Weatherfail

[altivo]

Once again the NWS overestimates the power of a storm by an order of magnitude it seems. Their dire storm that was supposed to produce 8 - 12 inches of snow overnight barely made it to three. I could have used a snow day, too.

The light coating of snow was perhaps wetter and heavier than it looked, but doesn't explain why UPS also failed to deliver a shipment that was supposed to be here today by both their own and the shipper's estimate. They had it "out for delivery" this morning from Dekalb, which usually means delivery that day. This evening it is "in transit to final destination" and still hasn't reached us.

In order to make eggplant parmesan for dinner today as promised, I needed more mozzarella so I stopped at the grocery in Harvard right after work. This is a good sized independently owned supermarket that has been in town for decades. At 5:15 in the evening their store was nearly empty. No cashiers on duty and the only operating cash register was at the customer service counter. Judging by what I see repeatedly around here, the "recession" is far from over.

Comments

[feathertail]

No cashiers on duty and the only operating cash register was at the customer service counter. Judging by what I see repeatedly around here, the "recession" is far from over.

Where's everyone buying their food at? >.> Although if this was at 5:15 PM like you said, a lot of people may have been eating dinner instead of grocery shopping ...

[altivo]

Most people here get off work at 5:00 pm, and there used to be a "little rush" in the supermarket from 5:15 to 5:45 as they showed up to make last minute purchases.

I'm afraid part of it is WalMart. They've opened larger stores with grocery sections in Harvard and four adjoining communities over the past three years. Their prices are just slightly lower, though their selection isn't as good and the quality of much of what they sell is inferior. Combined with the overall economic pinch (Harvard has high unemployment too) WalMart's ability to suck the blood out of locally based commerce is enhanced. Downtown Harvard and downtown Marengo are now ghost towns of empty storefronts and "For Sale or Lease" signs.

[feathertail]

Someone needs to do a pro-local business campaign or something, and show how chain stores suck the life out of a place ...

Yeah, I guess there wouldn't be too many people available to do something like that since it's a recession. >.>

[captpackrat.livejournal.com]

We were supposed to get 6 inches of snow yesterday but didn't get a thing. The storm hit the county to the south of us, but managed to miss us completely.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

They were very specific with this forecast, but utterly wrong. I don't think anyone in the area got even half the predicted amount of precipitation.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

People stock up before a snowstorm, so there's not going to be as many people in grocery stores after such a weather event. The one thing it cannot be is the "recession". People always have to eat, so your regular run-of-the-mill non-boutique grocery stores are not a good place to gauge whether there's a recession or not.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I understand your logic but still disagree. There are additional factors in this, one of which is greatly increased penetration of WalMart into the area. Where the local WalMart used to be a small store, it was replaced by a "superstore" with what the evil empire considers to be "full supermarket" included. Harvard has been a very tight economy for a decade now, since Motorola closed their huge plant there, and WalMart is sucking the life out of the independent and even chain stores in the town. Sullivan's remains the largest grocery store in town, but not by much.

The dual whammy of WalMart competition (they opened superstores in Woodstock, Belvidere, and Rockford as well in the last four years) plus the economic squeeze and high unemployment has in fact emptied out the independent supermarkets of customers, even on Saturday mornings. It's very visible. I was complaining about this a year ago where it affected the nearest market to my house, in Marengo. Prices rose, selection shrank, and the number of customers and employees dropped alarmingly. They are holding on and have adjusted somewhat, but the impact on me as a customer is still felt.

I am not the only one among my acquaintances who prefers not to buy from WalMart. Unfortunately, none of us can afford to pay 50% more under the present economy. Worse, WalMart has become the sole local supplier for some items as the smaller independent sellers have closed their doors. The tight economy has helped WalMart as it grabs market share in the area by offering slightly lower prices, and as the market moves in that direction, the level of full time employment with health care benefits shrinks because WalMart's operational practices create very few such jobs. Instead they rely on large numbers of part time employees without any benefits. It's a nasty feedback loop that is exacerbated by the economic issues.

Stores devoid of shoppers are a constant sight here, not just limited to the day after a predicted snowstorm.

[dakhun.livejournal.com]

The coincidental timing of the recession with your local Walmart expansion would have accelerated the effects of competition. But I personally still see it as mainly competition, given that food is a necessity. Because if Walmart had not expanded, your independent grocery stores would collectively have the same total number of people in them as before the recession. However, I can definitely see how one could argue it either way, as it was really a double-whammy in this particular instance, as you said.

At some point though, you're going to see that partially reverse, though it may take longer in your area. Walmart is starting to feel the strain on the flip-side of the recession, as many customers move back up a level to the stores they shopped at before:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35457031/ns/business/
But things won't go back to the way they were before, even after unemployment goes back down, because a number of customers will have permanently moved to Walmart.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Interesting article, though based on what's stated in that item I'm not sure I would draw the conclusions they give. WalMart may well fail to retain customers temporarily attracted away from more expensive retailers, but there are other reasons that are frequently ignored in the analyses I've seen.

WalMart, at least in this area, seems to be utterly out of touch with demand. They don't stock the items that are wanted. I blame this on their management policies and poor employee retention due to poor pay and promotion opportunities. Consequently, just as an example, we see their produce departments filled with regional vegetables such as collard greens or okra that may sell well in Tennessee or Alabama but aren't much in demand up here. Meanwhile they fail to offer competitive prices on vegetables that are widely popular in the north, such as tomatoes, summer squashes, or root vegetables.

On the whole though, and WalMart aside, I am simply not convinced that the recession is fading. Lots of analysts have political and economic reasons for repeatedly telling us that it's over, to the point that I say they are pandering to their own vested interests rather than reporting the truth. Unemployment continues to rise, profits in the retail and manufacturing sectors are still flat or declining. Only the top financiers with their multi-million dollar bonuses are happy.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

I have often wondered what makes wolf get cried so often when it comes to forecasting.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I used to think it was the commercial media with their hunger for drama and sensationalism, but now that I take my information entirely from the official source and bypass the media I still see the same exaggerated forecasts.

I suppose there may be some fear of being charged with failure to warn in the case of a severe storm, but now they really are getting into the realm where no one believes them. They issue real warnings for violent weather events like tornadoes and high winds and people just ignore it and continue their usual business.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

From that point of view they probably are damned if they do and damned if they don't. :/

[altivo.livejournal.com]

To some extent yes, but it's their own fault. When, as I've said before, they will state flatly that the skies are partly sunny yet one has only to look out a window to see that it is completely overcast and pouring rain, their credibility is obviously going to decline. Some people in powerful positions evidently think that computer models are more accurate than field observations.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

They did a test on the telly car show "Top Gear" where they had to race a letter mailed from the Southern most part of the UK, to the Northern most part in a Porsche Panemera. They had a lot of great facts about the UK's "Royal Mail" the letter one the race interestingly enough.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

The answer to this one was a typically bizarre US thing. The package came the next day, not by UPS but in the regular mail. It's something like a hybrid delivery service that we're seeing now where UPS or Fedex deliver a package to the closest post office, and the postal service does the end delivery part. It adds an extra day to the process but must be somehow cheaper for the shipper.

Works all right as long as you know that's what they're doing. In this case, I didn't know. Usually the tracking from Fedex tells you the package was "delivered to post office at 60152 zip" or something. UPS makes it look as if it was delivered and then is still in transit, which is weird.