When Walmart Leaves
January 15, 2015 8:35 AM   Subscribe

The Ghost Stores of Walmart. "The biggest downside to a Walmart opening up in your community is that after all the protests, the negotiations, and, almost inevitably, the acceptance, the retail giant might just break its lease, pack up shop, and move a mile down the road. The process starts all over again, and Walmart’s giant, hard-won original behemoth of a structure sits abandoned, looming over its increasingly frustrated neighbours."
posted by chunking express (125 comments total) 37 users marked this as a favorite
 
I hate this SO MUCH. It's such a blight.
posted by ocherdraco at 8:40 AM on January 15, 2015 [8 favorites]


This was standard operating procedure for Walmart in the mid-1980s. Back then, they didn't even have excuses like "we need to add a grocery addition", they just did it because they could.

Article has lots of good info, overall, just misses that the behavior has a long history.
posted by gimonca at 8:50 AM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


I eagerly await the fall-out from Target closing ALL stores in Canada.

Yay empty strip malls?
posted by blue_beetle at 8:51 AM on January 15, 2015 [13 favorites]


This happened in my village in upstate NY: the Walmart opened a Supercenter c. 1 mile away and abandoned its other store, which has been sitting vacant for several years now. The Supercenter doesn't appear to have negatively impacted the local Wegmans, however.
posted by thomas j wise at 8:51 AM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


This happened to my hometown. Wallyworld moved one mile away across the city limit after destroying the retail tax base. The old Walmart was the shopping mall anchor; the new one leveled acres of previously unimproved forest and fucking knocked down a mountain.
posted by infinitewindow at 8:55 AM on January 15, 2015 [10 favorites]


Target just announced they are closing about 150 stores across Canada. All of them.

Target came to Canada just 3 years ago after buying Zellers (kind of a down-market Walmart), so Target's departure is going to leave a huge whole in the Canadian retail space.

They spent a ton of money on renovating the Zellers stores, and Target was basically an anchor tenant at many malls across Canada.

The worst thing was that Zellers wasn't all that bad. It was *packed* full of stuff, and was really cheap.

Target, for various reasons never had much product density.

But a ton of retail space is going to flood the Canadian market momentarily. It will be interesting (and depressing) to see if Walmart jacks up its prices. Because Walmart had really cheap prices for a lot of staples.

Canada is an expensive country, and families like ours depend on cheap prices at Walmart to get by.
posted by Nevin at 8:55 AM on January 15, 2015 [5 favorites]


A rather ironic post considering that just this morning an announcement was made concerning another larger retailer.

'Target to close all 133 Canadian stores'.
"In a release early Thursday, the U.S. retail chain said it will close all its locations in Canada. There are 133 stores across the country with about 17,600 employees. The company launched in Canada in March of 2013, not quite two years ago. But after high expectations, the chain failed to deliver right out of the gate as customers faced higher-than-expected prices, and empty shelves as the retailer had problems with its distribution chain."
Nevin just beat me to it.
posted by Fizz at 8:55 AM on January 15, 2015 [5 favorites]


.....Hey, I hear something about Target closing down in Canada too, anyone else heard th -

Oh.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:57 AM on January 15, 2015 [50 favorites]


The tactic of holding on to leases of vacant stores seem especially egregious to me. Can't possibly let the area revitalize itself, that might cause the new Wal Mart to lose business.

I'm surprised they don't burn the building down and salt the earth as well.
posted by backseatpilot at 8:58 AM on January 15, 2015 [36 favorites]


There's a saying that Walmart kills twice. Once when it moves in, and once when it moves out.
posted by Dr-Baa at 8:59 AM on January 15, 2015 [42 favorites]


infinitewindow: "The old Walmart was the shopping mall anchor; the new one leveled acres of previously still unimproved forest..."
posted by Riki tiki at 8:59 AM on January 15, 2015 [6 favorites]




I found Target here distinctly underwhelming. The aisles were empty, the prices were high -- higher than what I feel is the usual US/Canada disparity, and the quality wasn't there.
posted by jeather at 9:03 AM on January 15, 2015


As a Canadian who lives on a border town (Niagara Falls, ON), the one thing that hits us most is that even with a passport fee and the fuel and time, things are just generally cheaper on the American side. I love this country, I'm a citizen and I try to spend locally when I can but when the difference between the same pair of shoes is $40-50, I'll drive a half hour into Buffalo, NY and do my shopping there because it just makes sense financially.
posted by Fizz at 9:03 AM on January 15, 2015 [4 favorites]


I blame local and state governments - first for bending over (backwards or any other way you want to visualize it) to give big box stores tax breaks to move in, and second for not having a tax structure in place that makes it unaffordable to maintain an empty building that's not making any revenue.

For every WalMart location doing this there are a dozen local slumlords hanging onto empty, decaying buildings because they have some grand plan for 10-15 years out that never materializes.
posted by randomkeystrike at 9:06 AM on January 15, 2015 [14 favorites]


When hurrican Ike, followed by Gustav came huffing and puffing toward SE Louisiana I evacuated to a former Walmart in Bastrop Louisiana. Full of Walmart stuff and aisles those buildings are huge. Emptied of everything, I think the closest analog is a stadium.
posted by vapidave at 9:07 AM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


Oh, this happened to my town years ago. They turned our Walmart into a Bud's. Bud's is where all the things that get returned to Walmart used to go to. Then it turned into a discount store, and then it just emptied out. I don't think it was for tax reasons. People in my home town were so used to driving 30 miles to the nearest city that they would usually go to the "better" Walmarts there. Although part of it was the fact that they city incorporated the land the Walmart was on.

It took years, but they built a community center out of it. Better than a vacant old building and a cracked parking lot looming over the town.
posted by zabuni at 9:08 AM on January 15, 2015 [6 favorites]


To totally usurp this into a Target Canada thread, I suspect Zellers will take back some of the stores and others will be bought up by other retailers. The locations were good, Target had inexplicable supply chain troubles in Canada resulting in partially empty stores. The Zellers stores that had been in the same locations never had that issue somehow.

Which is the opposite of the WalMart issue at hand. Not a lot of places in Canada have the same endless expanse of empty land like middle-America does for building big box stores that can simply be abandoned.
posted by GuyZero at 9:08 AM on January 15, 2015


Target Canada’s supply chain woes

Canadian retail in general has supply-chain problems. My grocery store routinely runs out of entire categories of milk, cheese, canned vegetables, bread, cereal, fresh pasta, etc., and you end up with a huge gap on the shelves that stays there for days and days before any new inventory comes in. Even Walmart in Canada has chronic stock problems.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 9:11 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


What about the billions in tax breaks that we, the American people, have paid Walmart to open the original stores in the first place? Why were no strings attached to those? Are we giving them tax breaks the second time?

ugh.
posted by Dashy at 9:11 AM on January 15, 2015 [10 favorites]


As a Canadian who lives on a border town (Niagara Falls, ON), the one thing that hits us most is that even with a passport fee and the fuel and time, things are just generally cheaper on the American side. I love this country, I'm a citizen and I try to spend locally when I can but when the difference between the same pair of shoes is $40-50, I'll drive a half hour into Buffalo, NY and do my shopping there because it just makes sense financially.

