The Decatur Daily, AL
12-02-06
Targeting area shoppers
Local impact of store expected to be positive; some smaller retailers likely to be
hurt
By Eric Fleischauer
eric@decaturdaily.com· 340-2435
Having a retail bull’s- eye in Decatur — in the form of a Target store — will hurt
some local retailers, but most agree that the benefit of keeping the dartboard in
Decatur is worth the economic cost.
Shoppers persuaded to stay in Decatur rather than driving to Huntsville will
spend money not just at the Target, set to open here in October 2007, but at
other local shops as well.
The community impact of big-box retailers like Target, which plans to anchor a
200,000-square-foot shopping center in Decatur, is not all positive, however.
An upscale Wal-Mart?
Kenneth Stone, professor emeritus of economics at Iowa State University,
began waging a war against big-box retailers — especially Wal-Mart — long
before the campaign was in vogue. He said Target, while it seeks to appeal to a
slightly more upscale customer, is effectively a Wal-Mart twin. The only major
Target benefit has been, historically, its higher percentage of charitable giving.
Target’s volume, its ability to control shipping costs and its ability to secure
indirect tax dollars give it a major edge over smaller, locally owned retailers.
Historically, that means big-box retailers may drive local merchants out of
business.
The substitution of national chains for locally owned businesses means the
profits are funneled elsewhere, usually to shareholders.
While big-box retailers are major employers, they tend to have fewer employees
per customer, and they tend to pay less, than locally owned shops. As sales shift
from “mom and pop” stores to big-box retailers, therefore, there tends to be a
long-term negative impact on employment numbers and employee wages,
according to Joy Bernstein, spokeswoman for the nonprofit group Wal-Mart
Watch.
If you’re thinking the City Council was off target in authorizing a $4.77 million
bond to lure the Target center to Decatur, don’t start ordering picket signs just
yet.
Even the skeptics acknowledge that adding a Target to a city that already has a
Wal-Mart may do little harm. As Stone put it, most of the big-box assault on the
local economy came years ago, when the Wal-Mart Supercenter landed on
Spring Avenue Southwest.
“Most of the damage is probably already done,” Stone said. “The impact (of a
Target) won’t be that dramatic. The combination of a Wal-Mart and a Target is
not that much more harmful to a local economy than the Wal-Mart alone.”
Battle of retailers
Essentially, he said, Decatur will witness a battle between the big-box retailers.
Most of the locally owned retailers that survived Wal-Mart can survive Target as
well.
Many local retailers did not survive Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers like The
Home Depot and Lowe’s. Most that did found a niche that insulated them from
direct competition.
Stone said local apparel shops are usually hardest hit by Target, but Cricket by
the Creek, which sells women’s clothing, is one of the area’s success stories.
Owner JoAnn Andrews has stores in Athens and Decatur. She started in
business in 1974, operating from a mobile home, before moving to a log cabin on
Johnson Street in Athens. That store survived Wal-Mart, and she has no doubt
her Decatur store will survive Target.
Cricket, like other small businesses, has burrowed itself into a niche that big-box
retailers cannot overrun.
The fact that the Athens store is in a log cabin — a real one, brought piece by
piece from Tennessee — speaks volumes.
One of her goals has been to create a comfortable environment that big-box
stores can’t duplicate.
Emphasis on customer service
Andrews’ main emphasis is customer service.
“We are a people place,” she said. “We like people, and they like visiting us.”
She brags on her employees like she brags on her granddaughter. That focus
means she attracts service-minded employees and customers who enjoy dealing
with them.
Product selection plays a part, too. She offers clothing that she said is high
quality and long lasting.
Her inventory does not overlap much with that of Target or Wal-Mart, so she
rarely has head-to-head competition with those stores.
That said, she feels the heat. She said even indirect competition with big-box
retailers has been hard. She resents tax dollars — some of which came from her
stores — subsidizing a store like Target that already enjoys many competitive
advantages.
“It’s unfair,” she said. “The taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for that.”
Some businesses have managed to remain successful without leaving the bigbox turf.
Blue Ribbon Shoes of Decatur offers no log cabins, and it has held on to the selfservice model that its customers have used for 20 years. Owner Jackie Handley
said he keeps customers coming to his Sixth Avenue Southeast store through
aggressive inventory management, including volume buying and quick rotation of
shoes available for customer purchase.
“Any competition is taking dollars away from me, though,” Handley said.
But Handley cautiously welcomes the new Target and even the national shoe
chain that he expects to come with it.
“It will help the city,” Handley said, “and what helps the city helps me.”
Keeping shoppers here
A local Target, he said, will attract customers who now shop in Huntsville. Some
of those customers will end up at Blue Ribbon Shoes.
Precisely, said Jim Page. He is vice president of governmental affairs and
communications with the Decatur-Morgan County Chamber of Commerce, which
recruited Target and the restaurants and stores expected to come to Decatur
with it.
Page said the chamber was aware Target would hurt some local retailers even
as it recruited it. He said the isolated harm to such retailers is overwhelmed by
the community benefit of preventing “leakage” of Decatur dollars to Huntsville.
“A customer that stays in Decatur also buys gas in Decatur and goes to a
Decatur restaurant,” Page said. “Most small businesses have a niche. The
overall impact of Target, we think, will be very positive.”
Big-box critics would argue strenuously against Big-Box No. 1. Once a megaretailer is in town, however, they say the negatives of adding another are less
pronounced.
Bernstein, normally hostile to big-box retailers, said Target may benefit Decatur.
“It’s an unusual question but, yes, maybe a Target will keep some customers in
Decatur,” she said. “If nothing else, the competition between Target and WalMart may make both more responsible corporate citizens.”