Sunday, March 30, 2008

Huffington Post item: Wal-Mart limiting expansion

Wal-Mart officials have decided to cut down on construction of Supercenters, according to a recent company announcement. An article by Wal-Mart opponent Al Norman on the Huffington Post notes the company's announcement that it will cancel construction of 45 Supercenters:

Sam Walton explained that his growth strategy was "to saturate a market area by spreading out, then filling in...We became our own competition." He once boasted that Springfield, Missouri, for example, had 40 Wal-Marts within 100 miles. But Wal-Mart has paid a price for competing with itself. Today, the saturation card has been overplayed, and the retailer has been forced to go on a superstore crash diet. While hundreds of sling-shot coalitions have been hurling rocks at this retail Goliath for years, ironically, it is now the giant itself which is reeling from its own self-inflicted excesses.

This has created a wonderful 10 months for anti-Wal-Mart groups in 21 states, who have woken up in their small towns to read that another proposed Wal-Mart superstore has dissolved, as suddenly as the morning mist.

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