This is probably the only reason why I miss living in Quebec; I was about 45 minutes from the Vermont border so it was nothing for me to pop up over to do some grocery shopping, or if we really wanted to make a weekend of it, go to Burlington to more extensive retail shopping. If that didn't happen, it was nice having a US postal address so we could order from Amazon US and pay much much less than we would have on Amazon Canada.
posted by Kitteh at 9:12 AM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Also I did a sales call to Royal Ahold HQ in the Netherlands once... those guys have got to get a new name. "Ahold"? Maybe it works in Dutch, but in English, not so much.
posted by GuyZero at 9:12 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Canadian retail in general has supply-chain problems.

Really? I never noticed this in Toronto. My local No Frills was full of canned Brazilian goods and all sorts of other exotic stuff that seemed a lot like a Frill to me. The "No Frills" with the live fish department was probably the frilliest No Frills I ever saw.
posted by GuyZero at 9:14 AM on January 15, 2015


Erm, Hurricane Gustav followed by Hurricane Ike, not Ike followed by Gustav. I swear I know that part of the alphabet.
posted by vapidave at 9:16 AM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


We had a Walmart Neighborhood Market move in down the street from us where Circuit City used to be.

I don't shop there. I've never been in it. I don't want to shop at Walmart ever in my life. I'll wait at the lights to get across the expressway to Lucky every time.
posted by Talez at 9:20 AM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


Dr-Baa: There's a saying that Walmart kills twice. Once when it moves in, and once when it moves out.

The town next to mine is called Woonsocket, RI, and it's pretty poor. There was a (terrible) Wal-Mart about ten minutes drive from my house, just over the town line, but they closed it a couple of years ago. This was -- quelle surprise -- when they opened up a newer, bigger Super Monster Galactus Wal-Mart, in the next town along (North Smithfield, RI), as soon as the town coughed up a ton of land and tax breaks and the like for a huge new development over local objections.

Unfortunately, the Lowe's across the street did the same, just a few months later, also heading to the same new development. And there is a ton of low-income housing just up the road (quite busy, bus-served Diamond Hill Road) from the old site -- but now those people are screwed because the Shaw's grocery store closed and the Pizza Hut closed and so did a bunch of other things, like dominoes. (In fact a Papa Gino's pizza place has stayed open, but not an actual Domino's.)

But this is New England, so of course this isn't the first time that retail has migrated within the area:
As workers moved to the suburbs, retail establishments soon followed. A related development by the Ferland Corporation was the Walnut Hill Plaza which was completed in 1960. Walnut Hill Plaza was Woonsocket's first suburban shopping center. It was located on Diamond Hill Road near Walnut Hill Acres. The opening of Walnut Hill Plaza was the beginning of the end of significant retail activity on Woonsocket's historic Main Street. With well lit, brightly decorated stores and ample parking, Walnut Hill Plaza was able to attract suburban shoppers away from Woonsocket's downtown retail area.
(http://www.woonsocket.org/walnuthill.html; link is from the source)
posted by wenestvedt at 9:21 AM on January 15, 2015 [5 favorites]


I found Target here distinctly underwhelming. The aisles were empty, the prices were high -- higher than what I feel is the usual US/Canada disparity, and the quality wasn't there.

Agreed. There's a Target very close to me in Toronto and I had a look see with some friends. We expected cheap, lower quality, but we'd never seen this level of cheap and this level of low quality. It was horrible. The impression was about 70% of the store was full of total junk you'd be better getting at the dollar store.
posted by juiceCake at 9:29 AM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


My grocery store routinely runs out of entire categories of milk, cheese, canned vegetables, bread, cereal, fresh pasta, etc., and you end up with a huge gap on the shelves that stays there for days and days before any new inventory comes in.

I have never seen this, except maybe at the end of a week when some item is on sale. But even that is rare.
posted by jeather at 9:31 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Years ago the Walmart in my hometown moved from its tiny home to a new location Super Walmart location. I just pulled up the map and it's 0.5 miles in driving distance. Miraculously the empty building was sectioned off into three parts and became a Tractor Supply Co., Office Depot, and Goodwill store and managed to thrive. It's been years since I've been back but even when I did live there I couldn't have told you the name of a single store in the strip mall section off to the side, though.

Of course just a few years later the Walmart numbers people ran their metrics and determined that we needed an additional Super Walmart off the state highway and juu-u-u-u-st outside our city limits, so now the north side of the city bleeds that tax money to the next (tiny) town over.
posted by komara at 9:31 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


On the plus side, a little remodeling and they'll be able to convert most of those Canadian Targets into minor league hockey rinks.
posted by delfin at 9:36 AM on January 15, 2015 [6 favorites]


Hot damn. I had no idea that Walmart still leased those locations. Did no one think to enforce some sort of abandoned building something (ordinance, I don't know?)

It's happening right now; the Walmart in my town is moving one town over (which actually seems really odd, no one is going to drive that far, leaving the local Target to sop up the lost business.) but I had no idea they'd likely be leaving their empty building behind. It does explain why people are so against them leaving that location.

Walmart abandoned another location a couple towns over for about 8 years. That was one I always wondered why it sat empty. It was so ugly and empty. I often wondered about squatting in it. Just because why not? Wondered what kind of security they had and if having a clipboard and badge would be enough to keep me from trouble should I get caught checking it out (just one of those things one casually wonders when driving by after a while.) they eventually came back when a Woodman's opened up (an employee owned grocery chain known for their low prices) nearby. They decided to put a grocery only Walmart there. Now that I know they leased the space the whole time it seems even more fuckery that they waited until another business which would draw people away from a super Walmart went in to reopen that location.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 9:41 AM on January 15, 2015 [4 favorites]


There are a bunch of deeply stupid reasons for supply problems in Canada.

Inter-provincial barriers and idiosyncratic regulation that make goods very hard to move east-west. Simple things like how big and heavy your trucks can be, what you labels have to look like, how often your equipment must be inspected. Quotas and supply management for food, beer, wine and other agricultural goods are brutal. Many of these are non-tarrif---it's not a direct cost, but complying with the reg is costly.

Distribution deals are a common problem. Exclusive rights to sell popular brands means restraint of trade and higher prices for merchants and the public. This is a large part of the reason Zappos doesn't ship to Canada anymore. They just couldn't offer the brands in Canada, and got tired of having to explain why.

