Yeah. The 8 stores are far better. There's competition. There's variety. Employees can move around. I can get to know the shop owners. I can take a wonderful stroll.
Instead. You get to enjoy one corporation, that does anything it wants, pays horribly, employees have no choice, you have no choice in what garbage you buy. And your downtown now consists of 8 banks.
Fundamentally, consumers and producers are at odds with each other in certain ways. For instance, it's best for customers if every shop was open 24x7, but absolutely horrible for the employees needed to make that happen.
Walmart is the extreme end of satisfying consumers above all else. Customers get a single, climate-controlled location to take care of nearly all their shopping, with good prices; but it comes at the expense of the employees, local community, and factory workers. Unfortunately, most customers don't know or care about those downsides because the experience is catered so heavily for them, and it's hard to get people to sacrifice material comfort for benefits that appear so abstract.
If you're somewhere like Irvine then downtown can be owned by a single corporation in full control of everything, with a superficial veneer of choice and competition.
That does not follow. Small stores carry the same shit as big chain stores. Because of their smaller scale and more limited purchasing power those items are more expensive than a chain and they can only afford to carry high throughput items. The only way small stores can deal with long tail items is if they're super specialty and neat a large enough metro area to have enough sales to survive.
I'm not saying small stores are bad but there's a decided small store tax. Without economies of scale they have a very hard time competing against chains. They have an even harder time competing against online sales.
> Small stores carry the same shit as big chain stores.
Not always. Go to a dedicated board game store and you'll see such a wider variety than the branded Monopoly sets on sale at big box stores. Plus they usually have an area dedicated to actually playing games, something you'll never find at a chain. This community charm is paid for by the small store tax, but the benefits far outweigh the cost.
And those stores have a very hard time competing with online sales. Not only is their stock much, much more limited they are often significantly more expensive because the stores have to mark them up. There is so much variety in board games these days those stores have no hope of competing outside of Magic The Gathering events. I suspect those are moving more toward online play as well because honestly those events aren’t very pleasant to attend in person. We’ve lost roughly half of our board game stores in a city of around 120k people. The only ones that are left are 90% TCG stock with a small selection of modern board games. Honestly the stock at Target and Barnes and Nobel especially are just as good these days.
> Go to a dedicated board game store and you'll see such a wider variety than the branded Monopoly sets on sale at big box stores.
Stores like Target carry far more board games than just branded copies of Monopoly. Shit they sell Cards Against Humanity at Target. Barnes & Noble carries and even wider selection of board games and pen and paper role playing games. So big chains are definitely not limited to Monopoly.
While small game stores can carry a wider selection than big chains, most make their nut selling the bigger brand games or toys. There might be Black Swan stores able to specialize in Ticket to Ride or Carcasone expansions but that's not the common case.
I know the owners of quite a few small game stores. They are to a store struggling to keep the lights on because their costs are butting right up against their revenue. Charm is great and all but it doesn't pay the bills.
Again I'm not arguing against small shops but there's not much they offer above and beyond what can be found in big chains or online. The things they can offer, like a game play space, aren't easy or even possible to monetize.
Not to mention that the product you get from dedicated merchants will invariably be better. The worst bakery in my city is leagues better than the best bread available at Wal Mart
> The worst bakery in my city is leagues better than the best bread available at Wal Mart
You're lucky to have a dedicated bakery that actually makes bread, or maybe you just live in a big city? There's probably twenty bakeries in my midsize city, but they all bake cakes, muffins, confectioneries, and whatnot. None of them actually bake bread.
Walmart bread is truly awful, with the only thing going for it being that it's cheap and consistent. My preferred choice in my area is the sourdough bread from Aldi, which at least only has the ingredients that bread should have, with no sugar or soybean oil or other junk.
Recently I needed to replace my car's battery (size 24F; I opted to upgrade to an AGM battery). In my town of 45,000 (medium-small?) there is one Walmart superstore (sans auto shop), a bunch of chain auto parts stores, and some non-chain stores. Shopping online, I determine:
Walmart: Everstart $180, 4 year "free replacement" warranty.
Napa: house brand $250, Odyssey $371 (both 3 yr warranty)
OReilly: house brand $250, Optima $290 (both 3 yr warranty)
AutoZone: house brand $250, Optima $290 (both 3 yr warranty)
Walmart gets my business in this case as it does in most others. The few employees I interact with there don't seem to be unhappy, and their return policy is awesome (and is consistently applied). Walmart hasn't forced the competition out of business, but I see no reason why I should shop elsewhere in order to pay $70 (38%) more for an equivalent battery with 1 year less warranty.
Instead. You get to enjoy one corporation, that does anything it wants, pays horribly, employees have no choice, you have no choice in what garbage you buy. And your downtown now consists of 8 banks.
Yup. You're living the dream!