We added a Super Walmart about 3 years ago, since then we have lost our Kmart (no big deal), and several smaller businesses. Most of the businesses we lost were behind the times and didn't have the drive to survive. We had one local buy from Walmart, they purchased a 2 hour remote for their Grand Opening. Our experience with collection was worse than most of our other clients.
For the most part they have divided the community into people who "love to shop there" and those who shop there as a last resort. They leave many niches to market around, they have many faults to exploit for local retailers. We don't get many complaints from retailers about the competition any more as most have found ways to promote around them. They are the 800 pound gorilla but like any really large animals they can be very slow to react.
In my opinion a bigger factor impacting sales is the internet. We have lost more business to the internet for car dealers than any other competitor. Dealers seem to want the lowest cost advertising and feel that when someone calls them from 100 miles away they think they are reaching everyone on the planet. What they fail to realize is that instead of being a huge fish in the local pond they are now a minnow in the ocean.
We have a lot of big box stores and get very little revenue from them. They do love inserts in the twice weekly newspaper.
We are getting many of our advertisers to carve out a niche and take on the big boys where they can beat them.
As fas as the internet is concerned, if you're not already in that game you better get there because that's where a lot of $$ are flowing. As I tell my customers, "The best thing about the internet is you can speak to the whole world. The worst thing about the internet is you're competing with the whole world."