The boarder makes it's own problems too. Even with free trade on many items, brokering stuff across costs 5 to 10% routinely. If the CSA/UL is involved, that also adds cost. Any new item brought to market costs at least $10k to certify, even if it already has a UL sticker. May not sound like a huge amount, but consider all of the small electronic widgets a store like Target might sell.
posted by bonehead at 9:41 AM on January 15, 2015 [10 favorites]


Target Canada’s supply chain woes

Is that what the colossal fuckup was? Except that I'm not sure how much I buy "longer shipping distance" as a major reason... I mean, yeah, in Canada the farthest-away thing will always be REALLY far away, because Canada. But 90% of the things are going to be in the band near the border that's at least as dense as the neighboring bits of the US.

Really? I never noticed this in Toronto. My local No Frills was full of canned Brazilian goods and all sorts of other exotic stuff that seemed a lot like a Frill to me.

Shopping in Toronto is GREAT if you want exotic, ethnic, imported, or high-end stuff. It's bad if you want a wider variety of boring normal things; biscotti's relatives from TO come down here fairly frequently and go home with a trunk full of boring workaday stuff -- mostly from US Target and Wegmans -- that's not available in Canada, or at least not in the GTA.

The weird counterexamples are Kraft peanut butter, which isn't sold in the US, and ketchup or all-dressed chips, which I've occasionally seen but aren't common.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:48 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Fuck Walmart. Fuck them so hard.
posted by entropicamericana at 9:53 AM on January 15, 2015 [10 favorites]


//Miraculously the empty building was sectioned off into three parts and became a Tractor Supply Co., Office Depot, and Goodwill store and managed to thrive.//

Our empty WalMart became a Gander Mountain, Bed, Bath & Beyond, and a discount furniture store. It's been stable for about 10 years now, so at least that is good. WalMart moved a mile closer the Interstate, in a huge shopping development.
posted by COD at 9:53 AM on January 15, 2015


They spent a ton of money on renovating the Zellers stores, and Target was basically an anchor tenant at many malls across Canada.

"Renovate" has more positive connotations than what happened locally. There was a massive Zeller's across the street from three or four retirement community highrises. The Zeller's became a Target. The most visible sign of the renovations is that they bricked up all the entrances facing this sizable customer base (the building's other sides, surrounded by an ocean of parking lot, face light retail on two sides and a train track on the side opposite the highrises). In the interior -- I was in twice -- the remaining doors were carefully concealed behind large free-standing walls which you had to circumnavigate to find the doors. So as well as the meagre selection and low quality, it was a lot of work for seniors to get in and also find their way out. It is hard to imagine a less pleasant shopping experience for anyone's grandmother.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:53 AM on January 15, 2015 [6 favorites]


Same here. The old Walmart building in town housed a secondhand store and the county driving bureau until last year, when the driving bureau moved to an office on the town square and the secondhand store basically had to close due to lack of traffic (and also because the giant building is in disrepair and nobody has the money to repair it). The old Walmart was once part of a shopping center that included the last local grocery store in town, which folded two years ago. Now this giant shopping complex on the hill is empty and decaying, and the newish super Walmart is just down the hill a half mile, just across the town limits.

And because this is a food desert and the next nearest Walmart is over 20 miles away, the super Walmart in town is EXPENSIVE. They charge Los Angeles prices on food items and we're in the middle of the Missouri soy fields.
posted by annathea at 9:54 AM on January 15, 2015


I'm going to be sad when the local Target closes up. They were a couple minutes away from walmart and you could buy the same stuff their for maybe half a percent more but the store was a ghost town. I could zip in, grab whatever I wanted and zip out. Compared to the Walmart experience of fighting for space the whole time I'm there and then waiting for 30-40 minutes in line to pay irregardless of time of day.
posted by Mitheral at 9:56 AM on January 15, 2015


Target pulling out of Canada shocks me. They were promoting new store openings as recently as 1.5 years ago- we saw their booth at a street fair in Nova Scotia. Still have the free promo sunglasses they were handing out.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:57 AM on January 15, 2015


"longer shipping distance"

That's always been a lie. It costs pennies to actually transport most goods.

The real problems include regulatory compliance (for the goods themselves, and for transport of goods, and are mostly inter-provincial); commercial distribution rights and monopolies of trade; and getting stuff across the border.
posted by bonehead at 10:00 AM on January 15, 2015


you could buy the same stuff their for maybe half a percent more but the store was a ghost town

Yeah, my nearest Toronto Target was always a very pleasant shopping experience - clean, wide aisles, the staff seemed nice and knowledgeable, clean washrooms and of course you could check out almost instantly or sit in Starbucks as long as you wanted as there was nobody there. Also my dogs liked some of the own brand dog treats and things. The thought of all the Targets being boarded up and empty is depressing, and of course that's a lot of people out of work (some of whom found out by seeing the G&M story apparently). A shame.
posted by jamesonandwater at 10:02 AM on January 15, 2015


>Target Canada’s supply chain woes

Is that what the colossal fuckup was? Except that I'm not sure how much I buy "longer shipping distance" as a major reason


Actually the main reason why Target failed was because the Canadian unit used a different inventory system than its American supplier.

The two systems could not be reconciled, so there was no way to distribute stock from the 3 regional warehouses mentioned.

By the time the issue was noticed and addressed, there was a massive, massive... massive backlog of inventory. It had to be sorted by hand. An impossible task.

At the same time, there was no stock in the stores. So once the inventory reached the shelves, there was no one there to buy it. And the inventory problem continued. And what's more, there was not way to strategically stock merchandise based on customer preference.

That is the entire cause of Target's failure in Canada - the inability to reconcile two inventory tracking systems.

How stupid is that?
posted by Nevin at 10:06 AM on January 15, 2015 [30 favorites]


I didn't know Walmart systematically did this, but it doesn't surprise me a bit. This happened in Hinsdale, NH, a small town that happens to sit across the river from where I grew up in Vermont (a state with a history of opposing Walmarts).

When the original Walmart originally opened in Hinsdale it was very upsetting for me. The area of land they took over was originally a huge field where the circus used to come to town. This was not a piddly circus either, this was a kick-ass one with a huge tent that smelled of sawdust and peanuts, lions, elephants, clowns and the strong man - the whole deal. They would set up and stay for a week at least.

Then Walmart came, paved over that field, and built their box store. Eventually new buildings were also built so other businesses could move in and take advantage of the traffic. Then, according to the script, Walmart abandoned that building and moved a few miles down the road. With no traffic left those supporting stores died and nothing else moved in (last I checked). Oh and the circus never came back that I know of.

