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The “Walmartization” of America
Has Walmart opened a new store in your community yet? How’s your local downtown business district? Are you seeing empty strip store buildings? I was in one of my local Subway stores getting Veggie Delight sandwich for lunch the other day. While standing in line, I overheard the store owner talking with a customer about how Walmart has just signed a HUGE deal with Subway to put Subway outlets in all of the Walmart stores. Good for Subway Corporation, not so good for the little privately owned franchise across the street from Walmart located in a strip store building with a few empty store spaces.
Wall-Mart is literally taking over the retail world. There is a story on the Portland Independent Media Center website reporting on a proposed Walmart close to an ancient Mexican pyramid. Here’s the link...
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/09/296615.shtml
A group of native Mexicans opposed the new Walmart by climbing the pyramid with their protest signs. Walmart is building a store a half mile from the ancient pyramid. Why not make the pyramid a Walmart?!
Closer to where we live in New Jersey, the same man in the Subway shop told me that the Audubon Shopping Center, in the town next to where I grew up in Oaklyn, New Jersey, is being bulldozed down for a new Walmart. And, in the neighboring town of Deptford, THREE new Walmarts are being built!
Although Walmart likes to talk about bringing jobs to communities, the fact is that most of those jobs are 32 hour a week positions with NO benefits and low wages. The low prices thrill customers, but the net result in communities is that someone goes to the local hardware store, sees a Black & Decker drill for $39.95, and thinks, “Gee, I could get this for $29.95 at Walmart.” And out the door they go.
The New Addiction Sweeping America -
Low Prices & Cheap Products
Walmart has systematically ADDICTED Americans to cheap, low prices. “Hey, times are tough and we have to stretch our dollar.” we like to say. But what happens to your community eventually? And this “cheap prices addiction” hasn’t afflicted just the average citizen, the upper class folks are addicted to cheap prices. Here’s an example.
A few years ago, a good neighbor friend was doing some tutoring on the side to make some extra income. We live in a very affluent community. Although our home is very modest, right down the road are homes that sell for over one million dollars and have property taxes of over $12,000 a year. Do the arithmetic and you can quickly see that some folks have a very large nut to cover each month and are able to do so. (This isn’t a bash against the affluent, just a statement of what is so.)
One of my friend’s tutoring students lives in such a community. BIG house, nice kid, nice parents. One day, my friend was in Walmart and bumped into Mrs. Nice with a cart full of stuff. “Oh I just LOVE this place! The prices are fantastic!” Like most of us, she’s become addicted to cheap stuff.
Now, here’s the very dark down side of what’s happening. Owning your own small business has been one of the foundations of life in America since the beginning of our nation. So a person decides to open a five & dime store to serve the community’s needs. People walk or take a short trip downtown and shop. Shopping downtown supports the local merchants and keeps downtowns alive. When people evacuate local business districts to go to the local Walmart super store, the local merchant suffers. Eventually, he or she will close their doors for good. “OUT OF BUSINESS” the signs says. How sad. How tragic. Some might say, “well, that’s progress.” But is it? I don’t think so.
The only way that companies can get goods produced that can carry the prices that they must have to be competitive at Walmart is to have their goods manufactured outside of this country. I used to be a toy designer at Mattel, Mt. Laurel (formerly Tyco Toys). The toy business would be dead and buried if they couldn’t get their product made in China. From a cost standpoint, it is IMPOSSIBLE to make a Matchbox or Hot Wheels toy here and sell it for 99-cents at Walmart.
So not only is the small retailer being squeezed out of business, but the manufacturing jobs are being taken away, and even many of the supporting design services are being done in the Orient. It all adds up to an almost total removal of the business of making and designing products. Did you hear that “loud suckin sound”? Thank you Ross Perot.
An Alternate Proposal
The Walmartization of America has a built-in ripple affect that will touch everyone in this nation, unless consumers make a different choice with their dollars. But I have a proposal for you. If this rings true for you, you can take it and run with it as your own. This is a grass roots concept that is VERY simple and has two parts.
Part 1 - Support Your Local Merchants.
Look around your community for the local mom & pop shops and do business with them. Support them. They are sitting there every day waiting for customers to come in. Their livelihood depends on customers coming into the store and buying. I’d rather support my neighbor’s book shop rather that give my money to the Walton family, the owners of Walmart. They’re rich enough, thank you. I’d rather help my neighbor who is trying to make a go at it with his hardware store rather than make a megawealthy family more wealthy. Here’s a link to an interesting and telling article on the Lyndon LaRouche website...
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2004/3103waltons.html
Believe it or not, there’s a little local five & dime store in my town of Medford, New Jersey. “Binkley’s 5¢ and 10¢ Store” is owned by one of the oldest families in the area. When I shop there, I always let them know that I’d rather give my business to them, than a big chain retailer. You should see the looks on their faces. I always get a sincere, “Thank you, VERY much.”
