Can ‘The All American Store’ Reverse Our Nation’s Walmartization?
http://www.dailyfinance.com/2012/01/06/can-the-all-american-store-reverse-our-nations-walmartization/
People complain bitterly about Wallyworld coming to town and make all sorts of promises that they will steadfastly ignore the store and support their fellows. That is, until they see the prices. Then, all the sudden everyone is shopping at Wally and the local stores go right out of business just as predicted. Why don’t people want to spend “50% to 100% more” to keep local stores in business? I think the question answers itself, why the hell would anyone want to spend “50% to 100% more”? Unless you have a product that can compete on price/quality very few people are going to shop (particularly in the midst of the Great Recession!) where they have to make do with less (fewer goods for higher dollars). Clearly the people who patronize this store (which, btw, had sales that were “Up 15%”) can afford to spend half again to twice for the exact same product, but ordinary people can’t do that. Sure, lots of people (very rich people (actually, not that many as a percentage of the population)) spend silly-assed amounts of money on stupid things (how many people really need a 100 ft yacht they never use?), but that is a small segment of the population, the rest of us have to stretch our dollars as far as they can go. If I can get an (otherwise indistinguishable) T-shirt for $3 at Wallyworld and it is going to cost me $9 if I get it ‘made in America’, who, exactly, am I helping by pissing away my hard earned dollars to get that largely meaningless label? If, somehow, that T-shirt was somehow better for having been made in the US (3 times better? how could that be?) then I might make the decision to pay extra, but for commodities, the cheapest is key, always.