So anyway, fuck Walmart, they kill clowns.
posted by jeremias at 10:07 AM on January 15, 2015 [11 favorites]


They were promoting new store openings as recently as 1.5 years ago- we saw their booth at a street fair in Nova Scotia. Still have the free promo sunglasses they were handing out.

According to this article, they were still opening locations as recently as 3 months ago.
posted by nubs at 10:09 AM on January 15, 2015


That is the entire cause of Target's failure in Canada - the inability to reconcile two inventory tracking systems.

How stupid is that?


Very. It didn't help that Target expanded pretty quickly. Opening 100+ stores in a couple of years is a tall order.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:10 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Really? I never noticed this in Toronto.

Never seen it in Ottawa or Vancouver either. Well except the Shoppers Drug Mart across the street. Anytime something goes on sale the weirdos come in and buy like 29 frozen pizzas or 42 boxes of Raisin Bran. What is it with that place? People always up at the cash buying a dozen containers of coffee sweetener or some shit and arguing about god knows what for 10 minutes while an absurdly long and increasingly impatient line of forms. Or maybe its just me that's impatient. I don't know. I just want some goddamned Tylenol.

My local No Frills was full of canned Brazilian goods and all sorts of other exotic stuff that seemed a lot like a Frill to me.

Yeah No Frills is maybe not the most accurate name, but in Vancouver they are just so much cheaper than anything else. I love that place.
posted by Hoopo at 10:12 AM on January 15, 2015


Not a lot of places in Canada have the same endless expanse of empty land like middle-America does for building big box stores that can simply be abandoned.

Au contraire. Canada is first and foremost an endless expanse of empty land.

Really? I never noticed this in Toronto.

No, neither have I, but in a place like Thunder Bay or surrounding communities on the north shore of Lake Superior, for example, they're closer to Winnipeg as a major distribution centre for a lot of retail than they are to the Toronto area despite being in the same province. And when a snowstorm shuts down that stretch of the Transcanada highway for a day or three in the dead of winter, inventory's not getting anywhere.

But regarding the Wal-Mart article, one of the problems with suburban sprawl and the big-box retail that comes with, at least in southwestern Ontario, has been that a lot of good agricultural land has been paved over to accommodate it. It's one of the things that led to a protracted battle over the location of a Wal-Mart in Guelph.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:15 AM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Back to Walmart and the linked article, 0.04% is a very low donation rate for a top billionaire. Even the Koch brothers donate at a higher percentage rate.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:18 AM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think 4 years ago when Target decided to acquire Zellers from HBC, Canada was considered a strong market for retail, stronger than the US, which was still deeply depressed because of the 2008 meltdown.

Canada, with its lower unemployment rate and so on was seen as a great market in which to expand.

Zellers was already established and profitable (albeit with slim margins for HBC), so the thinking was take them over and provide a better shopping experience, and increase margins.

Walmart and others though had an advantage - they were already established, didn't have to renovate, and could up their game before Target ever opened a store here.

While I think Walmart is problematic the issue is that in Canada we have few retail options. It is expensive to sell retail in Canada, and only Walmart can do it because of their global size and scale.

Great Canadian Superstore comes close. Canadian Tire is great but they don't have the same range of products that Walmart does.

Canadian Tire is a good example of how to sell in Canada - the narrow narrow aisles of each store are absolutely crammed full of merchandise, something Target was never able to do.
posted by Nevin at 10:18 AM on January 15, 2015 [4 favorites]


Turn them into housing for all the people who lost their livelihoods thanks to Walmart.
posted by Renoroc at 10:19 AM on January 15, 2015 [7 favorites]


Back to Walmart and the linked article, 0.04% is a very low donation rate for a top billionaire.

I mean, yes, it seems tiny but it's 56mil, no? Idk, math, I'm tired as hell. But either way I'd want to know if that was annually or in total ever.

this minor point should in no way detract from my firm belief that they are terrible people
posted by poffin boffin at 10:21 AM on January 15, 2015


There's only one thing we can do with these husks.

Texas Town Converts Abandoned Walmart into Award-Winning Public Library.

If not a library, then why not a homeless shelter?
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 10:27 AM on January 15, 2015 [10 favorites]


The 0.04% seems to come from an independent study of their charitable donations from 2008 to 2013. These numbers differ from other accounts though. It's possible money could have been moved outside this scope, then called a donation.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:29 AM on January 15, 2015


The fact that the founders, the Walton family, donates just .04 percent of their combined $140 billion fortune to their own foundation does not help the Walmart image.

There is a foundation, called the government, which should forcibly take some of that money.

I dare anyone to make a coherent argument why that $140 billion is better left in their hands rather than, say, a still huge amount--call it $1.4B--and the rest returned to the society that enabled that accumulation in the first place.

If you employ someone and they need government handouts, the penalty should be 10x the cost of those benefits to the employer. Fuckers.
posted by maxwelton at 10:30 AM on January 15, 2015 [21 favorites]


Walmart's "cute flower logo" (as the FPP puts it) looks to me like a cartoon representation of a bubble bursting. Every time I see it, I think "This is a visualization of our quality of life disappearing."
posted by caution live frogs at 10:31 AM on January 15, 2015 [12 favorites]


I'm sitting here trying to think of one single good thing about Wal-Mart and I can't. At first, I thought that having low prices was a good thing for people who can't afford Target or similar but of course WM is the biggest and main player in the multi-decade trend of driving down wages, throwing so many people into poverty that they can only afford WM (if they can even afford that).

So then there's their green energy initiative, mentioned in the article and no doubt trumpeted and publicized far and wide by WM themselves, any benefit of which is probably more than offset by the building of all the new stores alone.

Wal-Mart has been depressing me for years but what's maybe even more depressing at this point is the fact that all of this has been pretty well publicized and I think has registered in the consciousness of the general public and nothing changes. And I don't anticipate anything changing. Wal-Mart does nothing but ruin so much of what it's involved in - environment, livelihoods, healthy competition, communities - and it just rolls away leaving just...destruction in its wake, laughing and counting its money. It's gross and sad and fucking depressing.
posted by triggerfinger at 10:31 AM on January 15, 2015 [8 favorites]


Wal-Mart is a very American company.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:32 AM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]




Ok it's sort of interesting actually, there are 15 separate numbered testamentary trusts which each donate between 15-40 million to the Walton Family Foundation annually, plus an additional 10-12 named and numbered ones. It's a little hard to process because I'm not used to seeing so many numbers on a 990.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:34 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


From Target's own financial reporting, just pulling a random quarter out of the hat:

In fourth quarter 2013, the Canadian Segment generated sales of $623 million and EBIT of $(329) million. The fourth quarter gross margin rate of 4.4 percent reflects continued efforts to clear excess inventory. Canadian operations reduced fourth quarter GAAP EPS by (40) cents6.

