Grocery Store Robots coming!

like the pay what you want food places. close up soon after opening.

 

Yes. I miss the local general store that I grew up with and had been in business during the Great Depression, but it could not compete with the other stores and eventually closed.

 

The term "nature" was meant as a metaphor and was not to be taken literally. Your argument is weak in that you assume that the tastes and needs of shoppers will remain static into the future, but as we all know, the tastes and shopping habits of each generation changes considerably. Exhibit A would be Sears that struggled mightily to retain a new generation of customers until they finally went belly up. Sooner or later, all retail environments need to keep up with the times or risk the same fate, and technology has nothing to do with the fickle tastes of consumers. If consumers can turn their backs on a behemoth like Sears, then no retail chain is ever safe. Like I mentioned earlier, I am out of Clayton for the summer and enjoy shopping at a local mom and pop grocery store, and they are doing a booming business here, and all without robots, stressed out cashiers, and screaming mothers beating on their little children in public.

 

Because they screwed up the conversion to a more technological based system ..... like automation in the grocery stores.

Yes it does. If technology was not a major factor you would not have Amazon and the huge online market trashing the brick and mortar based era.

https://www.businessinsider.com/sears-tanked-because-the-company-failed-to-shift-to-digital-2016-8

As e-commerce becomes a nearly ubiquitous part of the retail industry, legacy department stores are trying to adapt, but compared to competitors like Target and Kohl's, Sears has not been able to adjust to the shifting tides in retail. The company — which owns both Sears and Kmart — has launched limited digital tools, which have failed to attract shoppers.

Booming business does not equate to a profitable business though and only profitable businesses survive for very long.

 

I have seen those stores as well and the reason that they close is that they are incapable of branding and marketing themselves to attract those shoppers that don't want to go to Walmart, or the larger chain stores. However, there ARE enterprising business owners who are filling the void and running beautiful stores that people DO want to shop in, and they are killing it, and it's not that much more expensive than your typical grocery store. I have noticed that the shoppers tend to be millennials, or older folks like me, who have memories of a more leisurely shopping experience. So yes, it can be done, and I hope that Clayton gets a clue.

 

I don't ever walk away when I see something disturbing like that, especially if it concerns a small, defenseless child. Grow a pair, honey.

 

For the majority of the markets that would be enough to limit the viability.

 

These markets ARE viable. It's just that the private owners here are content to just service their communities without regard to expansion.

 

I don't think you have any idea what I'm talking about because you're so stuck on seeing retail that largely caters to mass consumer markets. What I'm seeing in this lovely little town is the deliberate resurgence of a modernized, small town market. Technology will always drive the larger retail stores, in that they are in the business of serving the masses, but personally I don't find that experience to serve my needs, and I doubt your argument will do anything to change that fact.

 

An article from 1972 on the subject.

 

In the towns too small for the big stores you have this ....

https://www.fastcompany.com/9027838...d-business-for-the-neighborhoods-they-open-in

Up until 2015, Haven, Kansas, a town of just over 1,200 people, had one grocery store: the Foodliner, a mom-and-pop store owned by a local, Dough Nech. Around 225 locals a day would cycle through the store, picking up basics like bagged lettuce and chicken.

That changed when a Dollar General opened in Haven in February 2015. Almost immediately, Nech saw a drop in the flow of customers through Foodliner. By last year, they rang up only around 125 people; sales dropped by 40%, he told The Guardian. This August, the Foodliner permanently closed.

Dollar General is the fastest-growing retailer in the U.S. and it, along with its competitors Dollar Tree and Family Dollar (which is owned by Dollar Tree), have made a killing in recent years by expanding into some of the county’s most vulnerable communities: small, rural towns, and urban, predominantly black neighborhoods. When that happens, dollar stores essentially take over the market, making it impossible for independent local retailers, like Foodliner, to thrive. And in doing so, dollar stores essentially ensure that people living in the areas they target will struggle to access healthy food. While affordable, dollar stores rarely offer any food beyond highly processed options, and in areas where it’s already difficult to find produce and fresh options (often called food deserts), they don’t do much to change the status quo.

New research from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit that supports local alternatives to entrenched economic systems, finds that since 2011, the number of dollar stores has grown from 20,000 to nearly 30,000. They outnumber Walmarts and Starbucks, combined. They feed far more people than Whole Foods, the poster-child for healthy grocery stores. ILSR reports that Dollar General and Dollar Tree expect to expand to 50,000 stores in the next several years.

“Although dollar stores sometimes fill a need in places that lack basic retail services, there’s growing evidence that these stores are not merely a byproduct of economic distress. They’re a cause of it,” write ILSR co-authors Marie Donahue and Stacey Mitchell. “In small towns and urban neighborhoods alike, dollar stores are leading full-service grocery stores to close. And their strategy of saturating communities with multiple outlets is making it impossible for new grocers and other local businesses to take root and grow.”

 

https://www.bnd.com/news/local/article217993090.html

Longtime grocery chain suddenly shut down, leaving town without a full-service market

It’s the end of an era for Mike Schuette and his family’s longstanding grocery business.

