Wal-Mart Generates a Lot of Attitude

What Do You Really Think? ... "The people who dislike Wal-Mart are the same flaming liberal [expletive deleted] who attack this country and everything it stands for on a daily basis!"

Yep, that's how one reader responded to my last Dispatch on "The Wal-Mart Effect" (Jan 31). As I wrote, everyone has an opinion. Below are some less inflammatory examples.

Jim Kutill with Appraisal Research Counselors in Chicago writes, "Your comments on Wal-Mart remind me of the old joke of 'make it up on volume' when the real numbers are a loss on each widget made. We have a standing rule that no one client ever becomes more than ten percent of our business. I don't mind the market dictating fees, but I don't want one client dictating a better deal."

Jim Harris, a broker doing commercial land deals writes, "Wal-Mart is important to the small communities where they locate. As 'market makers,' and, even though they are brutal to smaller retail stores who compete with them, they attract the attention of other big box retailers who bring jobs and additional retail development to the area."

Marc Parette with Parette Somjen Architects in East Rockaway, NJ, writes, "Real Estate service providers will be substantially immune from the severe price pressures which result from the 'Wal-Mart Effect' unless two things happen -- 1. The consumers of real estate services come to identify these services as simple commodities or 2. a company sets itself apart by mastering a new delivery method for those services."

Tom Nadler at Comey & Shepherd Realtors in Cincinnati writes, "The value of the surrounding commercial properties goes up tremendously when a Wal-Mart moves in... A deteriorating 'blighted' area can be reborn if Wal-Mart decides to build a store there!"

Jim McDonald SIOR with Group 100 suggests another question: "How can corporate service providers generate sufficient perceived value for the corporate client that cost savings become subordinate?" McDonald is chair of SIOR's newly-formed Corporate Services Specialty Practice Board; so send him your thoughts.