As Nevin pointed out, this basically says "we had too much inventory sitting around because we couldn't figure out our systems, and we weren't selling it fast enough, so our earnings took a hit."

If the reports that Target is offering 16 weeks of severance to its affected employees in Canada are true, that seems like something Wal-Mart just wouldn't do. It's well above the statutory minimum under employment standards legislation in all provinces given that people working at Target here have been on the job for max, what, two years? This is pending their proposal under CCAA proceedings, though.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:37 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


I eagerly await the fall-out from Target closing ALL stores in Canada.

I've added this of my file of articles to link to as evidence in Facebook arguments about how the private sector is always the most efficient and innovative at overcoming any logistical or social obstacle.

Target - a company that made $72.596 billion in 2013 and has almost 2000 locations in the US - couldn't overcome supply chain problems in Canada.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:39 AM on January 15, 2015 [6 favorites]


I'm on my phone walking to lunch now so can't look but I think there was an fpp in the last couple of years on the Waltons and their use of Dynasty (aka "Jackie O") trusts that was really interesting.
posted by triggerfinger at 10:39 AM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


This Frontline documentary about Walmart from 2004 is fascinating. (episode page)

It's really a look back in time at another era, at the dawn of massive-scale outsourcing to China. Everything has changed since then.
posted by Nevin at 10:41 AM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Wal-Mart does nothing but ruin so much of what it's involved in - environment, livelihoods, healthy competition, communities - and it just rolls away leaving just...destruction in its wake, laughing and counting its money.

I keep flashing back to a throwaway comment that Chris Hardwick made in one of his podcasts - "Americans: we invented waste!"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:52 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


I went to university with someone who was working at this Wal-Mart during the union drive.

According to her, to emphasize their "open door" policy, one manager got a screwdriver from the hardware department and removed his door from its hinges. This same manager, she said, also confronted people in the parking lot after work to see if he could smell union on them.

While it was briefly unionized owing to a labour board ruling that flagged management intimidation, it was not to be.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:54 AM on January 15, 2015


Walmart's "cute flower logo" (as the FPP puts it) looks to me like a cartoon representation of a bubble bursting. Every time I see it, I think "This is a visualization of our quality of life disappearing."

To me, it looks like a doodle that Vonnegut put into one of his books (I forget which one) and captioned with "This is my drawing of an asshole". I told this to my wife about a month ago when we found ourselves in front of a Walmart and she burst out in a great fit of laughter then proclaimed she would never be able to look at that logo the same way again.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 10:56 AM on January 15, 2015 [17 favorites]


I'm sitting here trying to think of one single good thing about Wal-Mart and I can't.

You've obviously never had the toilet flusher fail in a trailer in rural Texas at 2 in the morning. Let me assure you I was grateful for the Wal-Mart SuperCenter at that moment.

Weird thing was that they had a greeter at that hour. This was like 20 years ago.
posted by spitbull at 10:57 AM on January 15, 2015 [5 favorites]


[insert clever name here]: they eventually came back when a Woodman's opened up (an employee owned grocery chain known for their low prices) nearby. They decided to put a grocery only Walmart there. Now that I know they leased the space the whole time it seems even more fuckery that they waited until another business which would draw people away from a super Walmart went in to reopen that location.

That's standard operating procedure for Walmart, icnh. They will specifically target local retail. I remember a poster talking about how when Walmart moved into town, they had a local bookstore/newsagent that had an exceptional magazine selection for their area. Suddenly the local Walmart had one too, much better than typical. When the bookstore went under, the selection at Walmart disappeared.

They'll even open entire stores that exist to destroy the local shopping options and then be closed and the traffic funneled to a Supercenter.
posted by tavella at 10:58 AM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


To me, it looks like a doodle that Vonnegut put into one of his books (I forget which one) and captioned with "This is my drawing of an asshole".

Also, this.
posted by jbickers at 10:58 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


If only small businesses were as ruthless and strategic in their battle against Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart is run like it's at war with its employees, other businesses, local government, and the world.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:03 AM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


To me, it looks like a doodle that Vonnegut put into one of his books (I forget which one) and captioned with "This is my drawing of an asshole". I told this to my wife about a month ago when we found ourselves in front of a Walmart and she burst out in a great fit of laughter then proclaimed she would never be able to look at that logo the same way again.

Breakfast of Champions, and I thought the exact same thing when they rolled out the logo.
posted by hwyengr at 11:04 AM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


Hobby Lobby is the ghost of many Walmarts past.
posted by mmmbacon at 11:06 AM on January 15, 2015


Trying to think if there's anything about Walmart that isn't to the detriment of society as a whole. They appear to be fairly eco-friendly when designing their monster stores, but that same level care doesn't seem to apply to employee wages. (Unless you see it as a good thing when many of your employees are on public assistance and food drives for employees are a common feature of the holidays.)

The Walton family has members that are individually richer than many US cities. This is obviously a long-term tenable plan for how to run the world.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 11:09 AM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


New law: If you build a new wide-span-roof building on previously-undeveloped land you must either actively occupy it for 30 years with normal business operations, find a new tenant for it to finish your lease at a property tax rate not to fall below X% of your last tax rate, or pay to have the whole thing turned back to farmland, including all required EPA remediation.

Also how wide-span your roof can be is going to be determined by the permeability of your parking lot. Just sayin'.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:18 AM on January 15, 2015 [10 favorites]


...but that same level care doesn't seem to apply to employee wages.

More apropos Vonnegut, from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater:

Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America. Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created. Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage. And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:19 AM on January 15, 2015 [30 favorites]


What about the billions in tax breaks that we, the American people, have paid Walmart to open the original stores in the first place? Why were no strings attached to those? Are we giving them tax breaks the second time?

One hand washes the other. (And covers both bases, NB.)
posted by IndigoJones at 11:26 AM on January 15, 2015


They should turn it into an indoor skating rink or sports community center or something. Or a megachurch. I'm just spitballing here.

I kind of like those places that were obviously once Taco Bells and now are personal injury law firms or CPA offices. I think it would work well as a small church.
posted by discopolo at 11:31 AM on January 15, 2015


Wal-Mart has moved THREE TIMES in my childhood town (Coffeyville, KS, about 10,000 people).

The first store has something in it now (some sort of industrial storage company) and Wal-Mart was there until the early 90s.

The second store is large, vacant, and in a good retail area (though I'm not sure what could go there).

The third, and current location (built in 2008 or 9), is built in a flood plain (a flood plain that suffered a 500-year flood just a year before they broke ground) and was just outside the city limits to avoid city taxes. Fortunately the city annexed them in so now they pay.