After more than 155 years of serving small towns in Southern Illinois, Schuette Stores Inc. suddenly closed its stores in Troy and Breese. Both stores shut down without warning Thursday.

“Thank you for your generations of patronage for the past 155 years of our family business,” Mike Schuette said in a statement. “Our family has been blessed to have been able to serve the area we love for such a long time.”

In a statement released Friday, Schuette Stores, Inc., and its sister company, Topmost Development Corp., explained that the grocery business had filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Mike Schuette mentioned online shopping and home delivery as amenities that have changed the business.

His family owned and operated markets long before Walmart, Target and Amazon got into the grocery business.

Founded in 1863, the grocery business was the oldest continuously family-owned grocery business in the United States. In addition to stores in Troy and Breese, the family previously operated stores in Highland, Carlyle, Troy, Greenville, Belleville, and St. Rose.

In Troy, Schuette was the only full-service market in town. Both residents and employees were surprised to learn of the store closing. Troy Mayor Allen Adomite said he learned of the store closing along with everyone else. He had no idea the store, where he’s shopped for most of his adult life, would close this week.

No one expected to happen this way.

“We think a town of 10,000 can support a grocery store,” Adomite said. “We’re saddened by the loss of the store.”

Adomite said the town will help aggressively market the store in hopes of bringing a new retailer in the area. For now Troy residents, can get a limited amount of grocery items from Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Walgreens. Fresh products can be found in town, too. Troy Produce Patch is open seven day a week at 9070 Illinois 162. Residents can also find meat local butcher shops: Troy Foods Inc., 404 U. S. 40 and Kelly’s Butcher Shop and Deli, 804 S. Main St.

Breese residents still have Hellige’s Super Market-Locker in town but lost the convenience of having more than one market in town.

In addition to losing a place to shop, both towns lost a place of employment. Workers in Troy shared their sentiments about losing the store on social media late Thursday night.

“I’m very emotional because to me this was not just a job, but it was a family,” Connor Vosholler posted on Facebook. “These people have changed my life in so many ways and I am incredibly grateful for each and every one of the 25 (plus) coworkers I have had the pleasure of working with.”

The former Highland market, 1100 Broadway, will soon become a Kloss Furniture store. The new store has potential to result in retention of 22 full-time jobs, according to the city’s Economic and Business Recruitment Coordinator Mallord Hubbard.

Schuette Stores Inc. isn’t the only market in the metro-east to recently close. New Athens Supermarket, located at 1102 Spotsylvania St., closed July 31. Shop ’n Save closed its Collinsville location in August. Tom’s Supermarkets closed recently in Nashville and Freeburg, but the building in Freeburg recently was reopened as a Country Mart grocery store.

 

If your argument here is that all the mom and pop grocery stores in the country are doomed, you are wrong. (Also, thank you for presuming to understand my shopping experiences in this small town.) The grocery stores that I am talking about are not your standard mom and pop stores that you might be thinking of. Because the historical society here prevents chain stores like Walmart and Dollar General stores from building here, (they don't want to drive away the tourist trade), business
owners here have reinvented the idea of a local grocery store that is more modernized, but without the annoying robots and mechanization. So, to be clear, I'm not talking about failing towns where Walmart has moved in and destroyed much of the privately owned retail stores in the area, which your research clearly indicates. In fact, the nearest Walmart is 50 miles from where I am, yet the town is doing just fine! What you're comparing is apples to oranges, and certainly doesn't apply here. Of course, Clayton is too short sighted about thinking about the future in this way and the impact that unchecked growth has on our daily lives. They'll just keep building and building anything and everything, mostly willy-nilly, and call it "progress", but sadly, it will cease to be the place it once was.

 

So if everywhere became a closely regulated community the small stores could survive. That is not going to happen and that business model will not work in most locations.

 

I wouldn't call this town where I'm staying a "closely regulated community" (certainly not like Cary), but they did at one point acknowledge as a community, that they had something special to attract the tourist trade, so they simply protected what they already had. There are similar towns around here, but they didn't protect what they had, and so the large chain stores came in and unfortunately destroyed much of the inherent charm.

 

You don't need a pair to be a mouthy witch. Get you a pair and call the authorities or just MYOB. Your running that mouth helped in what way. You're no hero for mouthing . Bless your heart.

 

You weren't there sweetie, to witness what I saw, but thanks for the vitriolic misogyny. I pretty much do and say whatever I want these days whenever I see others behave abusively in public, especially towards children. If I hit a nerve in you, it's not my problem, but yours. Deal with it. Remember, the discussion was about unpleasant shopping experiences at Walmart and I was merely illustrating just how unpleasant they can sometimes be.

 

Enjoy your arrogant self. IRL, I don't tolerate mouth women. Enjoy your internet bad ass syndrome. Sweetie, really?

 

So sad that you are threatened by women with opinions and the ability to express them, yet you seem to defend those who exhibit a distinct lack of morality and common decency in public.
I genuinely respect everyone here who offers a good argument with supports, and have learned a great deal from their research and perspective.

 

You realize you are on camera practically everywhere you shop....right?