Obviously, there's a lot of depth to this issue. I do a fair bit of shopping at WalMart for a number of the reasons mentioned here.
However, I also buy quite a bit of stuff from other places. Here's an example: Earlier this week, I decided it would make sense to make up some custom hold-down chains for the new EarthForce, and I figured it would be a good idea to go ahead and get them, especially since the tractor will travel as far in its trip home from SC as it will in the next 5 years put together, in all likelihood. What I needed was 4 8' lengths of 3/8" G70 chain with a grab hook on one end and a slip hook with a safety catch on the other. I also decided I needed a lever type spring binder for each chain. I've mentioned numerous times that I hate Chinese junk (I don't mind Chinese good stuff at all - it just seems to be hard to find...), so I went in search of quality samples of the above items. Now, WalMart doesn't carry the world's largest supply of chain, hooks, and binders, but if they had what I wanted, it wouldn't have been of a quality I'd have considered buying, so that was out. Unfortunately, Southern States (a local farm supply chain) only had junk, too. Ditto with half a dozen other places I tried. The end result: I had to order it all from Labonville in NH. The point I'm trying to make with all this is that there's room for local stores
if they don't try to compete on the same terms with WallyWorld. If they insist on trying to sell the same stuff (especially if it's junk), they're doomed. As has been said several times here, they can't compete at that level. On the other hand, there's plenty of room, I think, for local stores to sell admittedly smaller-audience items of high quality at welcome higher margins. The trouble is that most small business owners seem to lack the insight to adapt to the situation - they just moan and gripe about their plight and operate under the assumption that they're doomed which, unfortunately, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I see a few examples of those who have been able to handle the situation well, though. There's a local shop that sold run-of-the-mill food items, almost an upscale c-store, in a small town a few miles from my home. When WallyWorld came in a mile down the road, it became obvious that their old way of doing business wouldn't fly. Instead of withering on the vine, though, they started selling specialty foods - cheeses, microbrews, wines, etc. Since then they've opened up a second store, and they're doing far better in just a few years than they did in almost 15 years of business before the WallyWorld era. Sometimes gloom-and-doom are self-manufactured. Success almost always is.
MarkC
