Free Enterprise: Will It Exist?

[Huerta88]

@Anomalous Reading

Problem is, Walmart has improved themselves to such a point that there’s an odd duality. They are hard to compete with in their niche, and if they are to grow they have to leave the niche - and will likely become less efficient.

That’s a bit off topic, but… somehow germane to the idea of an immortal company.

[wiki]
Expansion
Woolworth’s expansion led to specialty store acquisitions. In 1963, Woolworth purchased the Kinney Shoe Corporation and operated it as a subsidiary. That led to specialty shoe store expansion, including Stylco in 1967, Susie Casuals in 1968, and Foot Locker in 1974.

Woolworth also diversified its portfolio of specialty stores in the 1980s, including Afterthoughts, Northern Reflections, and Champs Sports. By 1989, the company was pursuing an aggressive strategy of multiple specialty store formats targeted at enclosed shopping malls. The idea was that if a particular retail concept failed at a given mall, the company quickly could replace it with a different one. The company’s purported goal was to operate 10 various specialty stores in each major American shopping mall, but this never came to pass as Woolworth never was able to develop that number of successful specialty retail formats. This activity, however, did lead to the development of the successful Foot Locker and Northern Reflections apparel shops, as well as Best Of Times, a timepiece retailer.
[/wiki]

You were dead-on.

For the record, the current incarnations of WalMart, Target, and Costco offer me an embarrassingly huge amount of product choice, at crazy cheap prices. I think they’re too cheap, and we could have quite the debate on consumerism, buying a bunch of crap that will end up in a landfill, selling our soul to China, etc. But they’ve accomplished an amazing feat of making all sorts of stuff available, dirt cheap, in a single centralized location. Having said that – those incarnations will not be the last word in retail, just as Woolworth’s was not.

[Voyager]

@Renob

How did he show that? Not one of the stores he mentioned – including Wal Mart – are even close to being monopolies.

He was just giving examples. I agree that WalMart was never strictly a monopoly, and it is looking a lot less monopolistic these days. But monopolies do exist, and let’s not get into this “it’s not a monopoly if there is one competing company” discussion again.

After all, the fact that Communism was bound to fail eventually didn’t make the Soviet Union any more excusable. The fact that a monopoly has a limited lifetime doesn’t mean we should ignore it.

[Voyager]

@Huerta88

You were dead-on.

For the record, the current incarnations of WalMart, Target, and Costco offer me an embarrassingly huge amount of product choice, at crazy cheap prices. I think they’re too cheap, and we could have quite the debate on consumerism, buying a bunch of crap that will end up in a landfill, selling our soul to China, etc. But they’ve accomplished an amazing feat of making all sorts of stuff available, dirt cheap, in a single centralized location. Having said that – those incarnations will not be the last word in retail, just as Woolworth’s was not.

This is the opposite of a monopoly, though. First of all, there are three significant competitors. Second, they occupy one specific market segment. WalMart’s abortive attempt to improve their clothing line shows that while they are fine where they are, they lose big when appealing to a different set of customers.