On 3/1/2016 9:04 AM, Mike Lazzari wrote:
: they are disrupting the retail industry without having
much more to offer then lousy jobs...
Oh well, it is hard to be conscious consumer these days.
Apparently Walmart is closing some super stores across the south...after they've driven out the competition. This
leaves the locals unemployed and having to drive to the next town...if they have transportation. which they can't
afford if you work at Walmart or are retired.
Are you sure of your facts? It looks like you are confabulating two different
things.
Like all bricks and mortar retailers, WalMart opens and closes stores every year. I imagine most Supercenter closings
are related to openings of replacements or consolidation where they have over saturated an area, and plan to recover
most sales in nearby Supercenters.
However, the thing driving the news stories is the closing of all of their Express stores. These are much smaller stores
that have never done well, according to the stories. If the demand was never there to start with, they will have driven
few others out of business. If the local demand is there, others will quickly take up the slack, of sales and
employment. The sizes of the stores are suitable for all sorts of other retail uses.
Walmart did indeed radically change the retail composition of the South and, to a lesser extent, much of rural US,
driving many, many smaller retailers and landlords out of business. But that already happened, and isn't going away
anytime soon. It appears that, in their frustration at their inability to gain large shares in Urban areas and outside
of their regional strongholds - and their need to keep sales and profits growing - for the stock market, They hoped to
find a way to suck up a few more points in markets they have already simply oversaturated, with an ill imagined format
that has failed.
On 3/1/2016 10:02 AM, Nathan Wajsman wrote:
Hopefully some other company will take advantage of the market opening—I mean
if there are people, they need to buy groceries, so it should be possible for someone
to come in and open supermarkets targeted to the area in question.
You have focused on groceries. According to the reports, although Supercenters generate about half of their sales in
groceries, the Express stores had quite limited grocery sections, so th impact of openings and closings on that market
segment may be small. And indeed, to the extent there is a gap, others will soon fill it. Groceries is a very easy entry
level business, with strong wholesalers eager to add customers operating retail. They will provide financing, training,
accounting, and so on. Staying the course, after opening may be tough, though.
But I know it is a tough business.
This was most of my career, working in various aspects of market research, retail real estate, capital budgets, and so
on, all centered around building, remodeling and closing retail supermarkets. It is indeed a tough business, in several
ways. I've watched my own company and many others trying and, more often than not, failing, at new formats and entering
new markets. The economics of different sizes/formats are far more different than one might imagine.
Neo Format Moose
Public transit in the US sucks.
A whole 'nother subject, with different problems and reasons in different areas. As someone pointed out, low population
densities are one problem. Another can be affluence, cost and infrastructure, as where I live.
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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