Whenever Wal-Mart moves into an area, there invariably seems to some opposition or complaining. Soulless big-box store shutting down the Mom & Pops on Main Street. Cheap made-in-China stuff flooding the marketplace.
Did they have the same reaction to K-Mart (or Ames, Jamesway, Zayres) building large boxes in suburban strip malls back in the 60s/70s? Is Wal-Mart (as a one-stop shopping destination) today really any different than K-mart was?
Not really, but then they didn’t really object that much to Wal-Mart in the 60s and 70s. The prevailing thought back then (at least in the suburbs) was that new retail brought new business, not that it sucked customers from the old retailers.
Of course there are many differences. For one, the average Wal-Mart today is a lot bigger than the average discount store of 30-40 years ago. For another, discount stores 30-40 years ago weren’t asking the community for tax breaks (or locating just outside the city limits to escape zoning regulations) and then moving 2 miles down the road for new tax breaks.
back in 197something there was a bit of controversy because we lost a nice wooded area to a new K-Mart, but it was so long ago and I wan’t old enough to care much about civic matters so I don’t recall much detail. I do remember my mom being mad about it, letters to the editor and such.
There wasn’t the same stigma that’s associated with Wal-Mart that I know of though. They were considered a decent employer. Seems like the dimestore chain Kresge’s (which we all loved) evolved into K-Mart. We lost the dime stores and gained K-Marts. In my little town we had a W. T. Grant store that closed right before the K-Mart’s opened. We didn’t have dollar stores yet.
Some of it must come down to communication, not the least of which is the internet. What was the program on TV about how Wal-Mart was pushing out the little guy? Consumers are becoming more informed.
I long for an age when I could go “downtown” to a literal brick and motor building in a city of say 30k and get fitted for a tailor-made suit by an brilliant old haberdasher who barely needs to reference his measuring tape.
Any idea as to what year I should program into my time machine?
I don’t know about tailor-made suits, but if I were going to go downtown to look for a new fedora I’d set the time machine to 2009. Of course, the business has been there for 75 years.
In my town during the '70s and '80s, they weren’t complained about in the “taking jobs!” sense, but just criticized as being very low quality and generally not a good place to shop at.
Back when KMarts were expanding, they were just another department store chain. There was Ames, Big N, Bradlees, Caldors, Grand Way, Jamesway, Hills, Kings, Newberry, Richway, Zayre. I don’t mind WalMart in particular - I just don’t like any store that is becoming a de facto monopoly.
Wal-Mart is the death star of retailers and is rightly feared as category killer. If your are a small businessmen and Wal-Mart means to have your business they will take it, and if you are selling a commodity type product there’s nothing you can do.
Plus Wal-Mart is somewhat more arrogant, they are a world unto themselves and they treat complaints about their business model as if you are talking a foreign language. Profit is the absolute God of Wal-mart and everything including people will be focused or sacrificed toward this end. They squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until nothing is left. Wal-Mart earns the enmity they get.
IIRC, The 1970s-era K-marts (and all it’s ilk) was full of cheap consumer goods, but it wasn’t quite the CheapShitFromChinaThatTookAllOurJobs that Wal-Mart is famous for. I think many smaller factory towns have people like my dad who are very sensitive to the fact that Wal-Mart carries almost nothing that is made in the USA. (Or at least people like my dad think there’s nothing made in the USA in a Wal-Mart…I don’t have any actual stats on the origin of goods sold at Wal-Mart.)
In the 1970’s I remember that there was some concerns with chain grocery stores getting too big and knocking the local butcher, baker, florist, pharmacist, pet store owner, etc. out of business. I also recall stories of highways and suburban malls with their easy access and plenty of free parking killing downtown businesses.
I remember that news that Walmart and Target were coming to town was good news that most everyone was happy with. As mentioned before, the stores weren’t as huge as they are now and they didn’t build the same big box stores every four miles as they do now. It wasn’t overwhelming, it was just another place to shop.
A&P (at one time the USA’s biggest grocer) had similar argument, like Walmart. It drove out the small grocers.
