Big chain shops

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Bolded the snippet which illustrates a new culture problem that has arisen in the wake of the big box chains.

Before the big box chains, buying small/local was more a matter of geography than wealth and class. Then the big box chains moved in and people had to make a choice between "cheaper" and "better". Which choice you made was based often on wealth and class. The small, reasonably priced independent stores went quickly bankrupt (because they couldn't match the prices, even though they were reasonably priced they weren't dirt cheap). Then in came small, local, very high quality artisinal stores but also very expensive. And with them came the backlash so that buying quality stuff came to be associated with snobbishness and a class divide. And in some places it even came to be associated with "hipsters" (which seems to be a major insult these days). Maybe Portland has managed to get around this class divide, but to the rest of the country, Portland is 100% "hipsters" and therefore not to be trusted as models of local economy.

Changing the hearts and minds of people, changing consumer behaviour, will have to somehow remove this aura of wealth/class/hipster from local quality goods. I don't know how to do that. Right now, the very act of choosing quality goods (especially food) is seen as classist and snobbish. Walmart (and perhaps also Tesco, I don't know UK culture) won that fight and now shopping there is seen as solidarity with regular people as opposed to hipsters and snobs.

Very few local governments have the coordination, resources, and available land to put something like that together. I've seen several attempts, they seldom work.

There is also the fact that in very rural areas, when Walmart came into the area it was the first time we even had access to many useful items which people in cities take for granted (tools, clothing, childcare items, etc). Country people tend to feel that Walmart has enriched our lives with things which weren't even here before, at ANY price.

When the old man was still in charge of Mal Wart it was not so bad,they prided themselves on American products,the clothes were US made,not from China.When he died the family got greedy I guess.I do my best to not shop there.I hate the fact my small town now has a Subway sandwich store,I refuse to eat there.I don't want my little town to look like a strip mall.I'd rather give my business to the small locally owned diners.

But do you really need all that stuff available all the time? I still live in a small village, we only have a small local food-store and additional a bakery with an small farmer store, where local farmers can offer their goods directly and because of that very cheap. Additional you can buy stuff directly at many farms, usually also cheaper then in the markets. Some kilometers away is a small town, where there are some typical shops, so a small garden and tool shop, a bookshop, a butcher, a small 2-person computer shop, and normally all kind of small worker companies offer you to buy typical material as well. So the painter also sells colours, the electrician offers typical electronic stuff as dishwashers, hoovers, ..., a cloth shop, drug shop, ...

So sure, I cant go there and they have 35 different kind of dishwashers standing in their shops, or a hall full of books, but normally only the bestsellers, but instead they have normally all kind of catalogues and internet, where I simply can order what I want and get it some days afterward. When my PC-gaming mouse is ruined, I go to the shop, look what its offered, the shopkeeper borrows me a standard-mouse for the few days, until he receives the ordered new one, and its done.

We are used to that, and dont expect to have everything in a second, so we simply think some days before. If I want to do something special, I simply prepare it before, as everyone here does and as it is normal, so nobody thinks about that being unusual. It sometimes seems for me, just like the hysteria that is now with mobile phones, when people freak out if someone isnt available for some hours. People werent available before as well, so if you needed something important from someone, you simply cared for it some days before, instead of waiting until the second you need it. Beside that its normal for everyone of us, that sometimes, there is stuff not instantly available, meaning you borrow kitchen stuff to neighbors if their oven plate or mixer suddenly is ruined, as well as the good old cup of sugar or baking soda, when you suddenly have visitors and want to do a cake, and dont have all the stuff at home you need. Same goes with garden tools....I mean I dont use every tool I have all the time, so if something is broken you normally find someone borrowing it to you. Or if you drive to the next capital city once every 1-2 months , you ask your neighbors that dont have cars on their own, if they need something or maybe want to do shopping on their own there, and would like to drive with you for some gas salary.

I know that the distances in the US are much bigger, so that there will be many small villages, that dont have a town some kilometers away, but in such small villages, without any other town being near, I dont think that Walmart will be interested, because a small 2000 citizen village, cant simply buy as much as a shop as big as a typical walmart need it?

You don't realize how you are taking for granted all the conveniences that you have in your area. If a village has nothing other than two or three gift shops for the tourists--and people need to drive 100 miles for anything more than just very basic items, often in subzero weather in the winter--life can get very sparse. "Returning to the simple life" can be a worthwhile choice, but only if it IS a choice, not because you have no other options.

Part of the reason that Walmart is beloved by country people is because they have built stores out here IN SPITE OF the fact that we don't have huge population numbers to make them a lot of profit. And we appreciate that fact.

But how can that function? I mean to offer everything at once, you need a huge stock of products in your shops. And then lot of that simply wont be used, so its freezed capital, which means a huge money loss each year, and additional when it comes to food, then lots of it will go bad and must be thrown away. I mean if our little town supermarket offered 25 different kinds of yoghurt, so that everyone can always buy any yoghurt he wants, it sounds great, but in the end lots of it had to be thrown away, and the shopkeeper would need to add that costs to the prices, so in the end we needed to pay for that. So for our small shop its more simply to offer 2-3 basic tastes and normal yoghurt you use anyway for cooking, so people can mix it with fruit themselves if they want other tastes?

So we do have larger markets in my country, but they are only around larger cities. Its still the small cities with small local town shops that provide us with most things, and they need as well to order anything, because of them having no possibilty to afford a huge stock, when half of that wont be bought in the end.

I understand that, but I simply would like to know, how that can be functioning? The electrician in the town wouldnt care to have a huge shop, where he could offer directly 35 different kind of washing machines, but in the end a large number of that wouldnt be sold, so he is not doing the way he does because of him being a bad person, and not wanting us to be thankful to him, but simply, because its financially not working? And at least the farmer stores, should be available for you as well, I mean normally thats what these small towns exist from? (The farmers I mean.)

I believe that nowadays even smaller stores have rather sophisticated inventory systems, so they know how to stock exactly the things that people WILL buy. Occasionally they seem to try a new product that doesn't sell well--but then long before the "throw-away" date they put it on sale for a very good price and people rejoice at the great bargain. I don't believe there is much that actually gets thrown away anymore (as opposed to being "discounted" and quickly sold). Retail is almost a science in itself.

Around here there is Wal-Mart and a regional chain store that compete for business. They both sell groceries as well as clothes/toys/etc. The regional store has better quality and pricing on groceries, but Wal-Mart is better for non-food items. So, I buy my groceries at the regional store and my odds and ends at Wal-Mart. I always feel a bit guilty shopping at Wal-Mart; I would rather shop at Target but there isn't one in the town. There is a K-Mart but their stores are icky. Most local shops now sell upscale trinkets such as beeswax candles and Vera Bradley handbags. Not much use to me.

I don't like Wal-Mart and very rarely go there any more. I prefer locally owned stores and used them more than most people do but still not as much as I think I should. It doesn't matter, though, because Wal-Mart is here to stay and will only get bigger.

The big stores sell fresh produce and milk cheap because the bully the farmers and other suppliers. In the UK we had a campaign to enforce fair prices paid by the big supermarkets to dairy farmers for their milk.

But other goods, that are not things people buy everyday are charged at higher prices by the superstores.

They have a good supply chain because they are massive and can name their price to suppliers, government, and customers.

In part because that's what the customers want.

People may say they want to pay £2.50 for two pints of milk, but their actual preferences say otherwise.

Yes people don't want to pay more but people also want farmers to be paid too. The supermarkets are the middlemen and he middlemen make the most out of these sales.

If anyone here has heard of the British brand name John Lewis well, they are planning on building one in my old town, but a combined store, with a café, so not only does the town get an extra revamp but it hits all the poor selfless workers who want and need better life.

John Lewis is a model company.

It is prime example of how a retail business should be run, putting customer service, and job satisfaction ahead of everything.

What's more all the workers are stakeholders in the business.

Their reputation is well earned, and they really do care. Even if they have blips they want to keep a genuine reputation.

They don't put profit ahead of this, even though they easily could.

If I want to buy a utility, without any hassle, knowing they will sort it if anything goes wrong, I can do worse that choosing John Lewis.

Every single product they buy in is well researched. They are very choosey, and make sure it is good quality and value. Of course it not the cheapest but that is not the point of the brand. it is not the most expensive either.

I can't think of another company similar that has stayed that way for so long. usually with the best of intentions it doesn't last.