New at Reason
In a feature from our January issue, Michael Moynihan takes a look at big box panics and how, despite the worst prognostications from consumer groups, independent stores continue to thrive.
Comments to "New at Reason":
Paul | January 2, 2008, 1:38pm | #
Americans have been afraid of chain stores for nearly a century, but independent outlets keep thriving.But it's because American's don't have a choice but to shop at the chain stores. With all the smaller outfits put out of business by the unscrupulous tactics of the big box stores, we're left with nothing but big box stores. Wal-Mart creates the conditions that force us to shop there.
Wow, this is easy. I can feel an honorary professorship coming on...
tim | January 2, 2008, 2:05pm | #
The article says nothing that shouldn't already be glaringly obvious.I grew up in the 70s and 80s five blocks from a Target and Rainbow foods. My parents bought our first color tv in 82 from Best Buy and I practically lived at the local store (which was the first ever built) during my teens. I have a Costco membership. So its safe to say I live for Big Box retailers (i also live in minneapolis home to Best Buy and Target.) But the bottom line is if a small independent offers a unique service at a great price I will shop there (and I do). Competition is a good thing. Why is this concept so hard for people to get?
/rant
economist | January 2, 2008, 2:07pm | #
Paul, please don't go populist/socialist on us. You have too much to live for, and James, Joe, MCW, and those other socialist weirdoes who choose to comment here PO me already.Rhywun | January 2, 2008, 2:07pm | #
Today's chain stores have helped alter the American landscape to a much greater degree than past chains you're trying to comparing them to. And using central Boston as an example is hardly instructive of the usual pattern in which a big box store opens up outside of town and "Main Street" either folds, or turns into 99 cent stores or boutiques if they're lucky.de stijl | January 2, 2008, 2:11pm | #
My parents bought our first color tv in 82 from Best Buy and I practically lived at the local store (which was the first ever built) during my teens.Hell, I even remember when it was called Sound Of Music!
sv | January 2, 2008, 2:29pm | #
shocker: competition works to improve the marketplace overall for consumers and businesspeople alike. it's natural.Ken Shultz | January 2, 2008, 2:32pm | #
There was a local bookstore I loved called "Either/Or"--I really miss those guys. It was just down the block from my favorite art house theater, which was practically on the beach in Hermosa. That theater went dark, but it wasn't the chains that put it out of business--it was a government requirement that they put in earthquake retrofitting. I really miss that place. Across the street from that theater there used to be a place called "Video Archives" that literally had any movie you've ever heard of, old movies, new releases, whatever, and they had the most dedicated movie nut staff. Quentin Tarantino worked there at the time... Video Archives is long gone now....but then so is the Crown book store that used to be in town--I think that chain went bankrupt. The AMC chain theater that used to be in town--it's gone too. So is the Wherehouse and Tower Records that had such a big movie rental business. If the business plan is to be the low price guy on the block, I suspect larger chains tend to put smaller chains out of business.
How much business has Sears lost to Wal*Mart and Target?
I've heard of tile showroom retailers who want to physically position their stores so that most of the traffic headed to Home Depot has to drive past their store/showroom. They can devote their entire business to satisfying each customer individually. They can offer products that Home Depot doesn't have, and if they can't get you what you want at wholesale + installation, they can pay retail at Home Depot just like you can.
R C Dean | January 2, 2008, 2:39pm | #
the usual pattern in which a big box store opens up outside of town and "Main Street" either folds, or turns into 99 cent stores or boutiques if they're lucky.Gee, I'd hate to live in small town where a big box store let me buy a wide variety of goods at low prices, and I could go downtown to shop at boutique stores with specialty goods and service.
VICTORY for the little guy!!! A couple of weeks ago, Starbucks announced they were closing the Kansas City shop featured in the article.
J sub D | January 2, 2008, 3:46pm | #
How much business has Sears lost to Wal*Mart and Target?Who were small when the started to take on Sears, K-Mart and Montgomery Wards. By the prevailing, bash the chains, logic so often presented, WalMart and Target didn't stand a chance against the established big chains. Since WalMart and Target would logically be overwhelmed by the established department stores, what the hell are we discussing? They don't exist having been swallowed up by the existing giant monopolies.
