*WAL-MART: IT CAME, IT CONQUERED AND NOW IT'S LEAVING*

[appalachiablue]

- Wal-Mart: It Came, It Conquered and Now It’s Leaving, Bloomberg, Jan. 25, 2016

The Town’n Country grocery in Oriental, North Carolina, a local fixture for 44 years, closed its doors in October after a Wal-Mart store opened for business. Now, three months later -- and less than two years after Wal-Mart arrived -- the retail giant is pulling up stakes, leaving the community with no grocery store and no pharmacy.
Though mom-and-pop stores have steadily disappeared across the American landscape over the past three decades as the mega chain methodically expanded, there was at least always a Wal- Mart left behind to replace them. Now the Wal-Marts are disappearing, too.
“I was devastated when I found out. We had a pharmacy and a perfectly satisfactory grocery store. Maybe Wal-Mart sold apples for a nickel less,” said Barb Venturi, mayor pro tem for Oriental, with a population of about 900. “If you take into account what no longer having a grocery store does to property values here, it is a significant impact for us.”

Oriental is hardly alone. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said on Jan. 15 it would be closing all 102 of its smaller Express stores, many in isolated towns, to focus on its supercenters and mid- sized Neighborhood Markets. The move, which will begin by the end of the month, was a relatively quick about-face. As recently as 2014, Wal-Mart was touting the solid performance of its smaller stores and announced plans to open an additional 90. That’s a big problem for small towns, often with proportionately large elderly populations. For the older folks of Oriental -- a retirement and summer vacation town along the inter-coastal waterway -- the next-nearest grocery and pharmacy is a 50-minute round-trip drive.

Wal-Mart says it is sensitive to the dislocations its business decisions are causing.
“In towns impacted by store closures, we have had hundreds of conversations with elected officials and community leaders to discuss relevant issues and we are working with communities on how we can be helpful,” said Wal-Mart spokesman Brian Nick.
Wal-Mart has been under increasing pressure lately as sales in the U.S. have failed to keep up with rising labor costs. It’s also been spending more on its Web operations. In October, the company announced that profit this year would be down as much as 12 percent. The outlook contributed to a share decline of 29 percent during the past 12 months. “It is more important now than ever to review our portfolio and close the stores and clubs that should be closed,” Wal- Mart’s Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said in a statement on the company’s website.

- Shuttered Stores

Towns like Clearwater, Kansas, and Merkel, Texas, are among those hit by Wal-Mart closures. In Godley, Texas, with a population of roughly 1,000, Wal-Mart opened a small store just a year ago. Within months, the only other grocery store in town -- Brookshire Brothers, part of an employee-owned regional chain -- shut its doors. Now with Wal-Mart gone, the closest full- service grocery store is about a 20-minute drive away. In some cases, closed businesses may reopen now that Wal- Mart has left. In Merkel, the Lawrence Brothers grocery store, which closed two months ago, is planning to reopen now that Wal- Mart is packing up, said Jay Lawrence, head of the regional chain in Texas and New Mexico.

Continued, http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/inside-the-ticker/wal-mart-it-came-it-conquered-and-now-it%e2%80%99s-leaving/ar-BBoFl7R?ocid=spartandhp

[rurallib]

1. Wal-Mart says it is sensitive to the dislocations its business decisions are causing.

What horse shit. They are only sensitive to the stock price
The public ain't buying their BS anymore

[appalachiablue]

3. It's about $, the truth we well know-

[Manifestor_of_Light]

2. I have to drive 30 minutes to get to a Wal-Mart.

I live in a town of 1,400. Lots of old people. One Dollar General for some food.

[appalachiablue]

6. Grrr, sorry to know that but believe it. It's so wrong and sad-

[Manifestor_of_Light]

9. They took all our choices away.

When I was a kid and went to town with my grandmother, there was a dry goods store, a dentist, 2 doctors, a dry cleaners, a movie theater, a hardware store, a drugstore and two grocery stores. That was in the 1960s.

The hardware store is a joke and the drugstore closed a few months ago, and probably blamed it on that evil Obamacare.

All the others closed a long time ago. I think there is one doctor here, but I've known him since I was a kid, and I have heard too many horror stories about his incompetence to go to him. His nickname is "Killer_____". No joke.

[appalachiablue]

12. Walmart, the ultimate SuperPredator corp. retail enterprise. When young I grew up

around that entire variety of locally owned stores and businesses. By the 1980s big box stores were clearly invading, a phenomenon I've always disliked. Now one of many questions is what will Walmart be replaced with, if anything.