So, this, coupled with Amazon moving out of Coffeyville, means there is a LOT of empty retail / warehouse space in Coffeyville.
posted by stltony at 11:34 AM on January 15, 2015


tl/dr. Is there a photo essay that can boil it down for me in fewer than 10 scrolls?
posted by Chuffy at 11:48 AM on January 15, 2015


I used to shop at Wal-Mart all the time when I was severely broke. I was able to turn $35 into a week's worth of food, a challenge that would have been nigh impossible elsewhere, without investing hours of research coupled with multiple trips to several stores. They serve a purpose, and what they do (evil or not) they do it well and there is an obvious draw to their stores.

Today, however, Wal-Mart exists for 2am emergencies and an occasional trip. The aura of unhappiness, from both the customers as a whole and the employees is palpable, and added to that the inevitable extra half hour of shopping time and 15 minutes in line and "never fail" bad mood I get into shopping there (though the mood usually hits in the parking lot before I even enter), I will always seek out a Publix or Target first, and only visit Wal-Mart if forced to.

Sure, I may have the opportunity to save 20-25 dollars when purchasing a large amount of stuff at Wal-Mart, but the time wasted and cost of my serenity is worth far more than that today.

But I still appreciate (on a certain level) the existence of Wal-Mart, in case I am ever again forced to turn 35 bucks into 7 days of food....
posted by Debaser626 at 11:49 AM on January 15, 2015 [6 favorites]


I'm sitting here trying to think of one single good thing about Wal-Mart and I can't.

It was the only place I was able to buy tampons in Beijing.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:53 AM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Bud's is where all the things that get returned to Walmart used to go to.

This is impossible. There are only 9 circles of Hell.
posted by benzenedream at 11:55 AM on January 15, 2015


Circuit City left a lot of empty retail when they closed. Some of it is only filling up now, with stuff like Savers and gyms.
posted by smackfu at 11:57 AM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Didn't we used to have an anti-trust law in this country? Maybe somebody should look into that.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:59 AM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm sitting here trying to think of one single good thing about Wal-Mart and I can't.

I'm guessing you didn't ever have to shop in the rural or exurban south before Wal-Mart.

That area and time was poorly served by retail. Most major retails hadn't penetrated, so there mostly just wasn't a Sears or K-Mart or what have you. And while it's easy to think about local businesses as being great and offering great service and so on, as a general tendency that would be a wrong way to think about local retail in the old rural south. Instead, think small selection, high prices, poor service, and vague corruption. That is, don't think snazzy little boutiques, think shitty car dealerships. You could still get tastes of this even into the late 90s.

So in some areas where Wal-Mart moved in and crushed local retail and then there was just Wal-Mart, pretty much everyone except the few local potentates that had owned the crappy local department or notionally-hardware store that you had to use or drive 45 minutes to get to someplace reasonable was better off. Because the local retail was just that bad.

But this is a measure of how very bad retail in the old south was -- so bad that Wal-Mart was a step up -- and certainly not a measure of Wal-Mart's virtues, which border on nonexistent.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:01 PM on January 15, 2015 [16 favorites]


smackfu: “Circuit City left a lot of empty retail when they closed. Some of it is only filling up now, with stuff like Savers and gyms.”
Which reminds me, there are literally millions of square feet of retail, including former Walmart stores, and warehouse/light industrial property standing empty where I live. One wonders what the county government plans to do about it.

Important Safety Tip: If you live someplace where they brag about being "one of the fastest growing counties in the country," you should move. Before it's too late.
posted by ob1quixote at 12:03 PM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


They should turn it into an indoor skating rink or sports community center or something. Or a megachurch. I'm just spitballing here.

I've read that they are so badly constructed/planned that they can't really be converted into anything without serious investment. Like, they aren't well-insulated and the roofs are shoddy, the floors buckle, and so on. They are built to be disposable.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 12:26 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


I'm sitting here trying to think of one single good thing about Wal-Mart and I can't.

I mean, they are terrible and they should be regulated out of existence, or something-ed out of existence. When I lived in bigger places, I didn't shop there (although I kept the 99 cent reusable grocery bags I got there and felt kind of shirty at the Hipster Whole Foods.). Now that I'm a background character in a Richard Russo novel again, I go there more often than I should. They sell a couple oddball grocery items I can't find anywhere else. It's cheaper for staples than the regional grocery store chain. It's the only grocery store around with self-checkout lanes so it's good when I'm freaking out about social interactions. When I was in high school, we used to go there at like 10:30 on a Saturday and try the nail polishes.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 12:33 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


So in some areas where Wal-Mart moved in and crushed local retail and then there was just Wal-Mart, pretty much everyone except the few local potentates that had owned the crappy local department or notionally-hardware store that you had to use or drive 45 minutes to get to someplace reasonable was better off. Because the local retail was just that bad.


My great-grandparents owned a department store in rural Virginia. It closed sometime in the 70s- family story is that the next generation (vague cousins of mine) couldn't manage it.

When I was passing through the town last year, people remembered my great-grandparents fondly, or, if they hadn't met them, had heard good stories about them. The building is now an antiques store, and it has a little display in back, with pictures of what it looked like when it was a department store, and newspaper clippings about my great grandparents and the store.

My great-grandpa was in the Kiwanis club, helped lead the local Boy Scout troop, and was just generally a part of the leadership of the town. Great-grandma wasn't as actively involved in town life, but was well-known and respected, and, from all reports, was a fantastic buyer for the store. One of the newspaper clippings also mentioned the fact that nearly 100 people from the town drove 80 miles to go to my grandmother's wedding. Not to mention that this was all despite them being Polish Jews, and, apart from the family that owned the grocery store, the only Jews in town.

There's a Walmart there now, in a strip mall, about 2 miles from the downtown. I highly doubt that, 40 years after it closes, people will know the name of the owner or general manager, or talk about how he or she gave back to the community. And, at the very least, I'm sure that the quality of the clothes at the Wal-Mart is far, far below what my great-grandma was buying in New York for their store 80 years ago.
posted by damayanti at 12:51 PM on January 15, 2015 [21 favorites]


I hate WalMart, but to my surprise, in my hometown of Federal Way, Wash., they didn't close down the "old" WalMart when they opened the new supercenter. I never go to the old one, and rarely to the supercenter, but knowing this practice, I was just surprised.

That bit about Target in Canada disappoints me, as I spent a lot of time trying to set up a former employer's EDI systems to talk to the Canadian division. Oh, well...lot of disappointments from my time at that company, I guess.
posted by lhauser at 12:55 PM on January 15, 2015


That area and time was poorly served by retail. Most major retails hadn't penetrated, so there mostly just wasn't a Sears or K-Mart or what have you. And while it's easy to think about local businesses as being great and offering great service and so on, as a general tendency that would be a wrong way to think about local retail in the old rural south.

