By Mark Taliano
“Fair is Foul and Foul is Fair” –Macbeth
Walmart wins! They pay box-store style taxes, and provide low priced products to Welland’s budget conscious citizens. They buy in bulk, and nobody can compete with their prices. Great deal for everyone. Or is it?
Local politicians claim that we need to foster small business enterprises. We need to save the downtown core and keep young people in Welland with good jobs. Unfortunately, “Walmart” is anathema to “small business”. Walmart, with its low-priced products and poor paying jobs, drives out small businesses…and medium-sized, and large ones too.
I recently visited one of the Niagara region’s last remaining small farmers, and he claims he can’t compete with the bulk buying approach to the economy. He told me stories of monster barges transporting farm goods from China. I heard similar stories when I went to get my tires changed. Big box stores sell both now: food and tires.
Unfortunately, the wage and benefit packages offered by the large retailers are not living wages. So the middle-class continues to disappear here and across the country.
A recent Macleans banner suggested that the U.S risks becoming a third world country: disappearing middle class, user fees, health care if you can afford it, and so on. But are we any different? Prime Minister Harper’s administration would like to think that the closer our policies parallel American ones (on the environment, health care, etc.), the better. And Canadians voted for him. So maybe we’re blind, or maybe we’re being betrayed in a bait and switch fashion: won over with trifling details (some low cost products), to be betrayed in the end (no jobs or poor paying ones).
Why is this happening? It’s about globalization and economic competitiveness, say the economists and the politicians.
We’re putting faith in a study of Economics as though it were infallible, but it isn’t. Despite statistics that supposedly prove this or that, our lifestyles are deteriorating by numerous measures: good jobs are being lost, systemic unemployment (seen by economists as necessary) is increasing, and taxpayer-funded bailouts continue to be a huge fiscal burden.
So again, the low prices, short term bailouts etc. are good and fair, but in the longer term, they’re foul. We’re being betrayed in the end.
Mark Taliano is a resident of Niagara, Ontario and a contributor to Niagara At Large.
(Visit Niagara At Large at www.niagaraatlarge.com for more news and commentary on this and other matters of interest and concern to our greater Niagara region. And share your views in the comment boxes below, remembering that we only accept comments here from those of us willing to put our full real names on the line.)
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You make some good points Mark. I would make a suggestion. All union employees, no matter what union, boycott Walmarts and the Big Box stores, where companies are not unionized and rely on cheaper labour. That would put a big dent in their big businesses and might actually put them out of business. I have a hunch though, that even though union workers make good wages, they will often go to any length to get “a deal”.
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I agree with Pat. The only way to get rid of Walmart and the other big box stores is to stop shopping at them. Let’s see how many of us can make a commitment to not shop at Walmart during the Christmas season (and beyond). My family for one, will do this, and I hope that others will follow.
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I stopped shopping at Walmart a long time ago because of the way that they do the purchasing end of their business.
A manufacturer will give the best price that they can to win the contract for the product that they make. Because of the quantities involved they cut the price to the bare minimum expecting to make money on the large volumes that they will sell. Taking care of this huge contract the manufacturer will likely have to ignore or give up on some of their other smaller, though likely more profitable, customers. Now the manufacturer has concentrated most of, if not all of, their resources on the Walmart order and has very little other business going on. Now the contract has run out and it is time to quote on the next one. BUT, now Walmart tells them that if they want to continue doing business with them, then the manufacturer will have to lower his price. The manufacturer cannot do this since he had already given the best price possible on the last order and he has very few of his other more profitable customers left to help with his cash flow.
Goodbye Mr. Manufacturer, both as a Walmart supplier and likely as a viable business altogether. I don’t see how Walmart can have any North American suppliers left.
Everyone should think about this the next time they go to Walmart to take advantage of the “Rollin’ back” pricing!
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Let’s assume nobody shopped the big box stores anymore. The alternative would be shop the smaller stores. What would that do? You can’t expect a smaller store to handle the quantities or the variety. However, you might get more specialized small stores in a downtown. They might agree to not overlap their offerings or just duke it out on superior service over the other small store.
No problem. We consumers just use $$$ in gasoline going from small store to small store, unless they are all in a downtown area. It doesn’t need to take more time in travel including parking. The distributor handling a given product will have to make more stops instead of just a couple of big ones. Now that distributor is using more gasoline. Is he going to pass that cost on to the little store? Maybe not. After all, he lost all his big box contracts. Will the little store cut wages to its employees to compensate? It depends. I like living close to a downtown. You walk. I’m having a hard time picturing what those big box buildings will be used for after this transformation. Maybe intermediate warehoses for goods that are destined for the small stores. Sounds exciting :))
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Some years ago in a Pogo comic strip, one of the characters said, “We were looking for the enemy; and it was us,” or words very close to these. We all have a choice. If we want to protect our Canadian jobs, shop so as to protect those of other Canadian workers. We can’t urge our fellow Canadians to shop Canadian, buy Canadian, then turn around when it is our turn to shop and buy at big-box stores and the dollar (now usually a dollar and twenty-five cents – two dollars) stores then turn around and complain when others do the same.
The solution to big-box stores and other outlets, often referenced as “unfair” competition for small retailers, is to buy Canadian and to shop at our small-store-owner neighbours’ businesses. But, then, how many Canadians will pay the price, even if ultimately doing so may protect their jobs? Not many I venture. You get what you pay (or don’t pay) for!
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The unmentioned and likely unseen error of the article above — and of all the whining small business owners — is their belief that price is the only factor on which they can compete. That is false.
Few business owners know anything about marketing or business. Their fist response is to lower prices. That’s the worst action to take. They’ll go broke trying to compete on price with Wally Mart.
Let the big boxes have the price shoppers… those are the same folks eat the garbage served at McDs because it’s cheap. Those consumers have zero loyalty.
Here’s the business secret:
Small businesses can kick big ones butts by providing service
The big places can’t. Their people are too busy or too stupid. Small businesses that care about their customers will get the business of those who want service and are willing to pay for it.
Boycotts area waste of time. Doesn’t matter how many people boycott a place, others will still go there.
For example, I refuse to walk into the well-known big orange hardware place, because its head office personnel stole money from me and refused to return it. Has my boycott hurt the orange place? Hell no.
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