At Date: Wed, 3 Dec 2003 15:25:10 Josh wrote:

>This anecdote is a precise microcosm of the "Wal-Martization of America,"
>also known as the death of downtown.  Often Wal-Mart will open up outside 
>of
>town on a highway or intersection between two towns-- to draw retail 
>traffic
>from each-- and destroy the downtowns of both in the process.

The Canadianization of Wal-Mart has taken on an eerie side effect here. Like 
Best Buy, Wal-Mart isn't so much as moving into town as taking over all the 
previous corporate leases of their competitors. Our department stores have 
been steadily dying in our over-saturated strip malls -- most noticably in 
the Greater Toronto Area and beyond. Wal-Mart is taking over leases of the 
existing department stores (K-Marts, Zellers, Eaton's, The Hudson's Bay, et 
al), and moving in as defacto slum-lords.

Where they haven't been able to bully the current competitor, they just 
build their own box store as a monolithic appendage to the existing parking 
lot/mall ignoring the fact that there are already department stores just 
like them in the same facility. Wal-Mart's theory is that they'll price 
these guys out of business. So far, they've been wrong.

Two mall-based Wal-Marts around me have had to close up shop and relocate to 
new, untapped residential areas, because the buying habits of these 
suburbanites is one of loyalty to the chain, not of pricing in very old 
urban districts.

This is a similar lessen that Best Buy learned when they tried to muscle in 
on an economy that's market share already barely supports SEVEN electronic 
big box outlets usually by chains that have been around 40 or 50 years. Best 
Buy cannot compete with Future Shop or Bad Boy or Leon's or The Brick or 
Audio 2000 because people have already picked their favourite retail team 
and more times than not, the pricing is all the same....allowing all these 
chains to co-exist.

Truth to tell, the big box outlets are popping up closer and closer 
together. At what point is the demographic market share going to be 
stretched too thin to support itself? I mean, really, how MANY Singer Sewing 
Machine Super Outlets does one town need? Toronto has 51.

And still Wal-Mart's now decided that we need Sam's Club.....and they've 
already been sued by the remaining corporate entity that once was Sam The 
Record Man.

Canada is going to be a tough market for the Wal-Marts and Best Buys to 
endure because they have a simple-man logic and down-scale ethic. The 
average income of the people living in the neigbourhoods that Wal-Mart now 
occupies in our cities is well above the national average. The population 
base is shopping UP scale, not down-scale. Monopolies have never worked in 
Canada (that's why we have so many god-damned phone carriers...leaving Bell 
Canada eating dust), and as long as people have a choice OTHER than 
Wal-Mart, the people will be satisfied to shop wherever they damn well 
please.

Jaime Vernon

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