I wonder if they deliberately drove away good retail from the old South during the Jim Crow era. There was already another recent FPP, which talked about how towns in Mississippi in the JIm Crow era would deliberately discourage factories from locating there, because it would raise wage rates for black people in the area. I wonder if something similar went on for retail in the old South, where you'd have towns trying to discourage retail from settling in the area, because the retail might bring in "outsiders" with funny ideas that upset the local powers-that-be. It's not for nothing that the first major sit-in in the civil right sit-in movement occurred at a Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina, a Southern outpost of a national retail chain run by Northerners.
posted by jonp72 at 1:03 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


If you employ someone and they need government handouts, the penalty should be 10x the cost of those benefits to the employer.

Well, that's one way to ensure that only childless men can have jobs...
posted by Hatashran at 1:16 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]



I've added this of my file of articles to link to as evidence in Facebook arguments about how the private sector is always the most efficient and innovative at overcoming any logistical or social obstacle.

Target - a company that made $72.596 billion in 2013 and has almost 2000 locations in the US - couldn't overcome supply chain problems in Canada.


I think you're basically trying to argue against a strawman. People who believe that the private sector is generally more efficient and more innovative than the public sector don't literally believe that *every* private sector company is more innovative and efficient than the public sector. Rather, the belief is that competition will generally drive companies to try to become more efficient and more innovative, and that generally (not always) the winners will be those who can execute better than their competitors.
posted by gyc at 1:19 PM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


The dumb thing about Target's failure in Canada is that the decision to close stores wasn't exactly caused by poor performance and poor sales.

I mean, anyone using Target as an example of pure free market capitalism would have to be a dunderhead. There are so many nuances to the story, but the two strongest currents are incompetence by the executive, and also structural: the fact that the company is ultimately accountable to shareholders, who are not exactly interested in retail. They just want growth and dividends. But is that free market capitalism or something else?

The decision to literally cut their losses was motivated more by a desire to appease extreme shareholder displeasure; Target shareholders were angry not just about the botched Canada expansion but also by the data leak. And I'm sure that the now-departed CEO who botched the Canada rollout probably made some other major mistakes that would have tempted shareholder patience.

So, was the decision to close down all of Canada's stores a true business decision? The company did not forecast it would break even until 2021 in Canada, but a $70B company probably has that kind of staying power, I would say.

What is Target's core business? Retail? Or providing value to shareholders?
posted by Nevin at 1:29 PM on January 15, 2015


Ran payroll a few days early before Christmas, hired transgendered employees, emphasized anti-discrimination practices... for all its mistakes, Target Canada did seem to be trying to be a better version of a big box store. Too bad.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 1:46 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


I wonder if they deliberately drove away good retail from the old South during the Jim Crow era.

it wasn't uncommon for small towns and smaller cities in the north to do that, too - i grew up in battle creek in the 60s, and by the 70s, the cry among the merchants was that locals needed to be loyal to their city and not drive 20 miles to kalamazoo or 50 miles to grand rapids or lansing to get clothes and other things they wanted - like so many others, my mother and father just couldn't seem to find what they needed for their 5 kids around town, even at sears or penny's - they'd get what they could find and then pack us all up in the vista cruiser for a trip to g r or kalamazoo for back to school stuff - (our trips to lansing could be like that too, but that was more about visiting my grandparents for the weekend)

in the mid 70s downtown pretty much collapsed with places either going out of business or relocating to columbia ave, which was very suburban then, except for the old army housing around 22nd street - a proposal was made for a shopping mall to be build on beckley, a two lane road just south of the freeway, pretty much out in the sticks - opponents fought this for years, tooth and nail, but it was finally built in 1983, a rather late date for a town our size to get a shopping mall

now, the mall's struggling thanks to walmart, meijer's and the rest of the big boxes down the road - that and people are still driving to kalamazoo and grand rapids and lansing to get things they can't find in battle creek

like good jobs, which is why i live in kalamazoo now

and the walmart there is one of the mid sized ones - i really don't know if they would close it for a supercenter - they'd have to build it in the same spot and compete against meijer's - and if they were to close period, it's just not going to matter to meijer's and everything else there

in kalamazoo, walmart's opened up all their stores right by a meijer's - they're not exactly losing - but they're not winning either

meijer's is tough - they were doing "supercenters" long before walmart
posted by pyramid termite at 1:57 PM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


Great, now the new Target complex up on St. Clair W. is going to look even more like Miranda from Serenity.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 2:04 PM on January 15, 2015


The Ghost Stores of Walmart.

"... And then, the CEO got out of his Benz to get his clubs out of the trunk... and, there he found, plastered over the trunk logo... A 'BUY UNION' BUMBERSTICKER!!!"

[Greasy pieces of monied shit scream shrilly beneath a canopy made from 1500 TC sateen-weave Egyptian cotton sheets]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:09 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Au contraire. Canada is first and foremost an endless expanse of empty land.

Our urban areas are as dense or denser as the U.S.'s, and a higher percentage of our population live in areas with urban-level density than the U.S.
posted by lastobelus at 2:14 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Au contraire. Canada is first and foremost an endless expanse of empty land.

Our urban areas are as dense or denser as the U.S.'s, and a higher percentage of our population live in areas with urban-level density than the U.S.


But think of all that land up north! Target stores on the open prairie, Target stores in the northern forests, Target stores on the mountain slopes, Target stores on the Tundra!
posted by Area Man at 2:23 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


Pyramid termite, I hear ya about Meijers. As another lifelong Michigander and former Battle Creek denizen, I'm not exactly a huge Meijers fan, but I always pick them over WalMart. The problem with WalMart is that any item where they beat Meijers on price, is out of stock. Urban WalMarts are grimy forests of empty shelves. Plus they never have enough checkouts open at WalMart; you wait forever. Why not save time and just go to Meijers in the first place? You're going to end up there regardless, to get all the things WalMart is out of.

That's leaving aside any political issues with WalMart.
posted by elizilla at 2:38 PM on January 15, 2015 [1 favorite]


" i grew up in battle creek in the 60s, and by the 70s, the cry among the merchants was that locals needed to be loyal to their city and not drive 20 miles to kalamazoo or 50 miles to grand rapids or lansing to get clothes and other things they wanted - like so many others, my mother and father just couldn't seem to find what they needed for their 5 kids around town, even at sears or penny's - they'd get what they could find and then pack us all up in the vista cruiser for a trip to g r or kalamazoo for back to school stuff - (our trips to lansing could be like that too, but that was more about visiting my grandparents for the weekend)"

But you had all the cereal you could eat.
posted by klangklangston at 3:34 PM on January 15, 2015


If Walmart takes land and tax incentives to come, and then leaves soon thereafter...I think eminent domain should be invoked on empty and rundown properties. So, "no, fuck YOU, wally."
posted by j_curiouser at 4:10 PM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


I miss Zellers, it was a decent budget department store. Target in Ontario was kinda like Zellers, but not quite fit together exactly. Going into a Walmart just gave me a headache.
posted by ovvl at 4:29 PM on January 15, 2015


People who believe that the private sector is generally more efficient and more innovative than the public sector don't literally believe that *every* private sector company is more innovative and efficient than the public sector. Rather, the belief is that competition will generally drive companies to try to become more efficient and more innovative, and that generally (not always) the winners will be those who can execute better than their competitors.