About eight miles from us is a genuine relic of the marketplace, the Berlin Farmer’s Market. This place really has character. It’s a long, low building that is almost the complete opposite of the ascetics of any local mall. It’s filled with characters, smells, and working class people. During the warm months, there’s on outside flea market that’s a real hoot! Every year, I buy my jeans and sneakers from two small, locally owned vendors there. Even though the Levis jeans are now made in Mexico and the Nike shoes are made in the Orient, I’d rather give my money to “Mike’s Shoes” and Jerry’s Jeans” than to the Walton family.
As the major chain stores continue to offer every conceivable consumable item, the day is quickly coming when there will be no more local businesses. Not only is Walmart the number one retailer, they are also the number one grocery retailer and have a substantial share of the bookseller’s market and the toy business. Toys R Us is about to go bankrupt. Unless consumers do something different, we will all have to shop in the big mega stores because there won’t be any small stores left in business.
But there’s a longer term, bigger picture here folks. If we don’t take care of our communities, a big part of what made America great will be stomped out of the marketplace.
Shopping locally will not bring down the Walmarts of the world. For better or worse, they’re here and probably won’t be going away. But if you like the sense of community, support your local businesses whenever you can. So what if the drill or the t-shirts are cheaper at Walmart? Help your community and shop local.
Part. 2 - Support Small Online Retailers.
Privately owned internet-based businesses are the new “mom & pop shops” of our time. For as little as a few hundred dollars a month, anyone willing to do the hard work of setting up a retail website can have their own business. Many got snookered in the late ‘90s thinking that all you need is a “dot.com” and BAM, you make lots of money. WRONG! There’s no subsitiute for hard work. There’s no free lunch. Our mothers all told us that.
We considered opening a very small metaphysical gift store in our town. After looking into what it would take to do that and the monthly overhead, we said, no thanks. So instead, we started another website... http://www.freespiritgiftshop.com It’s actually an extension of our existing eBay store.
eBay is a fantastic way to start your own web based business. The best part is that it’s a completely level playing field. When you put up an auction, or open an eBay Store, you stand the exact same chance of getting a sale as any big business does.
In the same way that the big mega chain stores such as Walmart aren’t going away, neither is the Internet. Every year that goes by, more and more people are becoming comfortable shopping online. Systems such as PayPal make it easy to make payments and receive payments. Services such as ProPay allow the smallest online retailer to easily process credit cards without a monthly merchant account. You can even get an 800 number for free from IDT so that your customers can just call you to place their order.
Having an online business is not “fall off a log” simple, but it’s not brain surgery either. Like any business, you have to find suppliers, research your market, promote the value of your products, and price your products accordingly. Sure, you’ll make mistakes from time to time, but hey, even big businesses do that every day.
The point is that with a vision, persistence, and effort, you can have your own mom & pop online retail store. Just remember, that when opportunity knocks, it’s usually wearing work cloths.
So, in the same way I’m suggesting that we all support our local shop owners, we can all support small online retailers. My wife Karen and I are online retailers. We have 3 websites that offer reproductions of my automotive art, an eBay store that offers my car art, some nostalgia drag racing products and a wonderful selection of metaphysical and inspirational gifts. And lastly, there’s the newest website, http://www.FreeSpiritGiftShop.com that offers the same metaphysical and inspirational gift items, but lives outside of the world of eBay.
When we get sales, we REALLY appreciate them! I’m a VERY happy cowboy when I see that we have overnight sales when I check my email in the morning. Like most businesses, things slow down in the summer. But just like those first cool, refreshing, crisp days of Autumn, it’s means so much when the customers come back. Which got me to thinking, “I ought to support and buy from other small online retailers, so that they can continue on with their little enterprise.”
A Simple Suggestion
So I’m suggesting to all of my friends, family, and aquaintences to support your local store owners. If you can’t find something locally, hunt for it online, and buy from a small online retailer. I’m not suggesting that you NEVER shop at Walmart, although that’s been my personal choice. But before you automatically head on out to the mega store, shop at your small local stores.
Our culture certainly has changed in the last ten years, and not all for the good. But one of the things that has made America great is our creativity resourcefulness, and tenacity. The Bible instructs us to “be your brother’s keeper,” not as a “rule” to be enforced, but as a “concept,” a “way of being” because truly, we are all One. When we help a local store owner, we’re helping him or her to continue on providing goods and services, which in turn, help the people of the community. It’s all a big circle. To quote John Lennon from his song, “I Am The Walrus”... “I am he, as you are he, as you are me, and we are all together.”
Right on Brother! See ya downtown.
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