Now I'll just mosey on down to Wards and get myself a Signature washerr and dryer, because they're a better value than the Kenmores. After all those are the only two retailers of appliances. All the Mom and Pop places are gone now.
Then I'll do my grocery shopping at the A&P who have long ago driven are other food retailers into extinction.
Rhywun | January 2, 2008, 4:11pm | #
Gee, I'd hate to live in small town where a big box store let me buy a wide variety of goods at low prices, and I could go downtown to shop at boutique stores with specialty goods and service.I only inserted the "boutiques" line as a defense against the inevitable charge "but downtown is full of boutiques now!" when in my experience downtown is almost invariably dead. I suppose that's what America "wants" but to me the suburbanization of "small-town" America is an overall loss.
Ken Shultz | January 2, 2008, 4:23pm | #
"I only inserted the "boutiques" line as a defense against the inevitable charge "but downtown is full of boutiques now!" when in my experience downtown is almost invariably dead. I suppose that's what America "wants" but to me the suburbanization of "small-town" America is an overall loss."I live in LA, which might be a little different, but downtown is thriving like it hasn't since the late '70s early '80s.
Even apart from the big downtown, LA is made up of a hundred little towns, all with little downtowns of their own, most of which seem to be doing quite well. ...with restaurants and pedestrian ways. The little downtowns is usually where they hold the weekly farmers' markets, something that shouldn't exist, what, with the chain grocery stores taking over and all.
Argh | January 2, 2008, 4:26pm | #
The true story of independent record stores in Boston is that Newbury Comics is the devil. I've worked in several different stores in the Boston area, both big box and tiny used vinyl shops. The big box stores charge full retail prices for CD's, whereas Newbury Comics practices a loss-leader strategy. They sell CDs at or below cost, and recoup the loss with T-shirt sales. Large chain stores can't compete on price, but neither can the little stores.As a result, Newbury Comics has achieved an almost complete monopoly in Boston. All the used stores are being picked off, one by one. And now, CD prices at Newbury Comics have risen closer to what the large chain stores used to charge.
Dan Clore | January 2, 2008, 4:34pm | #
Wal-Mart, corporate-welfare queenThough often cited as an example of the free market in action, Wal-Mart
has actually received more than a billion dollars in state subsidies.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo/message/8921
Rhywun | January 2, 2008, 4:35pm | #
I live in LA, which might be a little different, but downtown is thriving like it hasn't since the late '70s early '80s.That's cool--I always thought otherwise. No, I'm thinking of basically every city and town in upstate NY. For example, Buffalo. It's a little strange to live in a city of 300,000 people that doesn't have a functioning downtown any more. My Mom's town, Le Roy (home of Jello!), is lucky to have the boutiques, but all the regular shopping has moved miles outside of town. But most of the towns are kind of ghettoized just like their larger cousins like Rochester and Syracuse.
Paul | January 2, 2008, 4:38pm | #
Though often cited as an example of the free market in action, Wal-Marthas actually received more than a billion dollars in state subsidies.
So the problem is government, then. Check.
I suggest we fix government then. Government, that body of elected politicians.
Ken Shultz | January 2, 2008, 4:54pm | #
"It's a little strange to live in a city of 300,000 people that doesn't have a functioning downtown any more."Although I've never been there, I've met a number of people from Buffalo, and I never met anybody from Buffalo that I didn't like.
Buffalo's lost a lot of its population. It looks like it lost about 11% of its population since 2000. It looks like its lost about 20% of its population since 1990 and more than 40% of its population since 1980!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo%2C_New_York#Demographics
[right hand column]
I don't know that you can blame the loss of a downtown on big boxes if you're losing population like that. You guys seriously need some immigrants. Legal, illegal, I wouldn't care! If I were the city council, mayor, whatever, I'd want to call for a, illegal immigrant safe zone in Buffalo--you guys need some warm bodies.