You haven't met my relatives.
posted by ryanshepard at 5:52 PM on January 15, 2015


Relevant blog post from a blogger whose husband (Mike) lost his grocery store when Wal-Mart came to town.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:54 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Ahh, the Michigan possessive (e.g. "Meijer's")

I didn't go back east to visit family for the holidays this year, so I haven't heard it lately. Thanks for a tiny linguistic taste of home.
posted by Nerd of the North at 6:03 PM on January 15, 2015 [5 favorites]


Strips are effectively a cancer. Once you start looking at them this way, the particular company that has currently metastised onto any given spot of the landscape is irrelevant. The cell won't be there in X years and only the change it forced on the landscape will remain.
posted by joeyh at 6:52 PM on January 15, 2015 [2 favorites]


Ahh, the Michigan possessive (e.g. "Meijer's")

Windsor, too - you didn't work at Chrysler. You worked at "Chrysler's."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:07 PM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


Our urban areas are as dense or denser as the U.S.'s, and a higher percentage of our population live in areas with urban-level density than the U.S.

True. It's just all the real estate in between.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:15 PM on January 15, 2015


a few weeks ago, I went to Target (in Canada) and was looking for men's shoes but couldn't find them. I asked a salesperson where they were and she told me they were out. I asked "Of all men's shoes?" and was told yes.
posted by monkeymike at 8:36 PM on January 15, 2015 [3 favorites]


What is Target's core business? Retail? Or providing value to shareholders?

This question just oozes sarcasm.
posted by notreally at 9:02 PM on January 15, 2015


Our WalMarts seem to stay in one place for awhile, but we've lost plenty of other big box stores and have huge empty buildings standing idle for years sometimes. We lost a KMart, of course, then Lowe's decided to buy that lot and build a brand new Lowe's store, which they did, and the big, old Lowe's store stands vacant still. We've had Circuit City and Comp USA come in, build a nice big building, and then go under and out. Albertson's Grocery and Safeway have both left big and empty buildings behind. Sometimes a thrift store will take them over, a bingo hall took over the old Safeway, and sometimes they just stand there like ancient monuments with weeds taking over the asphalt parking lots and reclaiming the land.

It's too bad about Target going out of business in Canada, though - one day we'll have nothing left for variety stores except WalMart - and Amazon, of course.
posted by aryma at 11:12 PM on January 15, 2015


They could convert the abandoned buildings to insane asylums for the increasing amount of absolute crazy Tea Party types who look upon Walmart as a wonderful American success story.
posted by juiceCake at 7:44 AM on January 16, 2015




It's too bad about Target going out of business in Canada, though - one day we'll have nothing left for variety stores except WalMart - and Amazon, of course.

Canada letting Canadian Tire die would be up there with Canada giving up hockey or donuts on a list of HOW TO TELL THE APOCALYPSE IS NIGH.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:41 AM on January 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Sony stores are on the way out in Canada too. I personally know only 1 person in all the years there has been a Sony store actually buy something at the Sony store. Usually it was just used to have a good look at the products and then buy them elsewhere for less money.
posted by juiceCake at 8:45 AM on January 16, 2015


Walmart will never take over in Michigan for the main reason that "Walmarts" sounds wrong. Meijers, Krogers, Fords, Spartan's ShopRite....these are appropriate Michigan business names to pronounce correctly, by which I mean, inappropriately add possessives or/and pluralize.
posted by holyrood at 8:49 PM on January 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


My (originally Texan) grandma pronounced all retailers with an ending s. Kaymarks, Wallmarks, Painees, Wawrds, Awwscos, and on down the line. I think Safeway was the one exception, but I can't be sure because they left town when I was really little.
posted by wierdo at 10:25 PM on January 16, 2015



Walmart will never take over in Michigan for the main reason that "Walmarts" sounds wrong. Meijers, Krogers, Fords, Spartan's ShopRite....these are appropriate Michigan business names to pronounce correctly, by which I mean, inappropriately add possessives or/and pluralize.


meijer's inappropriate? - i'm afraid you're too young to remember that the original name of the store was meijer's thrifty acres - (also known as meijer's shifty takers)
posted by pyramid termite at 6:40 AM on January 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


But you had all the cereal you could eat.

you could even see it being made - after which, you didn't want it anymore
posted by pyramid termite at 6:44 AM on January 17, 2015 [1 favorite]


meijer's inappropriate? - i'm afraid you're too young to remember that the original name of the store was meijer's thrifty acres
Not quite, as far as I can tell. The original grocery store in Greenville from which the chain eventually sprung was "Meijer's" (before the "Thrifty Acres" was added.)

But if this picture is to be believed, as long ago as 1956 they were "Meijer Thrifty Acres" (no possessive..) and the majority of the chain expansion occurred after that. Possibly you are remembering an "s" that you assumed was there because everybody around you was pronouncing it, but which was not actually a part of store signage.

ON EDIT: Looking at it further, I'm not so sure about the dating of that picture. I'm really not good at car dating but I think that picture may be from later than the caption says.
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:00 PM on January 17, 2015


that picture's from the early 70s - pickup trucks with cabs - under the M is what looks like a chevy impala and what might be a ford mustang next to it - also, that corral sign seems familiar to me - and i'm very certain this is one of the stores with a balcony, which wikipedia states as being built in the 70s and 80s

actually, this is freaking me out because this is looking awfully close to the one they had in battle creek before they tore it down for a new one

i do recall in the 60s that the advertising was certainly for meijer's thrifty acres - they dropped the s later but a lot of people, including me, didn't
posted by pyramid termite at 12:58 PM on January 17, 2015


"you could even see it being made - after which, you didn't want it anymore"

My dad's uncle worked on the Lucky Charms marshmallow line and brought his family a garbage bag full of just the marshmallows. My dad still can't even look at them.
posted by klangklangston at 9:59 AM on January 20, 2015 [1 favorite]


i was in meijer's today and there was some kind of sale announcement and at the end the guy said - "thank you for shopping at MEIJER'S"

the checkout stations don't say that but they're robots, what do they know?
posted by pyramid termite at 3:38 PM on January 28, 2015 [1 favorite]


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