I know, I know, Black Friday, and my inbox is full of offers, too.
Sometimes the best activism is doing nothing. Today is one of those days.
But here’s the thing: small retailers on your main street need your bucks more than Big Stores. The money stays in your community, pays wages to your friends and neighbors, who then spend it in your community too. That is the multiplier effect that economists talk about, and it is real. Something like 97¢ of every dollar stays in town when you shop locally.
Instead of spending your hard-earned buck and have it shipped back to The Walton Family in another very red state, go to your local Ma and Pa, find a book at your independent book seller, don’t give Bezos a dime. Have lunch at your local cafe, stay away from the Corporate Microwaved Food Pellet dispenser, and for dawg’s sake, stay away from union-busting Starbucks.
There are so many local ways you can get-on your retail therapy. Choose one and know you are doing a greater good.
Meanwhile, here’s a great article about the proposed merger between Kroger’s and Albertsons. We got a heap o’ trouble coming our way if this thing is approved.
Mock Paper Scissors 
Just saw a thing on this. I didn’t know that they already own Safeway.
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I did…almost every Safeway closed here. I am fortunate, I live in a part of town with alternatives, but two of those are either the
Fry’sKroger’s (from another one of their corporate takeovers) or Albertsons.Some places are gonna be food deserts.
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Our town has only the big 2: West end is Kroger-owned Dillons; East end, Walmart Supercenter. There was a downtown grocery store, once upon a time, when Walmart was the place you went to get stuff that costs too much in the grocery stores, but when Walmart moved East and went super, everyone who lives downtown now has to get to one end or the other for their stuff. I’m still sore about that, even though I can walk to Dillons for our stuff.
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Oh, Ali, that sucks. We’ve watched it happen in my late MIL’s town.
(Van Wert OH on the western edge of the state, nearest ‘big city’ is actually Ft, Waybe IN) There’s a Wal-Mart and and Tractor Supply now, some bars and restaurants and not much else.
Yustabee there were multiple manufacturing plants and a thriving downtown and retail stores (it is the county seat), but the factories closed and moved to parts cheaper (mainly because they had to appease Wal-mart’s cost demands to carry their goods which made them uneconomical to manufacture anywhere the employees weren’t paid a pittance), the people who could moved away and now it’s a shell of it’s former self. The kids move out as soon as they can for actual opportunites, further depressing the area.
The typical Rust Belt death spiral.
At least it hasn’t yet decayed so much the Wal-mart decides to close and all that’s left is the Dollar General ghetto.
Makes me grateful I get to live in a larger metro area. There really does seem to be a minimum viable size for cities and towns that is larger than it was once upon a time.
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There’s another economic term for this: monopsony. It’s when there is only one retailer to whom you can sell you product; the retailer has market dominance and as a manufacturer you have to meet their demands to have your product on the shelves.
Walmart pioneered this and the stories of the dill pickle and ultimately Huffy Bikes are taught in business schools now. Essentially, because of their market dominance Walmart can tell the manufacturer what to charge for their products (if they want to sell them at Walmart), and it is up to the manufacturer to take whatever steps are needed to meet their price demands.
The pickle company was selling gallons of pickles below their own cost and went out of business. Huffy Bikes shut down and moved to Chine for slave labor and cheap metal.
Now imagine that writ large when there’s only this hybrid Kroeger/Albertson beast against Walmart.
Rgds,
TG
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I bought liquor. Does that count?
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Pack of cigarettes at the corner liquor store. The irony is not lost on me, cigarettes and candy-bars, but I’m pretty sure those little Vietnamese girls have been running in the black since March …
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Might have to go to Ace to get some stuff later.
Remember Ace Hardware is a co-op not a chain…stores are all owned by local folks.
I’m lucky enough to have one of the biggest in the US right here (opened in 1962, and was the first Ace Hardware west of the Mississippi https://www.kold.com/story/32922941/22nd-street-ace-hardware-named-coolest-hardware-store-for-2016/ )
Only ever have to go to the big box ones like Lowes if it’s for something Ace doesn’t carry.
They have over time taken over almost the entire strip mall they’re located in, with the main store, a separate area for housewares, one for seasonal merch, and a separate hobby store and tool rental space.
I’ve got a smaller one less than 2 miles from my house that gets a lot of business from me, too.
Not only are they local, they treat their employees well; there’s a couple folks at the one near me who I’ve dealt with since we bought our house in ’94.
(My very first purchase from them was a replacement wheel for my driveway gate that I crushed with the U-Haul truck while moving in!)
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Today was the traditional Black Friday Pillow family trip to Goodwill, and yes, Goodwill doesn’t count. Got my visiting daughter a great pair of almost new Clarks shoes that fit like a glove, Mrs. Pillow got a truly warm winter robe, and I snagged a few other prizes, including a working small humidifier that just needs a conscientious cleaning.
I’ve got the whole weekend off — I’ll hit Ace Hardware, and do the rest of the house winterizing tomorrow and Sunday.
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I miss thrift stores.
I used to shop Valu Vilaj on the regular. Trips to Good will were to the big one, that had annual super sales.
I had so much yarn! And all the knitting needles I’d ever need.
I miss thrift stores.
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The only money that left my wallet today went to charities and the Warnock campaign.
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I bought two packs of Zig-Zags from the locally-owned corner store.
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I bought chips and dog food. Forgot it was “don’t spend a ton” day or I would have skipped the chips.
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Basically, corporations are by their nature the A-list preditors of the human race. They are a large part of what Driftglass calls ‘there is a club and you are not in it.’ The club is the Stock Market and the Corporations that feed it and the super rich that own it, through the stock market, and most of all the stock.
The whole theme of our Capitalist system is preditory, without regulation. It will devour itself and us all eventually when the rich have pretty much all the money. They are now grabbing it in dump truck loads, with the continued
“mergers and acquisitions” of every company and business in the country. And the world for that matter. Also with the current state of the growing billionaire class and its insane influence, it is well past midnight for our government to do any regulating of any of it.
Just my little opinion from my little cardboard box in the wilderness.
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