Ken Shultz | January 2, 2008, 5:03pm | #
Retail development is all about demographics and concentric circles. Retailers want to know how many people live in a one mile radius, how many people live in a three mile radius and what the average income is within those circles.That's like 90% of it.
Take income or people out of those circles and the retailers disappear--big box or otherwise.
Rhywun | January 2, 2008, 5:07pm | #
I don't know that you can blame the loss of a downtown on big boxes if you're losing population like that.I don't blame chains or big boxes; in fact I rather like the big box stores in Manhattan for example. Rather, the fact that they typically refuse to enter a market like Buffalo (I mean the city, not the suburbs) is a symptom of America's not giving a shit about its historic city centers. An urban Wal-Mart might be welcomed in Buffalo with open arms, but what are the chances of Wal-Mart trying it out? Sure, Wal-Mart hasn't been welcome in places like NYC or Chicago, but those are cities with vast amounts of commerce still, not dying cities like Buffalo. But downtown shopping in Buffalo died because everyone gave up on it and started driving to suburbs, no matter how inconvenient and expensive it became. But now the city is so poor you can't even count on that any more. Meanwhile there's been a mini-renaissance in some parts of downtown. I think some big box retailers would be very successful there now, with a mix of urban "pioneers" and less wealthy customers who are fed up with the expense to driving to the suburbs.
| January 2, 2008, 5:48pm | #
"But that too failed, and Starbucks opened for business, confident in its ability to steamroll Cates."Hate to break this to you, but Starbucks didn't care about Cates at all, much less did they want to "steamroll" him. My guess is that Cates and Starbucks are actually catering to different populations (thus not actually competitors), and that Starbucks didn't find enough of their target market to keep the location going.
John C. Randolph | January 2, 2008, 7:21pm | #
I've got to say fuck that Cates guy. The little bastard had no compunction at all about trying to use the power of the state to exclude his competition. That's wrong, whether it's a billion-dollar company or a mom-and-pop store trying to do it.Customers aren't property. Business who think they're entitled to use the government to usurp my choices can kiss my ass.
-jcr
joe | January 2, 2008, 9:57pm | #
Big-box chain stores are the effect, not the cause.For a lot of reasons, economic activity and investment has been steered out of established urban centers and towards the suburbs.
Most suburbs mandate sprawl-style development. Sprawl-style development is expensive, and building new is more expensive still. It only makes sense to build really big, which makes it even more expensive. This makes it almost impossible for the little guy to get into the act.
But the disinvestment in the urban core - that is prior to the suburbs sprawling, and to Main Street emptying out. Main Street didn't lose its place as the heart of the local/regional commercial trade because of big-box stores, but because the function of downtowns in our settlement and economic patterns changed.
joe | January 2, 2008, 10:18pm | #
Wow, Moynihan's article is a mess. Don't any of you "senior editors" edit anything? It's full of nonsensical passages like Maryland’s anti–Wal-Mart law, which mandated that the company spend at least 8 percent of its payroll on health care Um, what?or
There will always be those that find Wal-Mart inauthentic, those that prefer the punk rock ethos of a Newbury Comics to the Deep South values of Wal-Mart, with its habit of censoring CD covers and song lyrics.
It isn't "Newbury:Punk::Wal-Mart:Deep South."
It's "Newbury:Punk::Wal-Mart:Placeless Generica."
Local Town | January 3, 2008, 12:59pm | #
I live near a small town that is surrounded by big-box retailers such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot. Yet this small town manages to have a thriving downtown, supporting a paint store, a hardware store, two applicance stores, two coffee places, a running shoe store, and several good restaurants. Also nearby is a medium-sized city. Several years ago, when its downtown was beginning a slide down, a developer wanted to build a mall within the boundaries of the city. The city father and mothers stamped around and yelled until the developer finally gave up. The city's downtown is nowa sad place, with only a few shops that no one outside the city would want to come into the city to shop at. But, there is plenty of building of new government buildings, off the tax rolls of course.
Shane | January 4, 2008, 3:54pm | #
“Combine that with Virgin and HMV’s very British arrogance when they entered the market.”lol, fucking brits, too easy...