[Jim Beard]

14. The real reason for all those stores closing...the repeal of the Fair Trade act

I grew up in one of thes small towns. Population stayed at 1,029 forever. One of the dry goods store owner told me he had to sell the products (501 jeans before they were 501's) could not be sold at a lower price than set by the factory. A Walmart would have had to do the same so there could be NO undercutting of prices.

[snooper2]

28. What was the population 50 years ago vs. today?

[JesterCS]

32. Jeez, I can throw a rock any cardinal direction and hit one here. SW ohio n/t

[appalachiablue]

34. That I believe, there are many US communities dominated by Walmart and

other big box discount stores. They're awful except for a couple.

[leveymg]

4. Wal-Mart should be broken up under the antitrust laws and its assets used to resstablish cal retai

Take care of our own first.

[appalachiablue]

7. Appreciate your comments. Why isn't this being implemented, I wonder...

[gratuitous]

5. "Wal-Mart says it is sensitive to the dislocations its business decisions are causing"

But, you know, the tax incentives these local burgs threw at us have now been milked dry. And yeah, we sort of promised we'd stay here for 20 years or more, but you don't have that in writing, now, do you? Even if you do, we're not going to honor that and if you want to fight it out against our army of high-priced lawyers, we'll bankrupt your pathetic little town. So, you fucked over your own local businesses to save five bucks on your groceries, and now we're outta here. So long, suckers!

And don't say anything mean about us; we're sensitive.

[appalachiablue]

8. There's a lot to that ugly position, unfortunately. Appreciate the comments.

[brewens]

10. We didn't see those Walmart Express move into my part of Idaho. Good thing too.

A lot of small towns in my area still have grocery store. What used to be considered a standard old school grocery store back in the 60's and 70's. Many are now part of a regional chain called Harvest Foods. A few are still privately owned by locals. One is Valley Foods in Lapwai, ID. I love that place and the owner is a real good guy. I wouldn't be surprised to see him sell out to Harvest when he retires.

I went into Valley Foods awhile back and came around a corner into an isle and there were two kids stocking. One of them asked if he could help me find anything? Damn near brought a tear to my eye! Old school stock clerks working an isle just like I did 30 years ago. Box cutters and aprons. Only thing missing were the pricing guns. The checkers at my old store hardly needed the price tags anyway, but now everyone has scanners, even the little guys.

I caught the tail end of the old days in the grocery business. Almost all the stores ran from like 7-7 or 7-9. There were no night stocking crews. Everyone had good union day jobs. Not bankers hours, but close enough. Only the big regional chain stores were open on Sunday. The mom and pops were closed. A lot of stores were and most gas stations. You did your business and shopping during the week during reasonable hours. You made sure and get what you needed when you could. There were no all night convenience stores.

What we've done for "convenience" has really cost us. The convenience chain that moved into my area was Circle K. Like a Seven-11. Then Safeway extended their hours and so did my store. We hated it! That was like the beginning of the downhill slide. So you could go grab a six-pack and a pack of smokes at 10:50 now! What did we really gain? Now if you worked at a store, your job was not as good, and it got way worse.

I still look back and think it really didn't have to go that way. We could still all be home by nine unless you worked at a mill or something. If you had to plan your road trips around no being able to buy gas on Sunday, would it kill you? Even then actually there was always somewhere. One guy in a town that was open. The difference was that everyone else wasn't thinking they were getting screwed by not being open and missing out on the sales. Now that everything is owned by a big corporation, the fat cats look at that little bit each place makes on a Sunday nationwide and it adds up to a big chunk that they aren't willing to pass up.

We had one guy in our town who kept his little grocery store open on all holidays for years. Of course like 97% of the people didn't need anything, they had it covered. He had a pretty steady flow of customers coming on for milk, beer, smokes or whatever. It was really probably just enough demand for that one guy to work (the owner) and one of his kids and have a really good day. All the other little guys just left him alone. That would be unthinkable these days.

[appalachiablue]

11. Those kinds of stores I remember so well. Glad you escaped the mass mvmt. to

Big Box Discount Stores, I've always detested them mostly. Thanks for your comments.

[nilesobek]

20. I built a couple ponds

last year in Lapwai and Valley foods was our headquarters for a while. It was refreshing, the small town grocery atmosphere.

The Walmart in Lewiston,Id. was moved across the river to Clarkston,Wa. and the people of Lewiston couldn't be happier. Lewiston's residential neighborhoods were not ready for the influx of traffic and homeless that travel from Walmart to Walmart.

The store shelves at that Walmart reminded me of the old Soviet Union. Endless stacks of useless crap and hardly any customer service.

