Wal-Marts attract other businesses because of the large amount of traffic they generate. I'm sure the additional disposable income people have because of the Wal-Marts helps, too. Here, at least, businesses flourish around the Wal-Marts.

They may have helped contribute to businesses moving out of the old downtown area here, but that's moving, not going out of business. Wal-Marts certainly weren't the only factors in businesses moving though. They moved to newer buildings with better parking and other infrastructure.

The malls killed downtown around here, well before Wal Mart ever came to town. When Penny's and Sears moved to the mall, Broadway (our main street) died. Funny, you don't see people protesting Sears and Penny's.

Agree. I had a downtown retail store, back then....in a different type area where I live now. Better economy. It was the swanky, fancy, high end malls that pulled people from the downtown areas.

It was stores similar to Macy's, Toys-R-Us that made it almost impossible for a downtown merchant to compete. I remember what happened to the guy across the street with the sweet little coffee shop.....when Starbuck's came to town.

I suppose that the whole issue is a very complicated one, and that different approaches to urbanization probably have an impact as well. Toronto still has a very vibrant and "alive" downtown (I live in the west end of it); such Wal-Marts as go in are invariably suburban or at least on the fringes of the downtown, and do have a centrifugal impact on business in the core. From what I know of the cities, the same is true of Montreal and Vancouver.

The issue of the social cost of Wal-Mart's success is, again, a really complex one. It's not just about providing cheap goods to people of limited means: it's about the other impacts. One ramification, for instance, relates to choice: a world dominated by Wal-Marts is going to be one in which Wal-Mart in effect determines the goods that are available to purchase. On the one hand, we know (again, this is the Canadian experience anyway) that Wal-Mart's heavy-handed tactics with suppliers have driven some out of business, and caused immense hardships to others. On the other, we know (in Canada, anyway) that Wal-Mart quite cheerfully engages in outright censorship, deciding (most obviously) which movies, CDs, or books are available to you to buy. When there are no alternate stores left to buy such excluded goods, will people continue to produce them? Or will they start producing things only under the certainty that Wal-Mart will carry them?

In a free market, someone will always fill the niche. If Wal Mart doesn't carry it, Google will show me someone who does.

That is a very scary thought indeed.

i shop at Walmart all the time. can't beat their prices on socks and vitamins, monthly girlie stuffs and shampoo. that way, i can still afford to buy the important things like pants at Long Elegant Legs and lingerie and t-shirts at Victoria's Secret.

You're talking about very large cities. I really don't grasp how it can affect a large city like that, suburbs or not....any more than any other large chain would affect.

I'm talking about communities with less than 100k people. Or even less than 50K. It's make or break on food and clothing. Particularly now. It always has been to some degree.

Whenever I saw someone on some news clip or commentary, complaining about Wal-Mart....it's generally someone in trendy yuppie garb, holding a latte in their hand, in front of their swanky little boutique....that their parents probably passed down to them, and their Lexus parked in front on an expired meter, while their downtown customer has to park in the parking garage and walk three blocks.

Something somewhat similar has started happening with the other bête noire of this thread, Starbucks, which has begun to have a real impact on the music business by cutting out competitors for, or actually commissioning the recording of, some of the music CDs that they carry. The economic impact of music sales through Starbucks outlets is hefty enough that they are gaining some real leverage in terms of WHAT recording artists are producing for them.

Oh, I don't deny for a moment that some of the anti-Wal-Mart sentiment is snobbish as hell. Nor that their prices are cheap, and that they service a community that needs cheap. But they have actually, here anyway, destroyed other chains that were ALREADY providing cut-rate goods. Kmart, Woolworths, and others of that ilk were essentially driven out of Canada by Wal-Mart, while a home-grown chain, Zellers, has been forced to retool their entire operation, by getting out of the "cheap goods" business entirely in order to survive.

I work under the assumption that competition keeps prices down. Wal-Mart consciously and deliberately destroys competition. They do so by being, for the time being, somewhat "cheaper," and certainly more convenient, than their competition, but what are the larger costs that result from their growing monopoly?

That's called survival of the fittest and success in your market. Those retail operations that did not survive a few years ago....would never have survived today, anyway. Things change. Look at how people shop on the Internet.

I'm not sure....what ARE the larger costs? (if they cleared out) In my area, it would probably be hundreds of people out of a job.....then it would mean them having to pay higher prices in addition to being out of a job. Or finding another job at one of the "acceptable" stores for half the pay.

This thread was much more fun when it was about sex . . .

It was. Let's bring back teh SeX.

Pardon for letting Reality slip in.

I am very in favor of sex.

welcome to capitalist America. in due time, Walmart will be ousted by something even cheaper/better/different. it's the nature of the evolution of an ever-changing economy. everything has its death date.

re: sex - i believe i earlier mentioned Victoria's Secret. feel free to expand upon that.

Pictures please.

I prefer to shop at Wal-Mart rather than K-Mart, Target, Woolworths, and so on. Not simply because of the prices, but because Wal-Mart has a better selection, better service, better...well, everything. They're simply a more pleasant shopping experience.

I haven't seen any proof that Wal-Mart raises prices after driving out the competition. It would be foolish to do so, because if they did, some newcomer would come along and put THEM out of business with lower prices. The only complaints I have about them is their censorship of the media products they carry, and some of the stories I've heard about how they treat their employees.

Lindal . . . don't you LIKE sex?????



(Agreed that Wal-Mart is generally a "better shopping experience." But I think that there is more to the dangers posed by their elimination of competition than the possibility of their prices going up: again, it is about the issue of choice, and also about the dangers of any single player having too much power in the marketplace. That power can be wielded in all sort of potentially damaging ways, of which the censoring of materials is just one.

An additional factor that is not, of course, an issue in the US: Wal-Mart is American, while most of the businesses that it targets, be they small local businesses or larger chains, are Canadian-owned. This applies in particular to Zellers.)

There's a bottom to everything.

Including sex.