Wal-Mart Supercentre Opening Soon in Prince George

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Wal-Mart is increasing it’s footprint in Northern BC. On November 25th, the company opened the north’s first “Supercentre”, in Williams Lake. Later this month, the existing Wal-Mart in Prince George will have finished it’s conversion to Supercentre format. Word is, that over time, all existing Wal-Mart locations in Canada will be converted to Supercentres.

So what makes a Supercentre? Well, a Wal-Mart Supercentre features everything you’d expect to see at a regular Wal-Mart – just more of it: more electronics, more clothes, more house wares, more books – you get the idea. However, a Supercentre also has a full grocery department complete with produce, deli and bakery sections. In Prince George, for example, 40,000 of the store’s 176,000 square feet will be committed to grocery.

So what does this mean? Well, certainly, there will be a honeymoon period where Wal-Mart will enjoy a sales bump at the expense of lost sales at Save-On-More (SOM) and the Real Canadian Superstore (RCSS). The question is, how long will the honeymoon last? Surely, management at SOM, RCSS and Shoppers Drug Mart (SDM) are ready to staff their retail battle stations and weather the Wal-Mart storm into the summer. After that though, all bets are off.

Wal-Mart changes retail everywhere it opens and there is a Wal-Mart open nearly everywhere. As the world’s largest retailer, the company is expanding it’s retail footprint outside of the United States where 95% of the population lives within 25 miles of one of it’s stores. To give an idea of scale, Wal-Mart sells more in three-months what Home Depot sells in a year and does more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway, and Kroger combined.[1]

Certainly, Wal-Mart’s retail hegemony is not the result of good customer service. Hardly. Nor is it the result of it’s high-quality product and it’s not the Wal-Mart positive shopping “experience”. It is due to low prices. That and the result of strong category management, a commitment to low prices and in putting everything under one roof including real estate and income-tax services, copy centers, electronics service depots, Western Union depots, portrait studios, eye exam centres, hair studios and since it wouldn’t be right to shop on an empty stomach a McDonald’s restaurant. In Canada, a Tim Horton’s is sometimes added for good measure. 

So, again, what does this mean? For me, it suggests that consumers have an opportunity to confront their thoughts on low prices and the role low prices play in our global economy. It’s wrong-minded for us to complain about the poor quality of off-shore product lines when it’s the very emphasis on low prices that has forced retailers to abandon the North American supplier and open up sourcing offices in China. We fail to see how our consumption HERE fuels unemployment THERE until people THERE stop buying OUR lumber.  

I haven’t shopped in the ‘converted’ Prince George Wal-Mart Supercentre for some time now. However, I have been in the store. It’s brighter, the aisles are wider, the overall “look” is more friendly and, I suppose, the new express checkouts are faster.  In the end, though, despite the wider aisles, new fixtures and new colors it’s still Wal-Mart. The service hasn’t improved and despite their claim that we will all “Save money. Live Better” , I don’t think people are living better because of their presence. Sure we might save some money at the checkout but the savings come at a cost that isn’t always immediately evident.

[1] . Fishman, Charles. “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know.”  www.fastcompany.com. 1 Dec. 2003. Web. 7 Apr. 2010.

Some good reads:

Fishman, Charles (2006) . The Wal-Mart Effect.  New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Daly, Herman E (1997). Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

Shuman, Michael (2006). The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses Are Beating the Global Competition. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

Cavanagh, J & Mander, J (2004). Alternatives to Economic Globalization: A Better World Is Possible. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

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Posted by fadams on 9:45 pm. Filed under North Central, Prince George. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry