Although Big-box stores have been around since the 1800’s, it wasn’t until the arrival of Wal*Mart in 1962 that they began to have noticeable effects on their communities, the nation and the world. For those of you who may not know, a Big-box store is a large retail store which often caters to needs other than groceries and is part of a chain.
Big-box stores emphasize quantity over quality wither their products, and while this is not to say they don’t offer quality goods, they can offer them cheaper than competitors because their merchandise isn’t necessarily top of the line. Because of this, the big draw of Big-box stores is the low prices and emphasis on getting “more for less.”
Although there are literally dozens of Big-box chains nation-wide (Kroger, Safeway, Home-Depot, etc.), for the purposes of this blog I will be focusing on one single chain: Wal*Mart. In 2010 Wal*
Big-box stores emphasize quantity over quality wither their products, and while this is not to say they don’t offer quality goods, they can offer them cheaper than competitors because their merchandise isn’t necessarily top of the line. Because of this, the big draw of Big-box stores is the low prices and emphasis on getting “more for less.”
Although there are literally dozens of Big-box chains nation-wide (Kroger, Safeway, Home-Depot, etc.), for the purposes of this blog I will be focusing on one single chain: Wal*Mart. In 2010 Wal*
Mart was deemed by Forbes magazine as the “Larges Public Corporation” in the world, and is the United State’s leading grocery retailer. In total, Wal*Mart has somewhere around 8500 store locations, and is spread across 15 separate nations.
At this point you might be asking, “So what’s the problem, here?” And on the surface it seems like there isn’t anything wrong. After all, who doesn’t like saving money buying what they need? Unfortunately, what we save in money at the check-out line could be costing the community, and even consumers, in ways we probably wouldn’t have imagined.
Obviously it’s no secret that smaller businesses have been run out of business before by Big-box stores like Wal*Mart. They aren’t as big, so the smaller store usually can’t offer such good deals, and oftentimes will go bankrupt. However, there are other issues at work here, such as poor customer service, how employees are treated, and even some environmental problems. All of these issues and more will be explored throughout the semester.
By now you’re probably asking yourself, “How does this affect me?” That’s hard to say for sure at this point, but it’s not hard to see the people who are affected. People like the owners of the small stores in competition with Wal*Mart, or customers who prefer effective customer service. Even the employees of Wal*Mart and similar stores are involved, from the lowly cashier all the way up into corporate.
So I hope this gives you an idea of the issue we are facing here. Over the course of the semester I will explore each of the issues above extremely thoroughly, and hope that by the end It’s easy to see how this issue affects you too.
