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Late to the reading, but very good art., imo...Good dig out, JCL!
I found myself nodding as I read, thinking the writer must be inside my head. As the Wal-Mart 'shopper' in our house, I like it and can hardly stand the joint.
For the dozen things I need, (of the couple dozen things they have I want/need), it offers good prices, (if carefully considered), and a one stop joint to grab that kind of stuff: paper goods, snacks, toiletries, et al.
The town I live in 7 months a year had one for years; then they closed it and built a 'super Wally joint' on other side of town. It is bigger, but not necessarily better. The new joint, in a 'beautified' strip mall, did bring in Best Buy, (lol! demographics won't allow the BB to be successful, imo), a Verizon store, and a couple other gems.
'Downtown' remains viable and fully rented, a few miles away...for now.
The growth deal is really driven by Wall St and their misguided mavens where it is nearly all about 'growth', EPS, FCF, dividends, and bettering last Qs numbers. Whether any of that is good or not good is moot, because it is what it is.
Wal-Mart says they have woken up, (missed Q #s will do that to any group of suits), but they have a fine line to walk, imo: their stores are dingy, heartless and full of stuff no one needs more of. They continually move to private label goods and/or reduce brand offerings. They cater to the working poor and the barely middle class.
But, changing that or moving slightly upscale or, even spending the dough on better cosmetic stores, costs and does little to entice the hoi polloi, imo.
In western NC, there is really little need for more stores selling 'stuff', with the exception of some of the really remote/but growing little burgs.
In SW FLA, where we do 5 months, we have seen the result of a popped bubble and the absolute plethora of more strip malls, bigger malls, and every corner full of a CVS, a Walgreen's and 3 other common/repetitive stores. I do not 'get' the biz model these retail joints are using, as the daffodil approach of dozens of stores in every zip code, 'for growth', is suspect these days, even by WallSt standards.
Lost my track...but, I could live without Wal-Mart, but I am not sure that the WalMartNation could do so.
BR, mD
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