Boxed-In

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For years I marveled at how a store sizes have steadily grown over the years. When I was growing up in the 1960s, “supermarkets” were about the size of a modern Walgreen’s. In fact, the recently torn down (and replaced) Walgreen’s on South MacArthur had been a supermarket back in the day. As a kid they certainly didn’t seem small or inadequate in any way. Yet I can’t imagine a grocery store that size (well maybe an IGA in a small town like, say, Allen’s in Ashland).

With that in mind, I like what Paul Povse has to say today in the SJ-R:

Though business insiders have seen it coming, it's still sad - and a little troubling - to see feisty K's get KO'd by the bullies of retail. Another notch on the big-box belt that is Wal-Mart.

K's Merchandise Mart in Springfield has been a pleasant and manageable store, one where you did not have to wander aimlessly down corridors the width of Veterans Parkway before finding a clerk who actually knows where the double-A batteries are.

And you know, I remember a day when K’s seemed like a “box store”. Retail places have just become so huge that even stores previously perceived at large now seem rather small.

What I wonder is, will this trend continue? Are stores going to get bigger and bigger without end? Or is there a point where people will begin becoming intimidated by the retail vastness of some future mega-ginormous super store? Or will Wal-Mart’s quest for total world domination succeed so that someday when you say you are “going to the store” you really mean THE store?