Wal mart quickie

Flickr photo by prettyjjbean who writes "mom, dad, brother and i entered in together...so big was this vast land that we were forced to find each other by cellphone. eesh..."

Bird to the North has a number of entries about Walmart, including a link to a list of abandoned Walmart buildings for sale. I've written about this before. What WM does is open up stores of about 100,000 square feet. Once Wal Mart has adequately destroyed the independent retail within the retail trade area, forcing changes in shopping patterns, about 3 stores are "rolled up" into one supercenter (225,000 square feet), stitching together the separate retail trade areas into one bigger one.

This isn't new. Supermarket chains have done this for decades. But it's a lot more debilitating today as it is a lot harder for independent retail these days, given the lack of supporting infrastructure and the price and scale economies (as well as the power that comes from market dominance) enjoyed by (inter/)national retail chains.

Abandoned Wal-Mart store in Oskaloosa, Iowa. Flickr photo (unidentified) via Bird to the North.

She also calls our attention to Fast Company magazine's Ten Steps to Turn Around Wal-Mart['s Image].

FC has two other good articles, "The Man Who Said No to Wal-Mart" and "Wal-Mart You Don't Know" about the debilitating effect that Walmart can have on vendors.

Image derived from Flickr photo by Westbound. Button created by Syracuse Cultural Workers.

Index Keywords: retail