Walmart has announced that it is closing four Chicago stores: three on the South Side and one on the North Side:
Today we have made the difficult decision to close four of our stores in Chicago.
The decision to close a store is never easy. The impact is greater than just closing a building. It affects people — people who work in, shop in and live in communities near our stores — and we never take that lightly. Treating people and communities with respect and compassion during this transition will guide everything we do.
All four stores are “underperforming” but it is widely bruited about that security is also a factor.
The closures highlight the risks involved when such major retailers enter a neighborhood. Their entry displaces dozens of small stores. They come; they go; the decision is made on purely business grounds. When they leave, they leave a desert in their wake.
I’d imagine Family Dollar and Dollar Tree will step in.
Low cost, low quality, high margin will make up for high loss.
Seems to be their business model.
It’s too bad but the decline shows no signs of slowing or reversing course.
This is the future.
“Their entry displaces dozens of small stores. They come; they go; the decision is made on purely business grounds. When they leave, they leave a desert in their wake.”
I’ve said it so many times before. When it comes down to it, and despite assertions they might make about their good intentions, the consumer will take the best value proposition available……in their mind. That usually means price. In retail that tends to take out many small stores.
In the specific case of these Wal-Mart stores, safety no doubt is an issue. The voters and citizens of Chicago need to consider their behaviors. We have become a nation unwilling to look ourselves in the mirror and take responsibility for our own actions.
Walmart is not the problem. Chicago politicians, like those in San Francisco, Portland, and other progressive cities have green-lighted large-scale, organized looting. That’s the problem.
No retail company will replace Walmart, because no company can withstand high levels of looting. Are there not empty store fronts along the Lake shore, the Miracle Mile?
Yes, Walmart does drive out small, high cost, high price businesses. But that’s what happens in a capitalist economy. And the chief beneficiaries are the working poor. But the fact that no one will replace Walmart is the fault of local government.
Chicagoans have elected a racist/marxist, anti-police zealot, and the City’s crime problem is guaranteed to get much worse. To paraphrase a famous cynic, Chicagoans voted for it, and they are going to get it fast and hard.
Stupid middle class people will flee the City, and vote for the same marxists in their new homes., thereby spreading the rot.
Chicago is doomed to join the ranks of American cities captured by savages. How many of our cities must die before the whole country collapses into chaos?
Dave, Now would be a good time to get out, at least 50 miles.