I disagree (kind of). I grew up in the most rural part of Virginia. There was no competition. We had a local grocery store, for sure; but it sucked. No ethnic food, not even soy sauce. No seafood. No link sausage, three kinds of salad dressing. Maybe four or five green vegetables. It was like a grocery store in some third-world countries I have visited. And there was literally no other option for almost an hour in any direction.
There were also no department stores. Nowhere you could buy a paperback, or a toy, or clothing. There was the local supermarket, the dollar store, and the auto goods/ammo store. And that was it.
Then a grocery store chain moved in. Sure enough, the locally owned grocery store went under. But not because of prices; it was because the chain had actual goods the local consumers wanted to buy. Soy sauce and Thai curry and fresh garlic and actual seafood, and a full produce section.
Then Walmart moved in, and suddenly you didn't have to drive an hour to go Christmas shopping or to pick up a pair of sneakers.
To be sure, there is a lot to dislike about Walmart. I am not arguing that they haven't put a lot of mom-and-pop places out of business. But like most things, the whole story is complicated, not least by the fact that many of those mom-and-pop places weren't great places to shop when they were in business.
The mom-and-pop stores cannot reasonably compete with Walmart or any other chain store. Their suppliers charge more because they lack the volume for the discounts the big stores charge, they lack the skills/manpower/IT to purchase, stock and maintain the thousands of products in a big store, and last but not least mom-and-pop stores don't get the massive tax breaks and other incentives/bribes that the state provides for huge stores.
Walmart is better for the consumers - more variety in stock, affordable pricing, one place to shop instead of half a dozen - but bad for everyone else: the workers, the suppliers, the local communities around a Walmart that lose their small stores as people will rather drive 20km and have everything than go to the local store and spend more money on the goods than the gas costs for the 20km, the taxpayer...
Can't such stores get together and create a co-op with a set of stores in the same county/state or even country in order to get reliable supplies and better rates?
There are such co-ops, in fact -- actually most of them operate on a franchise model. In our area, IGA was one. Our local grocery store was not a member.
But I’ll be damned if everything on the shelf isn’t cheap as dirt. Wouldn’t do my grocery shopping there but mine was a solid improvement on the CVS nearby.
Yep. I worked IT for a small business co-op for a short while, and it had over a thousand businesses in it. They had increased their purchasing power by banding together, and were able to negotiate with wholesalers.
> Maybe four or five green vegetables. It was like a grocery store in some third-world countries I have visited
I'm curious which third world countries? The only one's I've visited have been Melanesian, some with people literally living in shacks about the size of a queen bed, they didn't exactly have the number of products we do in the west but always had a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables. I always found it aggravating that I didn't have access to a kitchen when I visited.
I always assumed this was typical but I guess other places don't have the climate for it.
I disagree (kind of). I grew up in the most rural part of Virginia. There was no competition. We had a local grocery store, for sure; but it sucked. No ethnic food, not even soy sauce. No seafood. No link sausage, three kinds of salad dressing. Maybe four or five green vegetables. It was like a grocery store in some third-world countries I have visited. And there was literally no other option for almost an hour in any direction.
There were also no department stores. Nowhere you could buy a paperback, or a toy, or clothing. There was the local supermarket, the dollar store, and the auto goods/ammo store. And that was it.
Then a grocery store chain moved in. Sure enough, the locally owned grocery store went under. But not because of prices; it was because the chain had actual goods the local consumers wanted to buy. Soy sauce and Thai curry and fresh garlic and actual seafood, and a full produce section.
Then Walmart moved in, and suddenly you didn't have to drive an hour to go Christmas shopping or to pick up a pair of sneakers.
To be sure, there is a lot to dislike about Walmart. I am not arguing that they haven't put a lot of mom-and-pop places out of business. But like most things, the whole story is complicated, not least by the fact that many of those mom-and-pop places weren't great places to shop when they were in business.