[1939]

24. To remind you of the old Soviet Union

the shelves would be near empty and there would be a long line out front for the people trying to buy whatever was in stock. What to you is "useless crap" is the stuff that the stock analysts at Walmart see as what is selling.

[brewens]

25. You might have met the boss, Don Whipple. Yup. Actually Mr. Whipple running a store for those

that remember the old Charmin ads.

Moving that Walmart screwed a lot of older retired people. The old location was right by some assisted living homes and a residential area with a lot of retired people. They built that new one about as far across town as they could have. But I suppose that made it closer to similar customers in neighboring Clarkston where it is now.

We are pretty happy that Walmart is gone, at least us working people that have to travel home through that area. Especially around Christmas time. The shoppers heading there that time of year made it hell getting up the hill to go home after work. A joke to anyone that deals with real big city traffic I'm sure, but I didn't like it.

The new Winco that came to Lewiston has to be stomping that Super Walmarts grocery business. I never shopped at Walmart but now get everything from Winco and Costco.

[nilesobek]

29. Yes Winco is taking retailers down.

Like Rosauers, who wants 4 dollars for a tiny box of crackers and 8 dollars for a pack of beef hotdogs.

The chain stores run all the mom n pops out of business then they raise prices.

Lewiston is a ridiculously white enclave. Even newcomers from that Walmart were met with xenophobia and suspicion. There are folks here with the cops on speed dial reporting every little thing they don't like.

The old Walmart building itself is crumbling on that west wall. I worked on a crew that did plastering and that building is unsafe.

[EV_Ares]

26. Walmart certainly has its part of the blame but the people in those communities if like the one I

grew up in helped as well. We had a locally owned hardware, grocery store & others where the service was fantastic besides the fact you could ask them a question (especially the hardware store) but everyone went to Walmart for the lower prices of stuff.

End result: Those locally owned businesses by people in our own community got ran out of business by their own neighbors.

[renate]

13. how could a grocery store that isolated be unprofitable?

Twenty-five minutes away from the next nearest grocery store and they couldn't make it work? That sounds like poor management. Except that it's happening everywhere. How did the grocery stores that were there in these small towns before manage to make money if Wal-Mart can't?

[HereSince1628]

18. seems the thinkers at Wal-Mart saw a workable business plan at some point...

Village groc's around here are often small, not much more than what suburbanites think of as a Quick Stop but without the gas. They are little more than modest jobs in modest spaces for the owner-operators who aren't looking for an ROI that beats all other possible forms of investment. Lenders and new operators often want/need bigger returns than people who were adjusted to getting by and tolerant of earning little more than making ends meet.

[SMC22307]

15. Of course, blame it on labor.

Wal-Mart has been under increasing pressure lately as sales in the U.S. have failed to keep up with rising labor costs.

If I'm vacationing, there's no way I'm shopping at a Big Box over a locally-owned store, especially one that had been loyal to the community for decades.

I fucking HATE Walmart.

[appalachiablue]

33. One time a home inspector owner, nice guy said to us how great it was

that he could get a Coke at a Target or Walmart when visiting Maui or Kauai. No thanks and no way.

[lindysalsagal]

16. Capitalism: A beautiful thing.

Hope the whole company folds.

[former9thward]

17. Along with all the people who work for it.

I sure you will enjoy their misery.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

19. Pfft... People want jobs, small businesses, and low, low prices. How about none of the above!

[Vinca]

21. It's a shame what Walmart has done to this country.

But, let's not forget, they were enabled by our bought-off lawmakers who passed trade deal after trade deal and replaced quality American-made products with cheap, Chinese junk.

[Lancero]

22. Wal-Mart had recently opened up another store near me.

It was one of their smaller neighborhood market stores, but I'm still suprised that it hasn't forced the nearby Krogers or Cash Saver to close up.

[Sunlei]

23. Downside is a lot of jobs go with them.

I predict BMV:WALMEX will rise, Walmart grows in Mexico.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

27. Ask Hillary. She was on their board of directors.

As if that family would allow some progressive, pro labor person on their board. Right.

The thing is, she STILL supports their approach. $9 mill in speaking fees from corporations, Keystone Pipeline promoters, Venture Capital companies. She probably is secretly applauding how Walmart went in made money, fucked over the little guy, and now cuts and runs.

[Orsino]

30. Local economies can't thrive until Wal-Mart leaves.

Like Republicanism, Wal-Mart will return when there is wealth worth stealing.

[librechik]

31. I see a business opportunity

converting the buildings into charming Farmer's Market style community vendors of everything from eggs to ammunition. Except for the locals, by the locals.