Is Wal-Mart Taking Over Small-Town America?

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Wal-Mart Super Center Discount Stores are Taking Over in Small Town, America

Are Wal-Mart Discount Stores good for small communities, or are the so-called Wal-Mart “Super Centers” really just proverbial wolves in sheep’s clothing? Wal-Mart stores may claim to help small-town consumers by selling goods for less money because they supposedly help us save money to use for other things. Wal-Mart stocks their shelves with a high volume of goods on a continuous basis and it seems like they always have what a consumer is looking for, even groceries and food, in the case of the Super Centers, which combine a discount grocery store with a discount store to form a combination “Super Center.” Aren’t Wal-Marts really just taking away from “Mom and Pop” shops and your local grocery, hardware, and general stores by making discount stores so readily available to customers in a convenient venue, like the all-encompassing, one-stop discount store that Wal-Mart has become? There is really another side to this story. Wal-Mart may not be what it seems. It may hurt us more than help us in the end:

With gross annual sales of over $67 billion per year and more than 50,000 stores in America alone, Wal-Mart is one of the biggest corporations and chain of discount stores in the United Sates. Wal-Mart opens a new store once every two weeks in small communities and large urban cities across the United States, however, are these stores truly benefiting these communities or are they really wrecking havoc (Norman 63)?

I decided to look at the fine print when it comes to Wal-Mart’s aggressive ad campaigns and luring tactics to attract customers from other stores, including grocery stores, hardware stores, and five and dime general stores. This is especially true in towns of under 30,000 people, like in a town called Pittsburg, Kansas in southeast Kansas, which is a college town and houses two Wal-Marts. I have been to the Wal-Mart...