It has remained the same size, co-existing with other Guildford Mall anchor stores, Sears and the Bay, for sixteen years.
Newer, much larger Wal-Marts have been built in Langley and at 88th Avenue and 124th Street, Surrey.
But now Wal-Mart is expanding at Guildford. Soon it will be twice the size.
North Surrey has not been growing in recent years. Therefore, the new Wal-Mart must be intended to take business away from other stores in the area. Depending on what products Wal-Mart intends to add (electronics, major appliances, furniture?), the two other anchor stores and London Drugs could be seriously impacted.
In Canada Wal-Mart is expanding into groceries. They opened their first grocery outlet in Saskatoon within the last few months. Competitors' prices have dropped noticeably. In particular, Sobey's has dramatically expanded its incentives (Sobey's Club points) and is now open 24/7. Last week in Regina I noticed that Sobey's closes at 11:00, which tells me that Wal-Mart has yet to open a grocery outlet there.
ReplyDeleteThey try to cover everything, so that people will do all there business there. People are too busy to go to more than one place to do things these days.
ReplyDeleteI never bothered with Wal-Mart when I was in Ohio. I liked going downtown, which was a few blocks from our home. The Main Street shops were really old. Of course, business wasn't exactly thriving there. Here's a picture; you could probably take a nap in the street: http://ow.ly/2whJy Everybody was out at Wal-Mart, doing their shopping.
Some people raved about how they could get their vehicles tuned while they shopped. Again, I just went to the auto repair about five blocks away. They were friendly, had free coffee and even would drop my car off at my home. I bet I was paying a buck or two more, but who knows? They might have had to bring their prices down just to stay in business. I should have asked. It didn't occur to me at the time.
The Guildford renovating will only be at the Wal-Mart end of the Mall. Wal-Mart is getting 212,000 more square feet, including a grocery store and a garden centre. A new parkade, rooftop parking, and new retail stores will add another 212,000 square feet near Wal-Mart. The stores at the north end near Sears are to be torn out to make way for a bus loop.
ReplyDeleteThe planners say the renovation will bring more business to the entire Mall, but Wal-Mart will certainly dominate.
there = their (I always fall for that homonym).
ReplyDeleteLet's get your pledge right now that you will avoid. What say you?
I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart some time ago (when I became aware of their anti-union practices).
ReplyDeleteI've never been in a Wal-Mart in my life, and I never will be. The Woolco store in the town in which I was living when that chain folded was one of the few that Wal-Mart did not purchase. The reason? It was one of the few Woolco stores in Canada that was unionized. Those were excluded from the purchase agreement. Enough said for me.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to see the many different reasons for not shopping there. You guys, Jay and Vince, don't like how they union bust. I don't like how they destroy communities and small businesses. I wonder what other reasons there are for not liking this company.
ReplyDeleteOf course, Home Depot did the same thing when they came here. It was, "Get big or get out". Beaver Lumber closed. Revy Home Centres and Lumberland were taken over by Rona, who started building large stores. Canadian Tire stores tripled in size. Neighborhood hardware stores closed. Little guys couldn't compete.
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