{"id":8631,"date":"2014-10-13T02:54:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-13T07:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=8631"},"modified":"2014-10-24T11:19:28","modified_gmt":"2014-10-24T16:19:28","slug":"why-big-box-stores-are-getting-smaller-and-what-that-means-to-small-towns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2014\/10\/why-big-box-stores-are-getting-smaller-and-what-that-means-to-small-towns.html","title":{"rendered":"Why big box stores are getting smaller and what that means to small towns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A

Big boxes are looking to smaller stores. The natural extension of this trend is to even smaller stores, like the ones in your small town. Photo by Becky McCray.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cEverything gigantic in American [retail] is about to get smaller or die.\u201d<\/h2>\n

That\u2019s the dramatic claim by contrarian economist James Kunstler,writing about the big retail sector in Business Insider<\/a>. He says big retail is on the brink of scale implosion.<\/p>\n

Kunstler points to the same trends that are affecting\u00a0small towns: online shopping, global delivery, higher fuel costs plus a few other factors including tighter corporate credit.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s potentially a big bonus for small town retailers that have been hit hard by customers driving to the big box competitors in the big city.<\/p>\n

In Texas, big box stores are already getting smaller, documented by the Fort Worth Star Telegram (PDF)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Charles Wetzel is CEO of the Fort Worth-based Buxton Group which advises big retailers on site selection. He noted that the new big boxes opening in DFW are taking less square footage, only a fraction of the former mega sizes.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cQuite honestly, a lot of retailers have come back to the customer service days where the customer feels loved. If you can win on service, even if a product is online, people will come. They enjoy the entertainment factor of shopping in the store.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just Texas. Sheri Bridges, director of Wake Forest University\u2019s retail marketing center, explained the national trend. She said, \u201cSmall is a big idea nowadays. There is definitely a trend to a smaller footprint.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBest Buy calls it \u2018community-oriented retail,\u2019\u201d she\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

If the trend is toward smaller, community-oriented retail, who do you think is in the better competitive position, big boxes or stores in your small town?<\/h3>\n

Update:<\/strong> I’ve added more about the consumer changes driving this trend in a new article, Customers are switching to small retailers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If you’re working on a shop local campaign to support your local small retail stores, you might benefit from the $9 guide to shop local campaigns in small towns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cEverything gigantic in American [retail] is about to get smaller or die.\u201d That\u2019s the dramatic claim by contrarian economist James Kunstler,writing about the big retail sector in Business Insider. He says big retail is on the brink of scale implosion. Kunstler points to the same trends that are affecting\u00a0small towns: online shopping, global delivery, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":5379,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3,36],"tags":[49],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/Modern-store-decor.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8631"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8644,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8631\/revisions\/8644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}