The balance of local merchants versus big time retailers really started with the railroads and just got bigger.
Also remember K-Mart was preceived more or less as a “Bigger Kresge,” which was a well liked neighborhood Five and Ten store.
So in a way K-Mart krept in while Kresge was still there, so it ADDED TO not took away from.
Woolworth tried a similar concept with Woolco.
People didn’t really hate Walmart at first. The problem started when Walmart begain withdrawing. What happened is Walmart came in, drove everyone out (which other type stores did also), then found the stores not profitable enough, then Walmart left. Now the town had nothing.
This is when Walmart begain to get the bad reputation.
The problem now is Walmart is threatening to put even larger places, like K-Mart out of business, if Walmart goes K-Mart won’t be able to come back.
I remember we were all pretty giddy…the first place in town you could buy socks! There was a big controversy over WHERE it was being built, but I don’t remember much about the fact of its coming at all…like I said, we were fine with it.
To sum, add to, and repeat some of what’s above:
K-Mart etc. was simply not as big and comprehensive as WalMart. They may have replaced some local businesses, but not as many in one swoop. K-Mart itself then was a beefed up five-and-dime, not a five-and-dime/hardware store/grocery/gunshop/nursery/etc.
WalMart does business with towns in a different way than K-mart et al had done before. As said upthread, they’re notorious for building huge physical stores at significant local cost to infrastructure, then abandoning them; nothing else can afford to move in to take over the space. They’re also notorious for making local traffic problems and ignoring the wishes of neighborhood associations, etc.
not mentioned yet: WalMart does business globally in a very different way than anyone else – it’s arguably their main economic strength. They use their hugeness to negotiate lower, and lower, and lower contracts with their suppliers. It’s pretty hard on the suppliers. Meanwhile the “junk” in the WalMart junk store gets crappier and crappier, their prices go down and down, and they’re more and more undercutting everyone else in town.
Not mentioned upthread: WalMart has had a much lousier record of treating its employees than K-Mart did (not sure how K-Mart is doing lately). WalMart brought jobs, but they were not well-paid jobs, and they had few benefits.
Some of these distinctions are no longer valid, as many big-box stores have sought to emulate WalMart’s success and therefore business practices.
I remember a bit of talk about the death of the downtown. I grew up in Northern Indiana (Hammond) from about 1967 to 1979 and witnessed the slow demise of two old-fashioned movie palaces, as well as the local department store (Goldblatts), not to mention little guys like diners, candy stores and clothing shops. By the time we moved in 1981, the malls had pretty much taken over and there was very little left in the historic downtown.
I remember when K-Mart moved into my neighborhood in the mid-70s. I don’t remember it upsetting people much, but the almost universal sentiment was that we’d gotten a store that sold cheap crap. “Where’d you get your degree from, K-Mart?” was a typical joke.
Bill’s Toggery, Shakopee MN.
It is, what is the word, an anachronism? I like shopping there. When I first shopped there the guy helping me (old haberdasher) got ALL the measurements right before he used his tape. Uncanny.
And it is in the downtown…in a brick and mortar building that even rents out an apartment above the store.
Edit…they even have a website…who woulda thunk. http://www.billstoggery.com/
Yeah, but it wasn’t Wall-Mart, Kmart or Woolco that killed the old downtowns. That started back right after World War 2 with the development of the suburban shopping malls. In some cases (in St. Louis and Kansas City for example) the earliest suburban shopping centers were actually built by the big downtown department stores, not outside developers.
Our town merchants actively fought all chain stores and in particular fought for a couple years against getting a Kmart. Everybody not a town merchant already drove to Madison to buy stuff because the town stores were ridiculously expensive and had to order what you needed. Kmart bought land outside the city limits and built there. Anybody that was family of the downtown business owners bitched about Kmart until a Walmart moved in. Kmart was the target for abuse when they were bigger than Walmart. People just look for somebody to blame when they don’t offer you what you want and they don’t shop there. Kmart had the same bussiness practices back then as Walmart is derided for today.