Small towns devastated after Wal-Mart Stores Inc decimates mom-and-pop shops, then packs up and leaves: ‘They ruined our lives’

The Town’n Country grocery in Oriental, New york, a nearby fixture for 44 years, closed its doors in October after a Wal-Mart store opened for business. Now, 3 months later – and less than two years after Wal-Mart arrived – the retail giant is pulling up stakes, leaving the city with no grocery store and no pharmacy.

Wal-Mart Mart Stores Inc pulls plug on smallest store format, shuts 269 stores around the world

Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it was pulling the plug on its smallest Express store format and closing 269 stores globally, including 154 in the United States, in a restructuring that will affect 16,000 workers.

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Though mom-and-pop stores have steadily disappeared over the American landscape over the past three decades as the mega chain methodically expanded, there is at least always a Wal-Mart left out to replace them. The Wal-Marts are disappearing, too.

“I had been devastated when I discovered. We’d a pharmacy and a perfectly satisfactory supermarket. Maybe Wal-Mart sold apples for a nickel less,” said Barb Venturi, mayor pro tem for Oriental, with a population of approximately 900. “For into account what no more using a supermarket gives property values here, it is a significant impact for all of us.”

Oriental is hardly alone. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said on Jan. 15 it would be closing all 102 of its smaller Express stores, many in isolated towns, to focus on its supercentres and mid-sized Neighborhood Markets. The move, that will start by the end of the month, would be a relatively quick about-face. Even as 2014, Wal-Mart was touting the solid performance of their smaller stores and announced plans to open an additional 90.

That’s a big problem for small towns, often with proportionately large elderly populations. For that older folks of Oriental – a retirement and summer vacation town across the inter-coastal waterway – the next-nearest grocery and pharmacy is really a 50-minute round-trip drive.

They arrived here with their experiment and ruined us

Wal-Mart says it’s sensitive to the dislocations its business decisions are causing.

“In towns impacted by store closures, we’ve had countless conversations with elected officials and community leaders to discuss relevant issues and we are working with communities how we can be helpful,” said Wal-Mart spokesman Brian Nick.

Wal-Mart continues to be under increasing pressure lately as sales within the U.S. have failed to maintain rising labour costs. It’s also been spending more on its Web operations. In October, the company announced that profit this season could be down around 12 percent. The outlook contributed to a share decline of 29 percent during the past 12 months.

“It’s more essential now than ever before to review our portfolio and close the stores and clubs that needs to be closed,” Wal-Mart’s Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said inside a statement on the company’s website.

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Shuttered Stores

Towns like Clearwater, Kansas, and Merkel, Texas, are the type of hit by Wal-Mart closures. In Godley, Texas, with a population of roughly 1,000, Wal-Mart opened a little store just a year ago. Within months, the only real other grocery store in town – Brookshire Brothers, a part of an employee-owned regional chain – shut its doors. With Wal-Mart gone, the closest full-service supermarket is all about a 20-minute drive away.

In some cases, closed businesses may reopen now that Wal-Mart has left. In Merkel, the Lawrence Brothers grocery store, which closed two months ago, is likely to reopen now that Wal-Mart is packing up, said Jay Lawrence, head of the regional chain in Texas and New Mexico.

Resident of Oriental, where some city officials originally tried to block Wal-Mart from opening, are hoping for a similar outcome since the megastore is finished. As well as the moment the damage has been done, they say.

Renee Ireland Smith, who ran Town’n Country, said the store immediately saw sales fall by 30 percent once Wal-Mart opened in May 2014. Whenever her store cut prices, Wal-Mart would cut back its prices much more. Smith’s mother, who owned the store, invested US$100,000 in savings into the doomed effort. But by October, the family decided to cut its losses and shut the company.

“They ruined our lives,” said Smith of Wal-Mart. “They came in here using their experiment and ruined us.”

Bloomberg News