Posted on 01/30/2006 10:19:44 AM PST by SirLinksalot
The Wal-Martification of America
I don't expect you to shed any tears about Aron's closing.
Unless you grew up in L.A. as I did, you've probably never even heard of it. Aron's was this used record and CD store that I discovered 30 years ago. It was a quirky place, an audiophile heaven where there was never any telling what offbeat treasure you might find.
More to the point, it was “my” place, a store where I spent endless hours browsing for rarities and oddities you could never find elsewhere. To this day, no trip back to L.A. is complete without an afternoon at Aron's.
Or at least, that used to be the case. Recently I read online in the Los Angeles Times that Aron's will soon be closing its doors.
The paper played it as a sign of hard times in the music industry, noting that the number of independent music stores has dropped by half in the last 10 years. But for my money, the demise of Aron's is symptomatic of something larger: Mom and Pop are dying. Or at least, starting to smell funny.
You remember Mom and Pop, right? Mr. and Mrs. Small Business? Used to own that diner down the street, that coffee shop around the corner, that record store across town? Used to run that bookstore with the long aisles of dusty paperbacks where you could while away a rainy afternoon browsing to your heart's content. They gave the neighborhood personality. They gave it soul.
Then somebody bought them out, knocked down the building and put up a Wal-Mart. Or a Starbucks. Or a box store with low prices, huge selection, and all the soul of tuna fish on white bread. And one by one those storied places, yours and mine, winked out of existence.
(Excerpt) Read more at signonsandiego.com ...
Will somebody explain why the anti-WalMart movement is so vehement?
Yeah, I love going to places that still rely on Mom and Pop operations. There's nothing like paying top dollar for rotten produce at a timbuktu supermarket.
Does Walmart sell used CDs and records? No? Case closed.
Gee, I can't find any LPs at WalMart.
Could it be that Arons was whipped by Amoeba?
I'm still trying to figure out why people are upset that Google and Yahoo are doing what it takes to gain access to the Chinese market.
Exactly my sentiments.
If you want to blame someone for Mom and Pop losing their Record shop, blame eBay, not Walmart.
Where was the outrage when mom & pop gas stations, grocery stores, mercantiles, barbers, etc.. were largely replaced with their corporate equivalents? Did our society collapse because of Exxon, Safeway, JC Penney or Fantastic Sam's? I didn't think so.
I love tuna fish and white bread.
Exactly.
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What amazes me is that some Mom and Pop business that in this day and age have no computers, no faxes, and are still operating on 1950s technology, then wonder why they can't compete.
I'm 150% for small business, it is the backbone of our economy, as some say. However, it's not difficult (or that expensive, when the benefits are considered) to be a small business and still operate with modern technology.
Losers hate winners.
If it were any other way, we wouldn't have "free enterprise" in America. I often long for the days when the corner gas station was not part of a corporate giant - those days are long gone. Change is one thing we can always be assured of and sometimes a mourning period is appropriate, but then we have to "get over it." We have a local grocery store in our town that the big boys have been trying to squeeze out for the past 10 years. This store is privately "owned." No land lease and no debts, so they can compete. They were there taking care of people during long cold winters on credit for many years. They remain the #1 shopping spot in town. Its the "people" who keep a business in business.
From the article:
"“It's very, very bad,” he adds. Perry says his store thrives only because he's diversified: he sells posters, memorabilia and does Internet auctions. "
His store thrives. Why? Because he has adapted to the times and to his customer's desires. He's also using the internet to sell goods. How did Walmart affect him? His store is thriving.
This is an anti-Walmart storie with no information about how Walmart caused problems for the stores. More likely, the stores failed because their customers no longer want those used CDs and records. Blame the iPod instead of Walmart.
Very true. And what's even funnier is that this author is reading about his store closing online!!!
He is doing to the LA Times what everyone else has done to his sacred little store!
These stories will become as frequent as the "loss of the family farm" story that we saw over and over in the 1980's.
Expect John Mellencamp to have "Mom & Pop Aid"
Aron's tanked years before now. They stopped being competitive when Virgin (you know, the darling of the anti-Walmarters in some quarters) opened the Megastore and Tower Records teamed up with KROQ for a *lot* of promos in the early 90s (before KROQ got Viacommed and began sucking). They couldn't match their competitions' selections, the service was always crappy, and the staff always smelled funny. I moved away from LA in the mid 90s, and I do *not* miss the place.
Good riddance. The days of having to endure all of that in the hopes of possibly, maybe finding the music you wanted are long gone - and I for one don't want them back.
Does Aron's own their own building or rent? In what part of town is Aron's? How much property taxes does Aron's pay?
What is the cost of their insurance on the building and their business?
There was a similar article some years ago called "The Chaining of America", complaining about McDonalds' in particular.
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